2025 Oscar Predictions: Best Original Screenplay
Since the academy expanded the Best Picture category at the Oscars in 2010, Best Original Screenplay has gone to writers of a wide-range of genres: dramas (“Anatomy of a Fall,” “Birdman,” “Manchester by the Sea”); comedies (“Midnight in Paris”); biopics (“The King’s Speech,” “Green Book”); true-life stories (“Spotlight”); memoirs (“Belfast”); period pictures (“Django Unchained”); war movies (“The Hurt Locker”); sci-fi (“Her”), thrillers (“Parasite,” “Promising Young Woman:) horror (“Get Out”) and fantasies (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”) . (Scroll down for the most up-to-date 2025 Oscar predictions for Best Original Screenplay.)
Of this year’s top 10 contenders for Best Original Screenplay, nine were written, at least in part, by the directors. The exception is “Challengers,” which Justin Kuritzkes wrote for director Luca Guadagnino. He also adapted the William S. Burroughs novel “Queer” for this busy helmer and he could well contend over in Best Adapted Screenplay for that.
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“Challengers” is, at its heart, a romance. Love, albeit short-lived, is also the subject of the frontrunner in this race, Sean Baker‘s “Anora.” His film won the Palme d’Or at Cannes and is a leading contender for Best Picture as well. One of its main rivals for that award, Brady Corbet‘s “The Brutalist,” won Best Director at Venice. Corbet crafted this intense character study about a Holocaust survivor with his partner, Mona Fastvold.
Multi-hyphenate Jesse Eisenberg won the screenwriting prize at Sundance for the serio-comic “A Real Pain.” He also directed and co-stars in this road trip movie with Emmy winner Kieran Culkin (the frontrunner for Best Supporting Actor).
Two Oscar-nominated directors — Steve McQueen (“12 Years a Slave”) and Jason Reitman (“Juno,” “Uo in the Air”) — are tipped to reap their first bids in this race. Reitman, who contended over in adapted for “Up in the Air,” collaborated with Oscar-nominated animator Gil Kenan (“Monster House”) on “Saturday Night.” Shot in (almost) real-time, it shows us the 90 minutes leading up to the 1975 debut of “SNL.” McQueen tells the tale of a boy who goes missing in war-torn London during the relentless bombings by the Nazis.
Another Oscar-nominated director, Mike Leigh, has racked up five nominations in this race to date: “Secrets & Lies,” “Vera Drake” “Topsy-Turvy,” “Happy-Go-Lucky,” and “Another Year.” That first film featured Marianne Jean-Baptiste who stars in “Hard Truths”” Back then she was heart-warming as an adopted woman in search of her birth mother. Here she is cold as ice as the prickly matriarch who is hard to please at the best of times.
Director Tim Fehlbaum worked with Moritz Binder and Alex David on script for his docudrama “September 5,” which chronicles ABC Sports’ coverage of the hostage crisis at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof was forced into exile after his film about political persecution, “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” was chosen for Cannes.
Another contender at Cannes was Coralie Fargeat‘s “The Substance.” Her satirical horror movie about the lengths to which we will go to avoid aging won her the screenplay award.
Please note: To read full descriptions of each film, check out our 2025 Oscars Best Picture predictions.
UPDATED: October 8, 2024
LEADING CONTENDERS (ordered by odds)
“Anora” — Sean Baker (Neon)
“The Brutalist” — Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold (A24)
“A Real Pain” — Jesse Eisenberg (Searchlight)
“Blitz” — Steve McQueen (Apple TV+)
“Saturday Night” — Gil Kenan and Jason Reitman (Sony)
STRONG CONTENDERS (ordered by odds)
“Hard Truths” – Mike Leigh (Bleecker Street)
“September 5” — Tim Fehlbaum, Moritz Binder, Alex David (Paramount)
“The Seed of the Sacred Fig” — Mohammad Rasoulof (Films Boutique)
“The Substance” — Coralie Fargeat (Mubi)
“Challengers” — Justin Kuritzkes (Amazon MGM Studios)
POSSIBLE CONTENDERS (alphabetical order)
“Babygirl” — Halina Reijn (A24)
“Civil War” — Alex Garland (A24)
“Dìdi” — Sean Wang (Focus Features)
“A Different Man” — Aaron Schimberg (A24)
“His Three Daughters” — Azazel Jacobs (Netflix)
“Drive-Away Dolls” — Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke (Focus Features)
“Juror #2” — Jonathan Abrams (Warner Bros.)
“Thelma” — Josh Margolin (Magnolia Pictures)
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