Who will win, who should win?

The 97th Annual Academy Awards are this Sunday, and this year’s lead up to the ceremony has been a bit of a roller coaster ride.

After the nominations were announced in January, it was clear this season’s frontrunners wouldn’t be as obvious as last year, when “Oppenheimer” was correctly predicted to dominate the night.

This uncertainty makes Sunday’s Oscar ceremony strikingly tense. Will heavyweights like “The Brutalist” and “Conclave” sweep the major categories? Or will genre-defying musical “Emilia Pérez” come out on top?

Here are the Daily News’ predictions for who will take home the top awards on Hollywood’s biggest night.

Best Picture

• “Anora”
• “The Brutalist”
• “A Complete Unknown”
• “Conclave”
• “Dune: Part Two”
• “Emilia Pérez”
• “I’m Still Here”
• “Nickel Boys”
• “The Substance”
• “Wicked”

Will win: “Anora”

Should win: “The Brutalist”

From Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown” to musical crime-thriller “Emilia Perez,” it’s a strong roundup of dramas competing for this year’s Best Picture prize. But Sean Baker’s “Anora,” a film about a Brooklyn sex worker who finds herself in a Cinderella fairytale-turned-nightmare, has earned significant and much-deserved buzz this season. The film recently won Best Feature, Best Director and Best Lead Performance for Mikey Madison at the Independent Spirit Awards, as well as the highly coveted Palme d’Or at last year’s Cannes Film Festival.

However, “The Brutalist,” an epic period piece that takes a deep dive into the immigrant experience in America, was arguably the best movie of 2024. It brilliantly explores the 30-year journey of a Jewish architect who survives the Holocaust and immigrates to the U.S., where he’s forced to endure poverty and indignity in search of the American dream.

The three-and-a-half hour film, hailed by critics and filmmakers around the world, “does everything that we are told we are not allowed to do,” director Brady Corbet said during its premiere at the Venice Film Festival.

Earlier this year, “The Brutalist” won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Drama, in addition to Corbet landing his first major award for directing.

Best Director

• Jacques Audiard, “Emilia Pérez”
• Sean Baker, “Anora”
• Brady Corbet, “The Brutalist”
• Coralie Fargeat, “The Substance”
• James Mangold, “A Complete Unknown”

Will win: Sean Baker

Should win: Sean Baker

As is often the case at the Academy Awards, it’s highly likely Best Director will go to the person who helmed the winner of Best Picture. If “Anora” indeed takes home the top prize, director Sean Baker could add to his growing collection of trophies from award ceremonies and film festivals this season.

“I’m an indie film lifer, and I know that there are other indie film lifers in this room … those who don’t make these films to land a series or a studio film,” Baker said in his Independent Spirit Awards acceptance speech. “Some of us want to make personal films that are intended for theatrical release with subject matter that would never be greenlit by the big studios.”

Best Lead Actor

• Adrien Brody, “The Brutalist”
• Timothée Chalamet, “A Complete Unknown”
• Colman Domingo, “Sing Sing”
• Ralph Fiennes, “Conclave”
• Sebastian Stan, “The Apprentice”

Will win: Adrien Brody

Should win: Adrien Brody

Adrien Brody — no stranger to winning awards for period films after taking home the Best Actor Oscar in 2003 for his role in the “The Pianist” — is poised to bring home yet another statue this year for his performance in “The Brutalist.”

In the film, Brody takes on the role of Jewish Holocaust survivor László Tóth, who struggles to make a life for himself in America post-World War II. Despite the film being significantly longer than most, Brody’s emotional and nuanced delivery keeps viewers gripped throughout.

When winning the Golden Globe last month for Best Actor in a Drama, Brody attributed his performance to his mother, a photographer who fled Europe in 1956 during the Hungarian revolution.

“This story, the character’s journey, is very reminiscent of my mother’s and my ancestral journey of fleeing the horrors of war and coming to this great country,” he said. “Although I do not know fully how to express all of the challenges you have faced and experienced, and the many people who have struggled immigrating to this country, I hope this work stands to lift you up and to give you a voice.”

Best Lead Actress

• Cynthia Erivo, “Wicked”
• Karla Sofía Gascón, “Emilia Pérez”
• Mikey Madison, “Anora”
• Demi Moore, “The Substance”
• Fernanda Torres, “I’m Still Here”

Will win: Demi Moore

Should win: Demi Moore

At the beginning of awards season, whispers were potent that “Anora” star Mikey Madison could take home the night’s top prize for an actress. But the tide has since turned in Demi Moore’s favor, thanks to her thought-provoking performance in Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance.”

Unlike anything she’s ever done before, the 62-year-old plays a fading TV fitness guru who turns to a black-market drug to generate a “younger, more beautiful” version of herself. But her character quickly learns that trying to fit herself into a narrow definition of beauty can come with disastrous results.

Moore says she hopes the body-horror film will encourage women to lift themselves up as they age while throwing comparisons out the door.

“I think it is a very unique way of delving into a really relevant subject matter, which is aging, the perception, the collective consciousness of women’s value diminishing as we get older,” she told the “TODAY” show last year. “But the message for me, that was so powerful in this, is that it’s not what’s happening in the circumstances around … it’s the violence of how we look in the mirror — the compare and despair — that leaves us feeling so bankrupt.”

Best Supporting Actor

• Yura Borisov, “Anora”
• Kieran Culkin, “A Real Pain”
• Guy Pearce, “The Brutalist”
• Edward Norton, “A Complete Unknown”
• Jeremy Strong, “The Apprentice”

Will win: Kieran Culkin

Should win: Edward Norton

Many actors in this category are beloved, but it’s Kieran Culkin’s performance as a manic yet charming tourist in “A Real Pain” that will comfortably earn him the win. Culkin has remained the clear frontrunner for Best Supporting Actor after picking up trophies at the Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards in the same category.

But four-time Oscar nominee Ed Norton shouldn’t be overlooked for his role at folk singer Pete Seeger in “A Complete Unknown,” delivering a far more complex and darker side of the historic figure.

Best Supporting Actress

• Monica Barbaro, “A Complete Unknown”
• Ariana Grande, “Wicked”
• Felicity Jones, “The Brutalist”
• Isabella Rossellini, “Conclave”
• Zoe Saldaña, “Emilia Pérez”

Will win: Zoe Saldaña

Should win: Zoe Saldaña

While some critics have said “Emilia Pérez” should forfeit the possibility of winning any Academy Award due to Karla Sofía Gascón’s resurfaced racist tweets, that hasn’t stopped the buzz from swirling about co-star Zoe Saldaña.

Her talent could and should be able to overcome the controversy, thanks to her powerful performance in the film in which she acts, sings and raps entirely in Spanish.

Find out who takes home the gold when the 2025 Oscars air March 2 at 7 p.m. ET on ABC, and streaming live for the first time on Hulu.

Originally Published: February 27, 2025 at 10:29 AM EST