I’ve spent the past few weeks tallying up my selections for the best films of 2025. As the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences enters final preparation for Sunday’s ceremony, I’ve got one last bit of business to finish up. Per tradition, I present my picks for the finest acting of last calendar year. If I had been given an Actors Branch ballot, what follows is the way I would have filled it out. I’ve tried to be rigorously honest, including about whether I think a performance is lead or supporting, regardless of how it’s been pitched by Oscar campaigns. Because the nominating process, as I understand it, calls for selections to be ranked, I’ve done that, too.

As usual, I also included a few Oscar predictions. In recent years, I’ve complained that wins for all the major categories feel almost predetermined by the time the Academy Awards ceremony rolls around. That’s certainly not the case this year. Three of the four acting categories have real suspense about their outcomes. I can’t remember the last time that was the case. To be clear, that’s a great thing.

BEST ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

1. Renate Reinsve, Sentimental Value
2. Emma Stone, Bugonia
3. Tessa Thompson, Hedda
4. Jessie Buckley, Hamnet
5. Rose Byrne, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

I often expend a lot of words during this annual exercise marveling at how divergent my preferences are from those of the Academy. This year, I’m almost completely in line with the official awards-giving body in the category for lead actresses. Although I do admire Kate Hudson’s performance in Song Sung Blue — especially in the stretches that don’t bog her down with run-of-the-mill, Oscar-clip sorrow — she doesn’t really belong in the company of the other four. I would have given that slot to Tessa Thompson, who’s extraordinary in Hedda. I’ve spent the past few weeks going back and forth between Renate Reinsve and Emma Stone for the top of this quintet. In the end, I’m impressed at how much emotional ground Reinsve covers in Sentimental Value and how subtly she does it. Jessie Buckley is sure to win this category on Sunday night, and that will be a very fine choice.

BEST ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

1. Michael B. Jordan, Sinners
2. Stellan Skarsgård, Sentimental Value
3. Joel Edgerton, Train Dreams
4. Sergi López, Sirāt
5. Leonardo DiCaprio, One Battle After Another

Until very recently, my ballot included Timothée Chalamet, long the presumptive frontrunner for his genuinely terrific work in Marty Supreme. Then I saw Sirāt. It’s great that Óliver Laxe’s film has gotten so much deserved attention (it fully deserves to prevail in the sound category), but it’s a shame those accolades didn’t extend to Sergi López’s top-tier work. I’ll quickly note that I think Stellan Skarsgård is clearly a lead in Sentimental Value (he has basically the same percentage of screen time as Reinsve, 40.23 percent to her 42.81 percent), so I slotted him here. The best performance among lead actors this year is clearly Michael B. Jordan’s double-duty in Sinners. Given the strength of the showcase, I’m actually a little surprised that it took until the Actor Awards for enough support to coalesce to land him a major win on the awards circuit. This category could plausibly go about four different ways on Oscar night, but I think Jordan is going to repeat that Actor Awards win.

BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

1. Nina Hoss, Hedda
2. Zoey Deutch, Nouvelle Vague
3. Teyana Taylor, One Battle After Another
4. Chase Infiniti, One Battle After Another
5. Elle Fanning, Sentimental Value

Here’s Hedda again. In addition to the two actors I’ve noted on this ballot, I think Nia Dacosta’s film deserves to be represented up and down the Oscar nominations list. It should have shown up in costume design, production design, and cinematography at least. There was a time when Academy voters were more inclined to populate the acting categories — especially the supporting categories — with performances that weren’t necessarily in the major Best Picture contenders. In that era, I’d like to think Nina Hoss’s intense, powerful work would have gotten a nomination. Ditto for Zoey Deutch’s wonderful turn as Jean Seberg. It was reasonable for Warner Bros. to campaign Chase Infiniti as a lead actress, but she has less screen time than Sean Penn, who clearly belongs in the supporting category. In a line call, I included her here. This is another category that feels very up in the air. To me, Teyana Taylor has long felt like the likeliest to win the Oscar, so I’m sticking with that for my prediction.

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

1. Benicio del Toro, One Battle After Another
2. Sean Penn, One Battle After Another
3. Jacobi Jupe, Hamnet
4. Delroy Lindo, Sinners
5. Michael Cera, The Phoenician Scheme

The smart money has currently slid over to Sean Penn to win in this category. I just don’t believe the Academy is going to hand him a third Oscar. Which beset world leader will he give this one to? For a long time, I assumed Skarsgård would win, in part because it’s been helpful of late to be a lead performance hiding out in the supporting category (look to Kieran Culkin and Zoe Saldaña just last year). Now, I think Delroy Lindo is going to be the deserving beneficiary of Sinners wave. I share three of the five nominees with the Academy. I think Jacobi Jupe is remarkable enough in Hamnet that his general absence from Oscar chatter was perplexing. Michael Cera never had a chance to be included on the proper Oscar list, but it’s a wonderful comic performance. Benicio del Toro is far and away the best in this category. Viva la revolución!