Heading into this weekend, the 2025 Oscar season was already a complicated conversation. Embroiled in controversy, the one-time favorite from Netflix, Emilia Pérez, found its awards chances slipping through its fingers. The film was already a controversial film when it left Oscar nomination morning with the most nominations (13). The ensuing discovery of not-so-old social media posts from actress Karla Sofia Gascon has added significant baggage to the film’s campaign.

In an attempt to cut Gascon out of the film’s broader Oscar campaign, director Jacques Audiard has distanced himself from the actress and denounced her posts (Audiard himself has received his own share of criticism for some interview faux pas). And Gascon has stopped campaigning alongside the film’s other nominees.

Still, a meaningful rebound for Emilia Pérez will be difficult, and frankly there is not a lot of time left for Netflix and the film’s stable of nominees to convince Academy voters to stick with the film that they gave a baker’s dozen nominations.

The frontrunner status for Emilia Pérez was never particularly firm anyway, as this has been an odd awards year without a clear favorite. That is, perhaps, until now.

Personally, I have been sleeping on the Oscar chances of Sean Baker’s Anora, which was a critical darling released fairly early in the fall season. For one, I didn’t see it as the type of film the Academy goes for in a Best Picture (I say, knowing how varied the Academy has been with its Best Picture winners in recent years). I admit to also being slightly duped by the Golden Globes, an awards body that has no overlap with the Academy and only ever pretends to be a meaningful precursor to the Oscars.

Now, and in short order, Anora has built a sturdy resume for itself as the new front-runner. This weekend, Baker’s film swept the Critics Choice Awards, Director’s Guild Awards, and Producer’s Guild Awards in the Best Picture category.

Apologies to The Brutalist, which I had pegged to win the DGA award this weekend (it didn’t look as strong to me for PGA, but in the end my incorrect predictions are a moot point). I had been trying to wrap my mind around a The Brutalist Best Picture win for some time. It has something of a grand scale to its story, but the film really fails to resonate with me as the film of the year.

On the flip side, and thanks in large part to Matt Belloni at The Town, I was growing more and more convinced over the past month that James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown might win the preferential ballot game and eke out Best Picture. As a result, I was also fairly convinced a PGA win for A Complete Unknown was not only possible, but likely. (Again, what good are bad predictions, anyway?)

Mangold, in a minor surprise, did receive a Best Director nomination, which goes a long way in terms of Best Picture chances. And it is still possible for A Complete Unknown to win the SAG award for Best Ensemble (the closest thing the Screen Actor’s Guild has to a Best Picture trophy).

However, the next few weeks of awards discourse is going to inevitably revolve around Anora‘s resurgence. Momentum is important.

So are stats (to an extent). Only three films that have swept the Critics Choice, PGA, and DGA fell short of winning Best Picture (La La Land, Brokeback Mountain, and Saving Private Ryan). All three of these races had different compositions than the 2025 race. Despite being the favorite, La La Land was in a heated two-horse race with Moonlight. Saving Private Ryan fell victim to Weinstein strong-arming and politicking. And the Crash victory over Brokeback was a genuine surprise, but it wasn’t as though Crash was an awards season non-starter. It picked up most of the relevant precursor nominations, and it won big awards at the WGA and SAG. It was backed by prominent critics, critics groups, and guilds as a viable Best Picture candidate.

What would the genuine surprise be in this year’s race? A surprise that fits the mold of Crash in terms of trajectory? Maybe A Complete Unknown pulls out SAG ensemble and rallies late to win Best Picture? Or maybe Wicked does the same? Both of these films could technically win WGA for Adapted Screenplay, as well. Basically what I’m asking is: Is Wicked the next Crash?

All signs point to unlikely, but as we know, stranger things have happened. We have to take into account a preferential ballot (not present in the other three upsets mentioned above), which rewards popular films that may show up on many voters’ ballots in the second, third, or fourth rank-choice slot. Wicked and A Complete Unknown did very well over the holiday season. Until this weekend, they were perhaps more foregrounded in the minds of voters than Anora (which came out in October).

Whatever the case may be, it feels nice to have something to talk about that isn’t Emilia Pérez.

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As always, thanks for reading!

—Alex Brannan (Letterboxd, Facebook)