Which movies do I need to watch before the Oscars?

With the Golden Globes nominations earlier this month, we're officially entering awards season — the road to the Oscars. That means we need to take a look at the big movies most likely to be competing for the various statuettes on offer in the first few months of 2025 and the actors who are currently negotiating red carpet deals with the world's most famous fashion houses.

Some of these films are massive blockbusters or movies you might already have caught at the cinemas, while others won't make their UK debut until the new year. Either way, we've got you covered on all of the films you need to care about — and the best way to watch them.

Dramatic music at the ready, let's talk awards...

Wicked

There were plenty of alarm bells when Broadway fans learned that Wicked was going to be split into two parts for its movie adaptation. However, those alarm bells were drowned out by Cynthia Erivo's quite exceptional pipes and the film could be this year's blockbuster nominee. Erivo could be a Best Actress nominee for her performance as Elphaba, giving her another shot at securing the final part of her EGOT. Her co-star, Ariana Grande, feels like a dead cert for a nomination in Best Supporting Actress.

Read more: Wicked cast always knew the real title of Part 2 (Digital Spy, 9 min read)

Bizarrely, the one category where we know this particular musical won't appear is Best Original Song. All of its musical numbers come right from the stage show. None of us, though, would bet against them sneaking a new song into the second part for another bite at the Oscar cherry in 2026.

Wicked is in UK cinemas now.

Anora

Sean Baker loves to chronicle the outsiders of American life and, in Anora, he has struck gold with this tale of the titular stripper — played by breakout star Mikey Madison — and her romance with the son of a Russian oligarch. This raucous drama with comedic elements is the current favourite for Best Picture with the bookies.

Read more: Is Anora the frontrunner for Best Picture at the Oscars? (Yahoo Entertainment, 4 min read)

Madison will definitely get a Best Actress nomination and has to be considered the frontrunner to win the award, while Yura Borisov could get Best Supporting Actor attention for his surprisingly nuanced performance as a henchman sent after the protagonist.

Anora is still showing in some UK cinemas, but is not yet available to stream.

The Brutalist

Sorry Christopher Nolan, but Brady Corbet would like you to hold his beer. After Nolan dominated the Oscars in 2024 with his three-hour biopic Oppenheimer, Corbet is taking on the awards circuit with an epic historical drama of his own. The Brutalist, in which Adrien Brody plays a Hungarian-Jewish architect attempting to grasp the American Dream, makes Oppenheimer look nippy, clocking in at more than three and a half hours.

However, the reviews have been rapturous and virtually the entire cast is being tipped for awards, including Felicity Jones and Guy Pearce as well as Brody. Currently, it's only second to Anora in the odds for Best Picture.

The Brutalist is in UK cinemas from 24 January 2025.

Emilia Pérez

There aren't many Oscar contenders this year — or in any year — as divisive as Jacques Audiard's bonkers musical Emilia Pérez. The film features Zoe Saldaña as a lawyer who is tasked with a bizarre job — helping the titular crime boss (Karla Sofía Gascón) transition to living as a woman, cutting all ties with her former life in the process.

Read more: 'Emilia Pérez is a groundbreaking trainwreck' (Yahoo Entertainment, 7 min read)

It's a wild and bizarre journey that has split audiences right down the middle, from winning the Jury Prize at Cannes to becoming the subject of social media derision when it landed on Netflix. Despite its divisive status, it topped the nominations list at the Golden Globes — and is the second most-nominated film in the ceremony's history — so awards voters seem to have found plenty to love about it.

Emilia Pérez is streaming now via Netflix UK.

A Complete Unknown

Music biopics are always big awards season players, so the idea of Timothee Chalamet playing Bob Dylan was always going to lead to the stage at the Oscars. Director James Mangold has form in this arena, having guided Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon to nominations for Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line, with Witherspoon winning Best Actress.

A Complete Unknown, perhaps inevitably, focuses on the earliest years of Dylan's career — spotlighting his rise to fame on the folk music scene in 1960s New York. Chalamet is a real Best Actor contender and Edward Norton could make it into Best Supporting Actor for his performance as singer and activist Pete Seeger.

A Complete Unknown is in UK cinemas from 17 January 2025.

Sing Sing

Greg Kwedar's Sing Sing is a truly unique and powerful story about what the arts can do for people in desperate circumstances. Based on a real prison rehabilitation program, it stars Colman Domingo as the head honcho of a theatrical troupe working within a New York correction facility. Many of the supporting players are real former inmates who made the most of the program during their jail time.

The film is sensitive and smartly put together, benefiting especially from Clarence "Divine Eye" Maclin's intense performance as a version of himself. Alongside Domingo, he's the film's big hope in the acting categories. A Best Picture nod seems almost inevitable.

Sing Sing is available to buy or rent in the UK on digital platforms.

Challengers

One of the most memed movies of 2024, Challengers became famous for its three-way kissing scene in the first act. However, Luca Guadagnino's exhilarating drama is about so much more than Zendaya, Mike Faist, and Josh O'Connor in a hotel room bed. It's a fascinating take on relationship dynamics and the way those interpersonal bonds can shift over time, while leaving remnants of the past behind. It's also a genuinely excellent sports movie.

Read more: Challengers Steamy 3-Way Kiss Scene Was Not In Original Script, Says Director Luca Guadagnino (Deadline, 3 min read)

All three leads are absolutely terrific and could secure Oscar nods, while Guadagnino continuously amps up the intensity en route to a cacophonous finale on a tennis court. Expect the film to do well in the technical categories as well, especially for Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross's score.

Challengers is streaming now in the UK via Prime Video.

A Real Pain

One of the more low-key awards contenders for the 2025 Oscars is this drama, directed by Jesse Eisenberg. He also stars as a Jewish man who, along with his unpredictable cousin (Kieran Culkin), travels to Poland in the wake of their grandmother's death. By taking part in a Holocaust walking tour, they aim to get a greater understanding of their heritage.

It's Culkin's performance that is getting the majority of the awards attention from this film — and rightly so — but Eisenberg could sneak into Best Actor and his screenplay could scoop a nomination as well.

A Real Pain is in UK cinemas from 8 January 2025.

Conclave

The idea of the election of a new Pope doesn't seem like the best backdrop for a paranoid political thriller, but nobody told Conclave like that. Directed by Edward Berger — who has Oscar cachet off the back of All Quiet on the Western Front — it's a complex and well-written drama, with Ralph Fiennes delivering a stellar central performance as the "managerial" cardinal tasked with keeping the conclave on track.

Read more: 'Is Conclave's twist ending offensive or divinely camp?' (Yahoo Entertainment, 6 min read)

Fiennes is one of the frontrunners for the Best Actor prize, while there will also be love in Best Picture and the Best Adapted Screenplay category. There's also a bounty of potential nominees in the supporting categories thanks to the enviable ensemble. It's sure to secure a decent haul of nominations, but can it convert any of them into wins?

Conclave is still showing in some UK cinemas, but is not yet available to stream.

The Substance

Horror movies, historically, don't tend to do very well at the Oscars. However, Coralie Fargeat's grotesque body horror The Substance comes with the sort of behind-the-scenes narrative that is catnip to awards voters: it's Demi Moore's big comeback. Moore is nothing short of tremendous in her self-referential performance as a 50-year-old woman tossed on to the Hollywood scrap heap, who then seeks refuge in an experimental drug that unleashes a younger version of herself (Margaret Qualley).

Read more: Critics Are Trying Their Hardest to Get ‘The Substance’ to the Oscars (IndieWire, 5 min read)

Fargeat doesn't pull any punches and delivers an onslaught of gore, but the film maintains its fascinating perspective throughout. It would be a bold choice for the Oscars, but they might not be able to resist the chance to anoint Moore as one of the top Hollywood leading ladies once again.

The Substance is streaming in the UK via Mubi.