The Pajiba Alternative 2025 Oscar Nominations

The 2025 Oscars take place this Sunday. The lineup is pretty solid, all things considered, with a few far-out choices amid the expected awards-baity vehicles and the ones that will age poorly and end up on ‘worst nominees ever’ lists in about three years’ time. Every year, we go through the same rigmarole (hey, it’s my job.) We think about the best choices, the questionable ones, and how the Academy’s choices don’t necessarily equal quality or merit. It also has us thinking about the snubs and which films we’d put into the shortlist if we had the chance.

So, it was time for us to once again compile our list of our alternative Oscar nominations. Our rules were simple: we could only choose things that hadn’t already been nominated in those respective categories. So, we could nominate, say, Sebastian Stan in Best Actor for A Different Man, but not The Apprentice since he’s already listed there. If a film was nominated in one category but not another, we could place it in the category it’s not currently featured in. This was so that we could show the full breadth of options available to voters, who often grumble that the choices are slim and uninteresting.

We had a lot of potential films and figures to pick from. Even if the sparsest awards season, there are too many wonderful and deserving projects left by the wayside. Some films are too niche, too out-there, or just too good for the ceaselessly middlebrow Academy. The heavy burden falls upon us at Pajiba to rectify the manner. Here are our alternative nominees for 2025. Some categories have six nominations instead of five because we can. Our opinions are correct, although even we still had to make some tough cuts.

BEST PICTURE

A Different Man
Babygirl
Bird
Evil Does Not Exist
Hard Truths
I Saw the TV Glow
La Chimera
Nosferatu
Rebel Ridge
Sing Sing

BEST DIRECTOR

Payal Kapadia — All We Imagine as Light
Mike Leigh— Hard Truths
Greg Kwedar — Sing Sing
RaMell Ross — Nickel Boys
Jane Schoenbrun — I Saw the TV Glow
Denis Villeneuve — Dune: Part Two

BEST ACTOR

Daniel Craig — Queer
Jesse Eisenberg — A Real Pain
Josh O’Connor — La Chimera
Glen Powell — Hit Man
Justice Smith — I Saw the TV Glow
Sebastian Stan — A Different Man

BEST ACTRESS

Pamela Anderson — The Last Showgirl
Willa Fitzgerald — Strange Darling
Marianne Jean-Baptiste — Hard Truths
Nicole Kidman — Babygirl
Saoirse Ronan — The Outrun
Zendaya — Challengers

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Dave Bautista — The Last Showgirl
Sergio Castelitto — Conclave
Clarence Maclin — Sing Sing
Adam Pearson — A Different Man
Franz Rogowski — Bird
Denzel Washington — Gladiator II

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Michele Austin — Hard Truths
Danielle Deadwyler — The Piano Lesson
Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor — Nickel Boys
Elle Fanning — A Complete Unknown
Katy O’Brien — Love Lies Bleeding
Margaret Qualley — The Substance

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Babygirl
The Beast
I Saw the TV Glow
Late Night With the Devil
Longlegs
Strange Darlings

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Nosferatu
The First Omen
The Outrun
The Room Next Door
Small Things Like These

BEST SCORE

Challengers
Evil Does Not Exist
I Saw the TV Glow
Queer
The Substance

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

Furiosa
The Beast
The Last Showgirl
Maria
The Substance

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE

Dahomey (Senegal)
Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World (Romania)
Evil Does Not Exist (Japan)
Kneecap (Ireland)
Universal Language (Canada)