Best Picture: Ranking Every Nominee of the 98th Academy Awards
Written by Andreas Babiolakis
Welcome to another year of the Academy Awards Project here on Films Fatale! We rank all of the nominees in each category every day. This is the last category of nominees being ranked. Join us tomorrow for when we rank all of the nominated films in one master list!
We have reached the final category of this project, and it is the biggest — and "best" — for last: Best Picture. Even with the ten available slots, the Academy usually does a decent job proliferating this category with films that do make sense as someone's favourite film of the year. We have had years with some serious clunkers nominated here, though; I wouldn't say that the 98th Academy Awards have that, thankfully, but I do think that there is at least one title that wouldn't have been my pick (more on that shortly). For the most part, the Academy voters have picked quite a few of the films that I would consider to be amongst the best of 2025; four of my top five are here, for instance. There are ten films to get through, and I will try to keep these blurbs brief because I have reviewed quite a few of these; then again, four out of ten have reviews by other members of Films Fatale's team, so I will clearly either be in agreement or unaligned with what they had to say (if you have been following my Academy Awards Project thus far, you likely already know how I feel about each of these films). Here are your nominees for Best Picture, ranked from worst to best.
10. F1
That tenth spot that could have been It Was Just an Accident, The Testament of Ann Lee, or Sorry, Baby (or quite a few other films), the film I am ranking last is F1 (which is what we got instead). While certainly not a bad film, this is a fine, typically-handled narrative that happens to have some great racing scenes throughout. F1 is clearly here because of all of the tech voters who backed this film up (oh, and the older voters who find pleasures in blockbuster sports and action films, I suppose). I think F1 is a teensy bit thrilling but it is otherwise a film I forgot about the second it finished; it is temporary relief and release to me.
9. Frankenstein
We take a bit of a jump up to the ninth best film here. I actually like Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein quite a bit, but I wouldn't go as far as calling it perfect or without blemishes. The first half of Frankenstein is a visual and audible feast for the eyes and ears, but it boats del Toro's bad habit of over-explaining and crawling through exposition (instead of sometimes letting the mystery be). However, the second half — the one involving the creature's side of the story — is some of del Toro's best storytelling in years. I think Frankenstein is really solid for the most part (and I can see why it would be someone's favourite this year), but I also think it could have been trimmed or sharpened in ways.
8. Sinners
Now, before you get angry, I think Sinners is a great film. It made my top fifteen of 2025 after all. I also think that there are seven stronger nominees this year, which is not a sign of Sinners being substandard but rather how strong 2025 was in film. I am appreciative for Sinners being at least the first strong film of last year all the way back in the first quarter (usually when bad films are left to die); Ryan Coogler's vision gave us a rush at the cinemas that lasted throughout the entire year and set the bar quite high. This genre-bending effort also had a little something for everyone; people who hate horror films wound up loving a vampire flick last year. Sinners won most viewers over, and its place here — especially with those sixteen nominations — is well deserved.
7. Bugonia
I am a sucker for Yorgos Lanthimos and always have been. Bugonia is not even top five Lanthimos for me, and the fact that it is this good is evidence that the Greek auteur is certainly one of the best directors working today (I'd argue he's maybe of an all-time calibre, now). The Academy has nominated Lanthimos films for Best Picture twice before (The Favourite and Poor Things), so Bugonia isn't the biggest shock here; even so, the film didn't seem to have quite the award season steam that the other two films do, so I was at least a little nervous that Bugonia wouldn't make the final cut; I am so glad that this satirical thriller did.
6. Train Dreams
The underdog of the category is undeniably Train Dreams: a sublime, heartbreaking film from 2025 that I thought was maybe too aesthetically esoteric to wind up being a crowd pleaser of sorts; boy, am I glad to be wrong. Imagine fifteen years ago that a film like Train Dreams would wind up being nominated for Best Picture. It seems impossible to me. I hope that this nomination brings awareness to an incredible American film like this one: one that you feel through your bones more than you watch. While this may have been the tenth spot that squeaked in at the final hour, in my heart this was a must-have nominee.
5. The Secret Agent
One of the two international titles to be nominated this year, The Secret Agent is the second Brazilian film to make it here in a row (after last ceremony's acknowledgment of I'm Still Here). People may have their reservations as to how many Brazilian voters in the Academy there might be, but I think it's silly to make this argument when The Secret Agent truly is one of the top ten best films of 2025 (for many, it might be the top motion picture, and I cannot fault anyone for feeling this way). The way this film toys with its audience's expectations is exactly what this film industry needs: the subversion of the typical; The Secret Agent does so while still being easily digestible and understandable, so all walks of life can know what refreshing cinema can feel like.
4. Marty Supreme
When I do this Academy Awards Project, I sometimes find that I liked a film more than I initially thought when I see that I have high consideration for its many individual parts (in the form of analyzing its nominations). The adverse effect can happen as well where I rank various nominations for a film I liked low, encouraging me to rethink how I truly feel about a motion picture. Despite the fact that my rankings for Marty Supreme were kind of all over the place, I think this is still an excellent film and that my rankings did not affect my joy for it at all. To me, all of these separate parts conjoin in a tremendous way here to make one of the most entertaining films of 2025, even if I feel like other films prioritized certain elements more than Marty Supreme did; I've seen this one multiple times and I only enjoy it more each time.
3. Sentimental Value
The Academy would have ignored a film like Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value years ago, but it was impossible to omit in 2026. Rightfully so. This film is a superb family drama that doesn't just settle for surface-level resentment and discourse like so many other like-minded films. It knows how to navigate the mind, heart, and soul of aching, feuding family members. Now, we have had international films be nominated consistently for Best Picture for quite a few years now, so Sentimental Value being here was never a surprise. I'm just thrilled that it is expected that the Academy will honour the best films from around the globe more than it used to. A film as moving, layered, and viscerally sound as Sentimental Value deserves its flowers, and the Academy did not disappoint.
2. One Battle After Another
Probably the most expected nominee after Sinners is Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another; if Ryan Coogler's film dominated the first half of 2025, then Anderson's was a major force during the height of the award season in the final quarter of the year. Politically thought-provoking, entertaining and hilarious, and arguably the most idiosyncratic film of the year, One Battle After Another is already being championed as an instant classic by enough people. Clearly, the Academy believed so as well, and I am certainly on that same wavelength. The Academy has never hated Anderson since the majority of his films have scored at least one nomination each, but this could be the time where he finally earns his own Oscars gold; remember when Christopher Nolan never had these statuettes, and now he has multiple? One Battle After Another could be 2025's Oppenheimer.
1. Hamnet
This was almost guaranteed to wind up in the Best Picture race since it won the Peoples' Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival, but I am still so pleased that my favourite film of 2025, Hamnet, is here in the top ten nominees. One Battle After Another and Sinners might be the flashier, more complicated, and agreeable best films of 2025 according to the masses, but Chloe Zhao's Hamnet spoke to me on a personal level more than anything else this past year. It took the tired stylings of the historical drama and biographical picture and made something invigorating out of them. Iconic names are grounded, allowing their tragedy to be something we understand and identify with. The emotional build up and release is immeasurable every time I watch this film. When you watch as many films as I do, it becomes tougher to find works that you cannot imagine your life without. At this point, I am so happy that Hamnet exists and that I can have this connection with such breathtaking, soul-crushing, life-affirming art.
Who I Want To Win: I'm rooting for Hamnet and wouldOne Battle After Another, and if it feels like a cop-out to select two films, consider this. Hamnet is my favourite film of 2025, so why wouldn't I want it to win? Then, there is One Battle After Another. Paul Thomas Anderson could have won Best Picture multiple times by now, and he hasn't at all. At least Chloe Zhao has for Nomadland. If I have to be a grownup and pick just one, I'm rooting for Hamnet.
Who I Think Will Win: Realistically, there are potentially three players with different odds. The frontrunner is One Battle After Another at around sixty percent likelihood. The Academy clearly loves this film, they may feel like it is Paul Thomas Anderson's time, and the odds of the film winning more than one award are high enough (typically, a Best Picture winner claims at least two major awards; these can be for direction, screenwriting, acting, and editing; Anderson could win Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay). The film did well at various other ceremonies, including the Golden Globes. This has been the prediction of many for months now.
Then, there is Sinners. With sixteen nominations, it's hard to not think that the Academy is really rooting for this film; I'd say there is around a twenty-five percent chance that the film can pull the Best Picture win off. Sure, you can point to a film like Emilia Perez that was nominated everywhere and only won two awards. However, that film was always going to be nominated a lot (before the hate train really kicked off). Did anyone expect Sinners to wind up with a nomination for Delroy Lindo who has not appeared at any other major list of nominations? That is a major surprise of a nomination, which leads me to believe that the backing of this film is quite staggering. I cannot foresee Ryan Coogler cementing the Best Director win, but he can still win for his screenplay, and Sinners can pick up some other major awards elsewhere (Best Film Editing, Best Cinematography, Best Original Score, et cetera). Do not count out Sinners.
Finally, the third likely winner is Hamnet, but this is far less probable, and I would estimate that this film has a less than ten percent chance likelihood of winning. If One Battle After Another and Sinners split votes, Hamnet could pull off the upset. It's already likely winning for Best Actress, and it can win one other major award elsewhere (Best Adapted Screenplay, maybe?). Even though it is not explicitly a British film, consider the sway that the BAFTAs have on the Oscars some years; Hamnet is British enough that I think it could cause a pivot. Additionally, the film did win Best Picture at the Golden Globes. It would be a humble winner, but a potential one nonetheless. However, this is highly unlikely, and I would argue that the seven other nominees have even less chance to win right now (that could change over the next month, however).
For now, unless anything changes over this upcoming month, my bet is on One Battle After Another.
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Ryerson University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.