The Paw Print

By Kieran Blake, Editor-in-Chief, and Elena Whitford, Features Editor

With too much time on our hands during a recent drive to Bloomington for a scholastic bowl competition, the Paw Print’s biggest film fanatics, Kieran Blake (Editor-in-Chief) and Elena Whitford (Features Editor), decided to analyze this year’s Academy Award nominees ahead of the ceremony on March 15. Here are our thoughts on each category.

Best Picture:

Kieran: I think this one is a battle between two movies: Paul Thomas Anderson’s masterpiece “One Battle After Another” and Ryan Coogler’s phenomenon “Sinners.” Personally, I loved both films immensely, and I do think they are the two best of the year. I would be happy with either winning, though I slightly preferred “Sinners.” There was just something about the storytelling and the atmosphere of that movie that worked so incredibly well. (As a musician myself, I am also biased because of the musical component.) But ultimately, I think this award will go to the awards season juggernaut that has been “One Battle After Another.”

Elena: I largely agree. I feel like “Hamnet” could pull off an upset, since it performed pretty well at the BAFTAs (although, being British awards, it could just be nationalism). I would be glad to see any of them win, and “One Battle After Another” feels more like the type of movie the Academy loves to vote for — but with “Sinners” breaking the all-time record for nominations, I would not be too surprised if it won instead. I have seen quite a few of this year’s nominees, and while I expected them all to be good, “Sinners” was the only one that far surpassed my expectations, and for that, it is the film I am rooting for. 

Best Director:

Kieran: I think this one has been sewn up since September. Nobody was ever going to beat Paul Thomas Anderson. Anderson is an industry veteran who has never won an Oscar during his long and storied career, so the narrative that he is overdue certainly works in his favor here. I believe he should have won back in 2008 for the masterful “There Will Be Blood,” and I think that the Academy is looking for a reason to give him a gold trophy. Personally, though I preferred “Sinners” as a movie, I do want to see Anderson take home this award for his fantastic work not just on “One Battle” but throughout his career.

Elena: Let us not forget that one of the nominees, Chloé Zhao, the director of “Hamnet,” actually won Best Director for “Nomadland” a few years back. The fact that she is not considered to be one of the top contenders for the award this year — especially after “Hamnet”’s critical success — just goes to show how many incredible movies have come out this year. Paul Thomas Anderson definitely has to win; the Academy has been known to give someone an award just because they have not won one before, and “One Battle After Another” was also just a phenomenal film. The car chase sequence alone is reason enough for Anderson to win. 

Best Actor:

Kieran: For a while, I thought this award was 100% going to Timothée Chalamet for his brilliant performance in “Marty Supreme.” And personally, I think Chalamet definitely deserves the award. Granted, I have not seen Ethan Hawke in “Blue Moon” or Wagner Moura in “The Secret Agent” yet, but I do think of the three nominees I have seen, Chalamet gives the strongest performance. Then the BAFTAs and the Actor Awards rolled along, and Chalamet went home empty handed at both, losing to fellow nominee Michael B. Jordan for “Sinners” at the latter. Now, many are changing their predictions to Jordan. Additionally, the last time the Best Actor winner failed to win at both the BAFTAs and the Actor Awards (previously called the SAG Awards) was 2004, when Sean Penn (more on him later) won the Oscar for “Mystic River.” Nevertheless, I think Chalamet just has the stronger performance than Jordan does, and I do think the Academy will go with him for his very deserving performance.

Elena: As a huge fan of “Severance,” I personally think anyone who can convincingly portray multiple identities deserves every award. I have actually seen every film nominated in this category, and while Ethan Hawke was heartbreaking in “Blue Moon” and very much deserved a nomination, I would say that movie’s script does a lot of heavy lifting for the performance. If I had it my way, Jordan would win this category; however, after Chalamet’s Best Actor nomination last year for “A Complete Unknown,” I have a feeling that voters may be inclined to award him this time around. Given how he has so clearly put his entire self into his “Marty Supreme” performance, I would not be sad about this outcome either.

Best Actress:

Kieran: I think this is the easiest category of the night to predict. It is going to be Jessie Buckley for “Hamnet.” There are no ifs, ands or buts about it. She has swept the season, and she gives a truly heart wrenching performance as a grieving mother in “Hamnet.” Everyone in my theater was in tears when they watched that movie. Jessie Buckley could be arrested for murder tomorrow and the Academy would still give her the Oscar.

Elena: Definitely. I cannot remember the last time there was such a definitive favorite for a major category like this one. With a slightly worse lead actress, “Hamnet” would not have worked nearly as well as it did. My only question is, will her acceptance speech make us cry too?

Best Supporting Actor:

Kieran: This one is, in my opinion, the most interesting and contentious category we have so far. Truly, any one of the nominees has a case to win. I think the least likely nominee to win is Benicio Del Toro, purely because he will be overshadowed by his “One Battle” costar Sean Penn, who I do think gives the better performance in the film and who has already won the BAFTA and the Actor Award. I think fourth place in this category is Jacob Elordi for “Frankenstein.” Though Elordi has won the Critics Choice prize, I do not think that will be enough to carry him over the finish line. Additionally, the Academy has a history of overlooking strong performances in horror movies, which is bound to put Elordi at a disadvantage. I think third is Delroy Lindo for his wonderful performance as Delta Slim in “Sinners,” whose surprise nomination was my favorite of Oscar nominations morning. Unfortunately, he has not even been nominated at any of the major precursor ceremonies, but if this category is divided enough and the Academy loves “Sinners” enough, I think Lindo has a shot. As for the winner, I think it will be either Penn or Stellan Skarsgard for “Sentimental Value,” and while I was leaning toward Skarsgard for much of awards season, I do think that Penn’s BAFTA win elevates him ever so slightly above Skarsgard. I also do think Penn gives the best performance I have seen in the category this year (granted, I have not seen “Frankenstein” or “Sentimental Value”).

Elena: To be honest, I do not think you missed much by skipping either of those films. I love Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” and I do not feel that Guillermo del Toro fully captured its meaning. “Sentimental Value,” on the other hand, is a solid family drama but nothing special. There was nothing bad about neither Elordi’s nor Skarsgard’s performances; however, all three of the others were extraordinary. I would love for Benicio del Toro to win, especially after his entertaining role in Wes Anderson’s “The Phoenician Scheme.” Still, I think it will go to Penn: his performance balances humor and menace without veering too much to either side, and in a way, his role was the core of “One Battle After Another.” Lindo’s performance was great too, but “Sinners” had an overall astonishing cast, and I am not sure Lindo did that much better than any of the other “Sinners” actors. Mainly, I am sad that Paul Mescal lost out on a nomination for portraying William Shakespeare in “Hamnet.” 

Best Supporting Actress:

Kieran: I think this category has three possible winners in it: Amy Madigan for “Weapons,” Teyana Taylor for “One Battle,” and Wunmi Mosaku for “Sinners.” I personally have not seen “Weapons,” though Madigan has been picking up momentum for her performance, especially after winning the Actor Award. For a long time, I thought Taylor would deservedly win the award, but she has only won the Golden Globe thus far, which does not bode well for her campaign. After giving it further thought, however, I think I prefer Mosaku’s much more nuanced yet nevertheless powerful performance in “Sinners.” Ultimately, I think this award could go to either of these three women, and I think it is really a question of how much the Academy loves both “One Battle” and “Sinners.” But I would like to think they love “Sinners,” and though my head says it will be Madigan or Taylor, my heart is pushing me to choose Mosaku.

Elena: Madigan feels slightly less likely to me simply because “Weapons” has not dominated awards the way the other films have. In a way, the other two nominees are quite similar: neither character has much screen time, but both performances bring a human element to their respective films that might otherwise have gotten bogged down in their action/adventure elements. I would also prefer Mosaku to win; she brings such a depth to a role that could easily be written off as just another wife character. Ultimately, either Taylor or Mosaku would be a great choice.

Best Original Screenplay:

Kieran: “Sinners.” There is no debate. None of the other films in this category are major Best Picture contenders, and the screenplay itself is exceptional. Additionally, voters who favor “Sinners” but choose to award Best Picture and Director to “One Battle” may see this category as an opportunity to reward “Sinners” with a golden statue.

Elena: But you still have not seen “Blue Moon”! If I had skipped it, I would be on your side, but “Blue Moon” is a movie defined by its script, and Robert Kaplow knocks it out of the park. Watching it, I felt like every other line precisely defined feelings I have felt but could never put into words nearly as well as Kaplow does. The winner is probably going to be “Sinners,” and its writing is indeed fantastic, but “Blue Moon” was robbed for nominations and will be robbed again at the award ceremony. It remains the only film whose dialogue I have ever quoted when writing my Letterboxd review.

Best Adapted Screenplay:

Kieran: There is an ever so slight chance of a “Hamnet” upset in this category, but let us be real. “One Battle After Another” is winning this category. The screenplay itself is fantastic, the movie is immeasurably strong and the genius of Anderson has gone unrecognized by the Academy for far too long. When Oscars night is over, even if “Sinners” takes Picture and Ryan Coogler stuns in Director, Paul Thomas Anderson will at long last be walking home an Oscar winner.

Elena: Here, I do agree with you. In the hands of a less adept writer, the concept for “One Battle After Another” could make for a film that is at best, convoluted, and at worst, stereotypical. Instead, it is the perfect blend of a tense action thriller and a hilarious satire. The Academy also loves to reward something timely, and which film could be more fitting than “One Battle”?

Best International Feature:

Kieran: Admittedly, I have yet to see any of the nominees in this category. But from what I have seen this awards season and gauging the popularity of these movies based on their nominations, I think this race boils down to two films: Norway’s “Sentimental Value” and Brazil’s “The Secret Agent.” Both of them are in Picture, both have acting nominations (Moura for “The Secret Agent” and Skarsgard, Renate Reinsve, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleass and Elle Fanning for
“Sentimental Value”) and both were adored by critics. However, I think “Sentimental Value” holds a sizable edge over “The Secret Agent” because (1) “Sentimental Value” is a movie about making movies, which we know the Academy loves (see “The Fabelmans,” “Mank” or 2012’s Best Picture winner “The Artist” for recent examples), (2) Joachim Trier has a Best Director nomination for “Sentimental Value” and Kleber Mendonça Filho does not and (3) Brazil’s “I’m Still Here” won this award last year, so I am not inclined to think that the Academy is itching to award a Brazilian film again this year.

Elena: I have seen the top two contenders in this category and thought one was much better than the other, but I will try to stay as unbiased as I can. “The Secret Agent,” an epic action caper with a huge cast of characters and an unexpected fantasy sequence, is definitely quirkier than “Sentimental Value,” a relatively normal family drama about filmmaking. That could go either way: “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” an even more chaotic film, swept the awards a couple of years ago, but recently the Academy has seemed to prefer more traditional dramas, especially for this category. In a set of nominations that are mostly quite “out there,” with comedic, musical and fantasy elements (or all three!), “Sentimental Value” seems like the tamest choice, and for that I think it is likely to win.

Best Animated Feature:

Kieran: Say it with me: On Oscars night, “KPop Demon Hunters” is “gonna be, gonna be golden.” “KPop Demon Hunters” has dominated streaming services and Billboard charts ever since its release, and unless Disney pays off awards voters this year, “KPop Demon Hunters” will be taking home the trophy for Best Animated Feature.

Elena: I have heard positive things about “Arco” and “Little Amélie or the Character of Rain,” both of which I still want to see, but the fact remains that sometimes films are popular because they are good. “KPop Demon Hunters” has beautiful animation, an endearing story and songs so catchy that the fictional band at the center of the film, HUNTR\X, reached No. 1 on the charts this summer and broke multiple K-pop music records despite being, again, fictional. I, for one, am excited for the performance of “Golden” at the ceremony. 

Technical Categories:

Kieran: Because there are a lot of these, and we have already taken up a lot of your time, I am going to go through these quickly. Cinematography will go to “Sinners” or “Train Dreams,” and while I expect “Sinners” to do very well overall, I have an inkling that the visually gorgeous “Train Dreams” will pull off an underdog win here. “Frankenstein” is pretty much guaranteed to take home Makeup & Hairstyling, Costume Design and Production Design (with there being a slim possibility of Production Design going to “Sinners” based on its strength as a movie). Given how essential the music in “Sinners” is to the film itself, Ludwig Göransson’s fantastic, all-encompassing, blues-filled score will deservedly take home the trophy for Best Original Score. In Original Song, as much as I would love for it to be “Sinners”’s “I Lied to You,” it will obviously be “Golden” from “KPop Demon Hunters.” Editing will likely go to “One Battle,” as this award has been highly correlated with Picture in the past few years, and the editing work in that film is marvelous. “F1” will likely win Best Sound, even if it wins nothing else, much the same way “Top Gun: Maverick” (a similar movie in terms of the sound elements) did a few years ago. And “Avatar: Fire and Ash” will win Best Visual Effects or my name is not Kieran Blake.

Elena: Like I said earlier, “Sinners” received more nominations this year than any other film in Oscars history. Part of that is due to its wonderful cast, but it is mostly because so many of its elements are done extraordinarily well. For that reason, I expect it to do very well in the technical categories, except for the ones that are obvious locks like “One Battle After Another” for editing and “Frankenstein” for both makeup and costuming. I do not have strong thoughts on most of the other technical categories, except for Best Original Song: while the “I Lied to You” sequence in “Sinners” is probably the single best scene in any film nominated this year, and the song itself is strong, I will concede that “Golden” from “KPop Demon Hunters” is a perhaps more familiar catchy pop song, and a good one at that. 

Best Casting:

Kieran: For the first time ever, we have an Oscar for Best Casting! Now, in the future it will be interesting to see how this Oscar functions. Will it award the best ensemble overall (much like the Actor Awards)? Will it award the movie with the most creative casting (in that it found actors who were relatively unknown or unexpected for specific parts)? Will it award big name blockbusters or more independent features? But this year, this award is locked up for one film and one film only: “Sinners.”

Elena: For me, the films with the best casting are those for which, after watching, you cannot imagine any other actors in those roles. While “Sinners” is likely to win with its mix of established stars and new faces, for me, “One Battle After Another” also has a chance at this prize. Both have an expansive cast of characters that could easily be mixed up had they not been inhabited by actors that made each one distinctive and memorable. I am curious to see whether this pattern will continue in subsequent years or — as I suspect — whether the award will mostly become synonymous with Best Picture. 

Concluding thoughts:

Kieran: This Oscar season has certainly been one of the more interesting in recent memory. From the shocking nominations (Delroy Lindo for “Sinners,” “F1” in Best Picture, “Wicked: For Good” shut out) to the chaotic acting wins from ceremony to ceremony (in all but Best Actress, that is), this season has been wildly unpredictable in all the best ways. 2025 was an absolutely fantastic year for movies, and this Oscars ceremony does a strong job of representing all of them (excerpt for Park Chan-Wook’s “No Other Choice”). No matter who ends up dominating Oscars night, we can all rest easy knowing that at least the films that win the top prizes will be deserving masterpieces and not piles of steaming garbage like “Crash.” This year’s “In Memoriam” segment will no doubt hurt immensely, with the loss of so many screen legends both on and behind the camera. (Robert Redford’s death in particular hit me like a wrecking ball.) But at the end of the day, I am confident the Academy will make wonderful choices from a catalog of films we as moviegoers are so lucky to have.

Elena: I could not agree more. This awards season is one of the first in which I have seen almost all of the top contenders, and what sets it apart from previous years is precisely their mass appeal: this year’s films were so well-made that even if they appeared to be a certain genre at first, they quickly transcended that. I walked into “Sinners” expecting to dismiss it as just another horror movie and walked out starry-eyed. Similarly, “One Battle After Another” was not just an action thriller but one of the most meaningful (and hilarious) films I have ever seen. I have my preferences, of course, but I know that I will mostly be glad to see any of the nominees take home awards. I can only hope that this pattern will continue in years to come. Until then, though, I hope you all will watch the Oscars just as intently as us! (Even though Kieran has to wake up at 3 a.m. to do so.)