Demi Moore, Ariana Grande, and the other first-time Oscar nominees
The 2025 Oscar nominations were announced on Thursday and while some vets like Ralph Fiennes (Conclave) and Edward Norton (A Complete Unknown) have been around the block before, many others heard their names called for the very first time.
Among those Oscar newbies is Best Actress contender Demi Moore (The Substance), whose career spans more than 40 years but who, as she noted in her Golden Globe acceptance speech, was dismissed as a “popcorn actress” by a producer. It’s surprising that Guy Pearce (The Brutalist) never earned an Oscar nom before now; his past roles include Oscar-winning films like L.A. Confidential (1997), The Hurt Locker (2009), and The King’s Speech (2010), but he finally got on the board in this year’s Best Supporting Actor race. Hollywood royalty Isabella Rossellini (Conclave), the daughter of Oscar nominee Roberto Rossellini and Oscar winner Ingrid Bergman, finally scored a nom of her own in Best Supporting Actress. And while Best Supporting Actor frontrunner Kieran Culkin (A Real Pain) is a relatively younger performer at age 42, he’s been acting since he was 8.
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READ: ‘Emilia Pérez,’ ‘The Brutalist,’ and ‘Wicked’ lead 2025 Oscar nominations: See the full list
Best Actress nominee Mikey Madison (Anora) is 25 years old, which makes her younger than the careers of some of her fellow nominees. In fact, she’s the youngest acting nominee this year. Her Best Supporting Actor-nominated costar Yura Borisov is also a fresh face at these awards at age 32. Grammy winner Ariana Grande is best known to music fans, but the former child star and Eternal Sunshine singer impressed the Academy and scored a Best Supporting Actress bid at age 31.
Beyond the acting races, first-time nominees make up the majority of the Best Director race: Brady Corbet (The Brutalist), Sean Baker (Anora), Jacques Audiard (Emilia Pérez), and Coralie Fargeat (The Substance) have never been nominated before in any category, though Audiard’s 2009 film A Prophet earned a nom for Best Foreign Language Film; that nomination was credited to France instead of the filmmaker. All four of them earned additional nominations for writing their films.
Below is the full list of this year’s Oscar rookies, some of whom you might be surprised were never nominated before now. And check out the complete list of nominees.
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BEST PICTURE
Anora — Alex Coco, Samantha Quan, Alex Heineman
A Complete Unknown — Alex Heineman
Conclave — Tessa Ross, Juliette Howell and Michael A. Jackman
Dune: Part Two — Tanya Lapointe
BEST DIRECTOR
Jacques Audiard, Emilia Pérez
Sean Baker, Anora
Jon M. Chu, Wicked
Brady Corbet, The Brutalist
Coralie Fargeat, The Substance
Payal Kapadia, All We Imagine as Light
RaMell Ross, Nickel Boys
BEST ACTRESS
Karla Sofía Gascón, Emilia Pérez
Mikey Madison, Anora
Demi Moore, The Substance
Fernanda Torres, I’m Still Here
BEST ACTOR
Sebastian Stan, The Apprentice
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Monica Barbaro, A Complete Unknown
Ariana Grande, Wicked
Isabella Rossellini, Conclave
Zoe Salda?a, Emilia Pérez
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Yura Borisov, Anora
Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain
Guy Pearce, The Brutalist
Jeremy Strong, The Apprentice
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Sing Sing — Clint Bentley, Greg Kwedar, Clarence Maclin, John Whitfield
Emilia Pérez — Jacques Audiard, Thomas Bidegain, Léa Mysius, Nicolas Livecchi
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Anora — Sean Baker
The Brutalist — Brady Corbet, Mona Fastvold
September 5 — Moritz Binder, Tim Fehlbaum, Alex David
The Substance — Coralie Fargeat
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
The Brutalist — Lol Crawley
Emilia Pérez — Paul Guilhaume
BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Nosferatu — Linda Muir
BEST FILM EDITING
Anora — Sean Baker
The Brutalist — Dávid Jancsó
Conclave — Nick Emerson
BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
A Different Man — David Presto, Crystal Jurado
Emilia Pérez — Julia Floch-Carbonel, Emmanuel Janvier, Jean-Christophe Spadaccini
Nosferatu — Traci Loader, Suzanne Stokes-Munton
The Substance — Pierre Olivier Persin, Stéphanie Guillon, Marilyne Scarselli
Wicked — Laura Blount, Sarah Nuth
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
The Brutalist — Patricia Cuccia
Conclave — Cynthia Sleiter
Nosferatu — Craig Lathrop, Beatrice Brentnerová
BEST SCORE
The Brutalist — Daniel Blumberg
Emilia Pérez — Camille, Clément Ducol
BEST SONG
“Never Too Late,” Elton John: Never Too Late — Brandi Carlile
“El Mal,” Emilia Pérez — Camille, Clément Ducol, Jacques Audiard
“Mi Camino,” Emilia Pérez —Camille, Clément Ducol
“Like a Bird,” Sing Sing —Abraham Alexander, Adrian Quesada
BEST SOUND
A Complete Unknown — Ted Caplan
Dune: Part Two — Gareth John
Emilia Pérez — Erwan Kerzanet, Aymeric Devoldère, Maxence Dussère, Cyril Holtz, Niels Barletta
Wicked — Nancy Nugent Title, Jack Dolman, John Marquis
The Wild Robot — Leff Lefferts
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Alien: Romulus — Daniel Macarin
Better Man — Luke Millar, Keith Herft, Peter Stubbs
Dune: Part Two — Stephen James, Rhys Salcombe
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes — Stephen Unterfranz, Paul Story, Rodney Burke
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Inside Out 2 — Kelsey Mann
Memoir of a Snail — Liz Kearney
The Wild Robot — Jeff Hermann
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Black Box Diaries — Shiori It?, Hanna Aqvilin, Eric Nyari
No Other Land — Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Rachel Szor
Porcelain War — Brendan Bellomo, Slava Leontyev, Aniela Sidorska, Paula DuPré Pesmen
Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat — Johan Grimonprez, Daan Milius
BEST ANIMATED SHORT
“Beautiful Men” — Nicolas Keppens, Brecht Van Elslande
“In the Shadow of the Cypress” — Shirin Sohani, Hossein Molayemi
“Magic Candies” — Daisuke Nishio, Takashi Washio
“Wander to Wonder” — Nina Gantz, Stienette Bosklopper
“Yuck!” — Lo?c Espuche, Juliette Marquet
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
“Death by Numbers” — Kim A. Snyder, Janique L. Robillard
“I Am Ready, Warden” — Maya Gnyp
“Incident” — Bill Morrison, Jamie Kalven
“Instruments of a Beating Heart” — Ema Ryan Yamazaki, Eric Nyari
“The Only Girl in the Orchestra” — Molly O’Brien and Lisa Remington
BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT
“Anuja” — Adam J. Graves, Suchitra Mattai
“I’m Not a Robot” — Trent, Victoria Warmerdam
“The Last Ranger” — Cindy Lee, Darwin Shaw
“A Lien” — Sam Cutler-Kreutz, David Cutler-Kreutz
“The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent” — Nebojsa Slijepcevic, Danijel Pek
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