Best Director expert slugfest: Brady Corbet may be the Oscar ‘frontrunner,’ but Jacques Audiard is ‘overdue’

The Best Director race at the 2025 Oscars has come down to five filmmakers: Jacques Audiard (Emilia Pérez), Sean Baker (Anora), Brady Corbet (The Brutalist), Coralie Fargeat (The Substance), and James Mangold (A Complete Unknown). But who should be polishing an acceptance speech for the March 2 ceremony?

After the nominations were announced, five top Oscar experts from major media outlets debated their winner predictions for Best Director: Gold Derby’s Debra Birnbaum, Variety‘s Clayton Davis, The Hollywood Reporter‘s Scott Feinberg, Deadline’s Pete Hammond, and Indiewire’s Anne Thompson. Watch their Oscars slugfest video above.

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Thompson calls Corbet the “frontrunner” thanks in part to him doing “something remarkable over 10 years with very little support” to get The Brutalist off the ground. Plus, the 36-year-old director “speaks with such authority and such knowledge of how to shoot a movie.” Thompson also states that Audiard is “overdue” for an Oscar win, and wonders if there’s enough time for Mangold to “catch up” this awards season.

Feinberg is also on board the Corbet train, saying, “I think that when people process the ambition and scope of The Brutalist, this is a guy out of the mold of Orson Welles or something. He’s so young, he’s so ambitious, he did this with $10 million … VistaVision, intermission, crazy stuff.” Feinberg doesn’t think that the “AI thing” will “necessarily change too much” in the race, because “there is a lot of admiration for this guy and seeing where he’ll go.”

Hammond theorizes that Oscar viewers could be in for a “weird repeat” of the 2003 ceremony, when “The Pianist, starring Adrien Brody as a Holocaust survivor, won screenplay, director for Roman Polanski, and actor, and lost to a big musical adaptation, [Chicago]. That’s what I think could happen this year … and the preferential ballot is going to determine that.” In this scenario, Corbet and Brody would both win, but The Brutalist would lose the Best Picture race to Emilia Pérez.

Davis says, “Yes, on paper right now, it’s Brady. It’s hard to argue today.” However, he adds, “I’ve been having a hard time wrapping my head around him. … Brady Corbet is fairly new to these 10,000 [Academy voters], so if it’s not him, is it Jacques? He’s like the French Martin Scorsese.” And for Anora to end up winning Best Picture, “it needs Sean” to win Best Director, Davis continues on.

Birnbaum asks the group if “the DGA winner will automatically win the Oscar,” with the Directors Guild Awards nominees being Audiard, Baker, Corbet, Mangold, and Edward Berger (Conclave). Since “a lot of this is based on momentum,” Hammond responds, then the Best Director vote at the Oscars will be affected by who wins at all of the precursor awards. “That’s what always happens.”

Which Oscar expert do you agree with the most? Sound off down in the comments section and join the discussion in our movie forums.

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