With Oppenheimer’s triumph, the Oscars have once again embraced the cinema of major studios after having, last year, championed a film at the antipodes of the Hollywood tradition, the radical and surprising Everything at the same time everywhere. What is going to be the trend? What will happen in 2025?
The strikes of scriptwriters and actors a few months ago stopped filming and delayed projects in Hollywood, which may suggest that the next Oscars have a greater propensity for independent and international cinema, not affected by these interruptions.
Second parts. However, there will also be great productions. Dune II, by Denis Villeneuve, has recently been released – the first part won six statuettes – whose good reviews point it out as the first candidate.
Another expected sequel will be Joker: Folie À deux, by Todd Phillips, performed, along with Joaquin Phoenix – Oscar winner for the first – by Lady Gaga. And Gladiator 2 – the first part of which won the Oscar for best film of 2000 -, by Ridley Scott, with a renewed cast: Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal and Denzel Wahington. Another continuation of an Oscar-winning film with six awards (Mad Max: Fury Road) will be Furiosa, by George Miller, with Anya Taylor-Joy as the new protagonist.
Emma Stone, going for the third. There are no two without three. Emma Stone, who has won her second Oscar for Poor Creatures, will have a chance to repeat thanks, once again, to director Yorgos Lanthimos and the film Kinds of Kindness, which was filmed right after that one with Margaret Qualley and Jesse Pleemons.
Actors behind the camera. At the recent Sundance Festival, A Real Pain stood out, the second film as a director by Jesse Eisenberg, who also plays alongside television star Kieran Culkin in the roles of two cousins who travel to Poland to learn about their origins. For his part, actor Brady Corbett also directs The Brutalist, with Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones as a European architect and his wife who have recently arrived in post-World War II New York. More veterans, Kevin Costner returns as director with the two parts of the western Horizon, in which he himself stars and which will be released separately in the summer in the US. and Mel Gibson with the thriller Flight Risk, starring Mark Wahlberg.
Airs of Mexico. The Central American country and its professionals may have a special role next year. In her new film as director, Angelina Jolie adapts the novel Sin sangre, by Alessandro Baricco, with Mexicans Démian Bichir and Salma Hayek as protagonists. For his part, Luca Guadagnino covers Queer, by William S. Burroughs, with Daniel Craig in a story set in Mexico, where Emilia Perez, by Jacques Audiard, is also set, spoken in Spanish with Zoe Saldana, Selena Gomez and Edgar Ramirez.
More adaptations. RaMell Ross covers The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead, a Pulitzer-winning novel, with Anjanue Ellis, and Marielle Heller adapts the novel Canina, by Rachel Yoder, a fierce vision of motherhood, with Amy Adams. Paul Schrader adapts a novel by Russell Banks in Oh Canada, in what could be Richard Gere’s first nomination in the role of a dying filmmaker who looks back on his life full of lies. Jacob Elordi plays him as a young man.
Return of the musical? Joker: Folie À deux and Emilia Pérez, announced as musical films, will be accompanied by The End, the first fiction feature film by Joshua Oppenheimer, director a decade ago of the well-known documentary The Act of Killing. Apocalyptic musical about the end of the world, starring Tilda Swinton, Michael Shannon and George Mackay.
Biographical cinema. As for biopics, Angelina Jolie stands out as Maria Callas in Maria, by Pablo Larraín, with the Italian Valeria Golino as her sister. On the other hand, Sebastian Stan is a young Donald Trump in The Apprentice, by Ali Abbasi, with Maria Bakalova as Ivana, the first wife of the future president of the United States. In addition, Marisa Abela plays Amy Winehouse in Sam Taylor-Johnson’s Back to Black.
Is seniority a degree? Although in recent years the Academy has not shown much affection towards its masters like Spielberg or Scorsese – the emptiness of The Moon Killers has been the latest example -, it will now have the opportunity to give it to other Oscar-winning filmmakers: Francis Ford Coppola with his long-awaited Megalopolis, with Adam Driver, and nonagenarian Clint Eastwood and his latest film, Juror
The British Invasion. The Englishmen Christopher Nolan, best director, and Jonathan Glazer, awarded for best international film, may be followed next year by Mike Leigh and Steve McQueen. The first will premiere the drama Hard Truths, with Marianne Jean-Baptiste, an actress that Leigh discovered to us in her Secrets and Lies, and the second, whose 12 Years a Slave won the Oscar for best film, will present Blitz, a choral story in the London of bombings with Saoirse Ronan and Harris Dickinson.
European cinema with a star. As for the rest of Europe, the Italian Paolo Sorrentino makes Partenopea with Gary Oldman in a film set in Naples and the French Audrey Diwan updates the erotic Emmanuelle, with Noémie Merlant and Naomi Watts. For his part, the question remains whether Pedro Almodóvar, who has begun filming The Room Next Door, his first feature film in English, with Julianne Moore, Tilda Swinton and John Turturro, will arrive on time.