Oscars 2025: Where & How To Watch Every Best Picture Nominee
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37 mins ago
It’s revision time!
The nominees for the 97th Academy Awards are in – meaning we finally know which films are up for the highly coveted and contested Best Picture award. If you’d like to know what all of the fuss is about, there’s still time to watch each and every one before the winner is revealed on Sunday 2 March (or in the wee hours of Monday 3 March here in the UK). Here’s how.
How To Watch The 2025 Best Picture Nominees
Anora
As well as Best Picture, Sean Baker’s Anora is nominated for Best Director, Best Actress for Mikey Madison, Best Supporting Actor for Yuri Borisov, Best Original Screenplay and Best Film Editing – an impressive roster for an indie dramedy following the shotgun marriage of a young sex worker and the son of a Russian oligarch in New York. Bagging the Palme d’Or after its world premiere in Cannes, we hope this unlikely hit will bag a few Oscars in March.
In the UK, Anora is available to rent from the likes of Rakuten, Apple TV, Google Play Movies and the Sky Store for £11.99. The film is also still showing in some independent cinemas, including Curzon.
The Brutalist
Garnering a whopping 10 nominations, The Brutalist ties with Wicked and is second only to Emilia Pérez as far as 2025 Oscar nominations are concerned. Directed by Brady Corbet and led by Adrien Brody, the film premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September 2024, centring on Holocaust survivor and architect László Tóth who immigrates to the US.
The Brutalist landed in UK cinemas on 24 January, so no streaming is available just yet. Note that The Brutalist is hefty, running for 215 minutes including a 15 minute interval – so you can stretch your legs after the 100 minute mark before settling down for another 1 hour 40.
A Complete Unknown
Timothée Chalamet is the youngest actor to net two Oscar nominations since James Dean. Now 29, Chalamet’s five-years-in-the-making performance as renegade singer-songwriter Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown has been lauded by critics, earning a Best Actor nomination this year; his first nomination in the category came seven years prior for his turn in Call Me By Your Name, aged just 22. Up for eight Oscars in total, A Complete Unknown whisks us back to ‘60s America, where a 19-year-old Dylan is set to flourish into the star we know today.
A Complete Unknown landed in UK cinemas on 17 January, so no streaming is available just yet.
Conclave
As a British movie buff, if there’s one film you watch on the Best Picture nominees list, make it Conclave – it’s the only one with a strong British presence. Written by British playwright Peter Straughan and based on the 2016 work of British novelist Robert Harris (earning a Best Adapted Screenplay nom), Conclave is led by British actor Ralph Fiennes as Cardinal Thomas Lawrence, backdropped by beautiful Rome as he organises a papal conclave to elect the next Pope, finding secrets and scandals around each hushed corner.
Up for eight awards in total, Conclave is available to rent across a range of platforms, and is still showing in select cinemas across the UK.
Dune: Part Two
Dune: Part Two may be this year’s only sci-fi Best Picture, but it’s one of two nominees led by Timothée Chalamet. Joined by a cast of Hollywood heavyweights including Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Stellan Skarsgård, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Christopher Walken, Léa Seydoux and more, the epic space opera picks up where its 2021 first part left off following the destruction of the House Atreides, tracing Paul’s journey to revenge against those who destroyed his family.
Released in UK cinemas in March 2024, Dune: Part Two is available to rent across a number of platforms, and is included with a Now cinema membership.
Emilia Pérez
Controversially the most nominated movie at the 2025 Oscars with 13 nods, Emilia Pérez is arguably also the most accessible film on the list: it is included with a Netflix subscription, which around three in five UK households have. Directed by Jacques Audiard and one of two musicals on the shortlist, Emilia Pérez centres on Mexican lawyer Rita (Zoe Saldaña) who is tasked to find a discreet doctor to help feared Mexican cartel boss Juan ‘Manitas’ Del Monte (Karla Sofía Gascón, who is the first openly trans woman in history to receive a Best Actress nomination) undergo gender reaffirming surgery to lead a new and authentic life as Emilia Pérez.
Some cinemas are still showing Emilia Pérez; otherwise, the film is exclusively available to stream on Netflix.
I’m Still Here
With three nominations, I’m Still Here is the only international Best Picture nominee in 2025, hailing from Brazil. Also earning nods for Best International Feature Film and Best Actress (Fernanda Torres), it’s the highest grossing Brazilian film since the pandemic and follows the emotional journey of a mother coping with the forced disappearance of her husband and dissident politician Rubens Paiva during the country’s two-decades-long military dictatorship beginning in the ‘60s. Based on the memoir of the real man’s son, Marcelo Rubens Paiva, it’s the first Brazilian film to ever be nominated for Best Picture.
I’m Still Here will land in UK cinemas on 21 February 2025.
Nickel Boys
With just two nominations, Nickel Boys is the least-nominated film on the Best Picture roster for 2025 – but it’s all about quality, not quantity. Also commended for Best Adapted Screenplay, Nickel Boys is based on Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize winning 2019 novel The Nickel Boys, which in turn is based on the historic Florida reform school, Dozier School, which operated for 111 years and was finally shut down after investigations in 2011 revealed a harrowing history of abuse, beatings, torture and even murder of students by staff. In the film, newcomer Ethan Herisse stars as Elwood, a promising student sent to the school after being unjustly convicted for helping steal a car.
Nickel Boys landed in select UK cinemas on 3 January 2025. Produced by Amazon, it’s only a matter of time before it’s available on Prime Video.
The Substance
Surprising horror fans with a rare Best Picture nomination for the genre, The Substance is also significant for its Best Actress nomination for long-snubbed star Demi Moore (though fans lament Margaret Qualley’s exclusion from Best Supporting Actress). With five nominations across the board, The Substance also marks the sixth consecutive year a female director has made it to the final shortlist, with Coralie Fargeat’s Best Director nod only the tenth ever nomination for a woman in that category. Released in September, the gory, cross-genre body horror film follows fading celebrity Elisabeth Sparkle (Moore) who, after being fired by her producer for her age, uses a black market drug called ‘the substance’ to create a much younger version of herself (Qualley).
The Substance is available to stream on Prime Video with a MUBI subscription, or to rent across a range of platforms.
Wicked
Last but not least, Wicked. One of two musicals making the Best Picture nominees this year, Wicked is tied with The Brutalist at 10 nominations, but trails fellow musical Emilia Pérez which snagged 13. A long-awaited movie adaptation of one of history’s most successful stage musicals, Wicked tells the origin story of The Wizard of Oz’s Wicked Witch of the West. We flash back to the school days and complex friendship of Elphaba and Galinda, slowly approaching the former’s tragic fate at the accidental hands of Dorothy Gale (though that’s still to come in Part 2).
Wicked is still showing in cinemas, and is available to rent across Amazon, Apple, Google and YouTube.
WATCH
The 97th Academy Awards will return to Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre on Sunday 2 March 2025. The ceremony will begin at 4pm Pacific Time (midnight here in the UK). The ceremony will be hosted by Conan O’Brien.
Stay up to date with all things Oscars at oscars.org
