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🏆 Oscars 2025 Contenders & Frontrunners

We've got our picks for Best Picture and other hopefuls in this year's Academy Awards race as well as some MCU hints from an unlikely source!

Author

Michael Ahr
January 03, 2025

Friday Edition January 3, 2025

It’s awards season! Well, Oscars night isn’t until March, but with the Golden Globes about to air, it’s never too early to start speculating about which of 2024’s standout films and amazing actors will be recognized by the Academy!

We also took a closer look at the quirkiness that is Marvel’s What If
? and speculated on how even its warped view of the MCU might provide some insights into future Marvel properties. Also, following up on our previous newsletter’s forward look at 2025, we’ve got our picks for the best new UK television shows to watch out for. Enjoy!

— Michael Ahr

MOVIES
Oscars 2025 Frontrunners and Contenders

Photo: Focus Features / WB / Universal / A24

As always, Oscar season comes with a whole new slate of films you might need to be reminded of—or encouraged to catch up on. So while it is still wildly early to make predictions about who will definitely win the big prizes, we at least have a decent idea of who is in contention.

Take a look at the twenty films we’ve assembled, ranked in order of those most likely to be nominated for Best Picture. In each section we also note what other categories they might be most competitive for Oscar gold.

TV
How Marvel’s What If
? Season 3 Teases Thunderbolts and Captain America 4

Photo: Marvel Animation

The third and final season of Marvel’s What If
? is full of new and exciting peeks at worlds that exist outside of the MCU as fans know it. From old Hollywood glamour to Russian buddy comedy hijinks to old West shootouts, this season certainly has fun playing in the Marvel sandbox in ways that will never come to live action fruition.

But even with the significant deviations from the characters and situations we’re familiar with in the MCU, this season does do a good job of setting up important parts of upcoming movies Thunderbolts and Captain America: Brave New World, albeit in a different way than we’ll likely see them on the big screen.

TV
New British TV Series for 2025: BBC, Netflix, ITV, Channel 4, Disney+, Prime Video, Sky

Photo: Disney+

British TV really hit the ground running in 2025 with its popular Harlan Coben thrillers as well as other crime dramas, historical action series, and many more still waiting for an air date to be announced.

Check out the article linked below to see which new British TV dramas are in development and production for the rest of 2025 and beyond. With scripts from the UK’s finest established screenwriters from Jack Thorne to Sarah Phelps, James Graham to Sally Wainwright, plus new writers making their debuts, and as-yet-untitled dramas from Jimmy McGovern and Guy Ritchie, there’s no shortage of new British drama arriving this year.

❝

"If The Brutalist is the presumed Best Picture frontrunner on New Year’s Day 2025, then Conclave is the one I personally feel has, at this point, the momentum and narrative to triumph with Academy voters.”

David Crow, Senior Movies Editor

EDITOR’S PICKS

Finale spoilers ahead as we untangle the whos, whats and whys of Netflix’s new Harlan Coben thriller.

Skeleton Crew's latest creepy creature is a loving homage to practical effects...with some major Star Wars Easter eggs.

Nosferatu crystallizes a theme which runs throughout Robert Eggers’ work about digging up, and surrendering to, the old pagan ways


Netflix is making good on its promise to turn Squid Game into a massive franchise. Here is what you need to know about season 3 and beyond.

TODAY’S QUIZ

Which film holds the distinction of winning the first-ever Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, a category introduced in 2002?

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LINK TANK
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