Who are the early Oscar and Bafta frontrunners in the director and screenplay categories?

Unlike last season, this time around there are no clear favourites in the directing category, while the two screenplay categories likewise remain fairly open. These three contests pitch modern masters against indie darlings, a handful of contenders from outside the US and UK, and at least one prolific veteran still in search of that elusive directing Oscar.

Denis Villeneuve, Jacques Audiard, Coralie Fargeat, Brady Corbet and Cannes Palme d’Or winner Sean Baker demand attention in the directing category for audacious work that ranks among the best of their careers. 

Like Fargeat, Mohammad Rasoulof and Payal Kapadia wowed audiences on the Croisette, while Pedro Almodovar, Edward Berger, Walter Salles, Mike Leigh and RaMell Ross unveiled films in the autumn festival corridor. Late-season arrivals include out-of-festival launches for Ridley Scott, James Mangold, and Jon M Chu. 

The adapted and original screenplay categories explore a host of visions both expansive and intimate, with the likes of Marielle Heller, Jesse Eisenberg, Jason Reitman and Justin Kuritzkes (for Luca Guadagnino) all in the mix.

Last season’s three categories produced the same Oscar and Bafta winners. Christopher Nolan won the directing prize for Oppenheimer, Justine Triet and Arthur Harari prevailed in original screenplay with Anatomy Of A Fall, while Cord Jefferson triumphed in the adapted screenplay category with American Fiction. 

Director

Independent darlings Sean Baker and Brady Corbet have never earned Oscar or Bafta directing nods, and this is their best chance yet. Both just earned Golden Globe nominations. Baker’s Anora, fully financed by FilmNation and distributed in the US by Neon, scooped the top prize in Cannes, and the filmmaker behind The Florida Project and Red Rocket demonstrates mastery of story and character in the high-energy romp about a Brooklyn sex worker’s whirlwind romance with a Russian oligarch’s son.

Corbet won the Venice Silver Lion in September for best director with A24’s American Dream epic The Brutalist, starring Adrien Brody as a Hungarian architect and Holocaust survivor wrestling with the toughest commission of his life, family tragedy and traumatic memories. 

Dune: Part Two director Denis Villeneuve earned Oscar and Bafta directing nods in 2017 for his sci-fi Arrival, but with Dune: Part One he was overlooked by both film academies in the director category. Voters tend to reserve their largesse for trilogy finales; however, the French-Canadian’s return to the deeply rendered worlds of Frank Herbert’s tome, which Warner Bros and Legendary took to $714m at the global box office, may be hard to resist.

France’s Jacques Audiard, another Golden Globe nominee this season who also added best director and screenwriter at the European Film Awards to his trophy cabinet, will be hoping for his first directing recognition from the US and UK academies with the wildly original musical Emilia Pérez, his country’s Oscar submission about a Mexican cartel boss who transitions to a woman. 

Germany’s Edward Berger won the directing Bafta for All Quiet On The Western Front in 2023 and his entertaining English-language Vatican thriller Conclave — which Focus Features had driven to a healthy $30.1m in the US at press time — stars Ralph Fiennes as the overseer of a vote to elect a new Pope. Berger is also nominated for a Golden Globe directing award.

Ridley Scott wants a first directing Oscar for his return to the Roman Colosseum in Paramount’s Gladiator II, the action-packed sequel to his 2001 best picture winner, which stars Paul Mescal and Denzel Washington. At 87, the indefatigable Scott would become the oldest nominee if things go his way. The UK filmmaker has earned Oscar nods for Thelma & Louise, Gladiator and Black Hawk Down, and Bafta nods for The Martian and Gladiator.

RaMell Ross, who shared a documentary Oscar nod in 2019 for Hale County This Morning, This Evening, is in contention for his narrative debut, Amazon MGM Studios’ reform school drama Nickel Boys. Ross recently won the directing Gotham. 

British stalwart Mike Leigh earned Oscar and Bafta directing nods for Secrets & Lies and Vera Drake, and won the Bafta for the latter in 2005. Hard Truths brings another sharply observed meditation on relationships and stars Marianne Jean-Baptiste as a woman whose anger at the world bubbles out of her.

Body horror The Substance from France’s Coralie Fargeat, another Golden Globe nominee, stars Demi Moore as the host of a TV fitness show facing the end of her career, who turns to an experimental rejuvenation treatment. Mubi holds worldwide rights and the film is nearing $75m at the global box office.

Last year, Justine Triet and Jonathan Glazer both achieved director Oscar nominations with films not in the English language — respectively with Anatomy Of A Fall and The Zone Of Interest. Vying to do so this year is Payal Kapadia with her largely Mumbai-set Cannes grand prix winner All We Imagine As Light. It was snubbed by India’s Oscar selection committee in its submission to international feature, but remains an admired contender in other categories and will compete at Bafta, having already picked up the award for best international film from the New York Film Critics Circle. In addition, Kapadia is also nominated for the Golden Globe.

Other non-English-language films in contention for directing honours this year include Brazil and Germany’s international feature Oscar submissions I’m Still Here and The Seed Of The Sacred Fig. The former is Walter Salles’ deeply personal story about his own family friends. The latter Iranian thriller from Moh­ammad Rasoulof pivots around family tensions in the household of an aspiring investigative judge. 

Triet was the sole woman nominated for a directing Oscar last year — and only the ninth in the history of the awards. This list of contenders for 2025 is male-dominated. 

In addition to Fargeat and Kapadia, female director contenders include Marielle Heller for Searchlight-backed Nightbitch, starring Amy Adams as a new mother with feral inclinations; Halina Reijn with her erotic thriller Babygirl, starring Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson; and Nora Fingscheidt with The Outrun, starring Saoirse Ronan as a woman trying to come to terms with alcoholism.

Crashing the awards season party fairly late is Searchlight’s Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, and James Mangold is now rising up the director rankings. He has two Oscar nominations so far — for producing Ford v Ferrari and writing Logan — but nothing yet for directing. 

Pedro Almodovar’s Venice Golden Lion winner The Room Next Door could deliver the Spanish maestro his second director nomination at the Oscars (following Talk To Her in 2003) and also his second for directing at Bafta (following All About My Mother in 2000, for which he won).

Steve McQueen likewise has a director nomination apiece from Oscar and Bafta (for 12 Years A Slave in 2014). His latest film Blitz is the story of a boy evacuated from London in 1940, who sets off to reunite with his mother.

Surging box-office revenue for Universal’s Wicked might encourage voters in the director chapter to give respect towards Jon M Chu, the man who leads the creative charge on the Broadway adaptation. Robert Eggers’ gothic vampire horror Nosferatu has plenty of audience appeal, and has been generating buzz in voter screenings. 

Original screenplay

Just as their stirring visions make Sean Baker and Brady Corbet heavy­weight contenders in the directing category, so it is in original screenplay. Baker’s wildly engaging Anora manages to weave acute character observations into a story full of vim and vigour, and he is among the favourites to land Oscar and Bafta nominations, having scooped the best screenplay award at the New York Film Critics Circle. Corbet and Mona Fastvold are in contention for The Brutalist, an expansive vision reminiscent in tone to Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood and The Master. All three writers are nominated for the Golden Globe.

Mike Leigh will be a strong contender with Hard Truths. The veteran UK filmmaker has earned five Oscar and three Bafta nods for this category, winning the British Academy award for Secrets & Lies.

Iranian exile Mohammad Rasoulof has admirers for expertly controlled pace and family dynamics in The Seed Of The Sacred Fig, as has Coralie Fargeat for The Substance, an unabashedly strong vision that people have not stopped talking about – and has just earned a Golden Globe nod.

The contenders must include Jesse Eisenberg with Searchlight Pictures’ A Real Pain, an affecting road movie about reacquainted cousins who make a pilgrimage to their grandmother’s birthplace in Poland. Eisenberg, who stars opposite Succession’s Kieran Culkin, is looking for his first recognition as a filmmaker. He just earned a screenplay nod from the Golden Globes.

Director Tim Fehlbaum demands attention for September 5. Jointly written with Moritz Binder and Alex David, Paramount’s unflashy ensemble tells the true story of ABC Sports journalists on the ground at the 1972 Munich Olympics, covering an unfolding crisis as Israeli athletes are taken hostage by the Palestinian Black September group.

Jason Reitman, who shared an adapted screenplay Oscar nod for Up In The Air and won the Bafta in 2010, is back in the game with Saturday Night. Columbia Pictures’ ensemble drama recounts the moments before the first broadcast of US TV sketch show Saturday Night Live in 1975.

Luca Guadagnino’s sexy tennis drama Challengers owes much of its playful and emotionally revealing tone to screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes. Alex Garland’s sobering Civil War delivers one of the most disturbing stories of the year, grossing $126m worldwide for A24, and the UK filmmaker’s writing stands out as a team of journalists race across a war-torn country to reach the White House.

Adapted screenplay

Conclave screenwriter Peter Straughan shared an Oscar nod in 2012 for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy with Bridget O’Connor and they won the Bafta; he brings high pedigree with his take on Robert Harris’s papal-election pageturner, and is in the running for a screenplay Golden Globe.

Fellow Globe screenwriting nominee Jacques Audiard will be a strong contender for Emilia Pérez, which he conceived after reading about a drug kingpin who transitions in Boris Razon’s book Écoute. Audiard initially wrote an opera libretto about the character before tackling the feature.

Denis Villeneuve and Jon Spaihts reunited on Dune: Part Two after they shared adapted screenplay Oscar and Bafta nods with Eric Roth for the first part in 2022. They will be among the frontrunners again for a continuing incisive adaptation of Frank Herbert’s novel.

Sing Sing co-writers Greg Kwedar and Clint Bentley are looking for their first Oscar and Bafta recognition after collaborating on A24’s story about a prison theatre group, starring Colman Domingo. They worked on the screenplay with two real inmates, Clarence ‘Divine Eye’ Maclin and John ‘Divine G’ Whitfield. 

Another story of incarceration, Nickel Boys, hails from the writing team of RaMell Ross and Joslyn Barnes, who skilfully highlight the resilience of humanity in dark places; they adapted the script from Colson Whitehead’s book.

Spanish maestro Pedro Almodovar’s The Room Next Door is an adaptation of Sigrid Nunez’s novel What Are You Going Through about two estranged friends who reunite when one faces a terminal illness and asks the other to be her companion in her final days. Richard Linklater and Glen Powell could attract voters’ attention for their clever and sexy Hit Man, based on Skip Hollandsworth’s Texas Monthly article about a college professor moonlighting for the police.

Director Malcolm Washington and Virgil Williams, the latter Oscar-nominated in 2018 for Mudbound, collaborated on The Piano Lesson, the latest entry in the August Wilson stage play adaptations shepherded by producer Denzel Washington, which centres on a family heirloom.

Luca Guadagnino collaborator Justin Kuritzkes is a threat in both screenplay categories: in addition to Challengers, he has his adaptation of William S Burroughs’ novel Queer, starring Daniel Craig as a lonely writer looking for a connection in Mexico and South America in the 1950s.

Also in the mix are this year’s Venice best screenplay winners Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega for Walter Salles’ I’m Still Here. It is based on Marcelo Rubens Paiva’s book about how his mother became an activist after his father was kidnapped by the military regime in 1971. 

Other category hopefuls include Marielle Heller’s adaptation of Rachel Yoder’s novel Nightbitch; and the writers of two animated features hailed for their perceptive reach and humanity — Chris Sanders for adapting Peter Brown’s The Wild Robot book series, and Meg LeFauve and Dave Holstein for Inside Out 2.

Also in contention

Director

• John Crowley, We Live In Time
• Jesse Eisenberg, A Real Pain
• Tim Fehlbaum, September 5
• Alex Garland, Civil War
• Luca Guadagnino, Challengers
• Greg Kwedar, Sing Sing
• Jason Reitman, Saturday Night

Original screenplay

• Scott Beck, Bryan Woods, Heretic 
• Azazel Jacobs, His Three Daughters
• Payal Kapadia, All We Imagine As Light 
• Josh Margolin, Thelma
• Steve McQueen, Blitz
• Gabriel Sherman, The Apprentice

Adapted screenplay

• Robert Eggers, Nosferatu
• Winnie Holzman, Dana Fox, Wicked
• Amy Liptrot, Nora Fingscheidt, Daisy Lewis, The Outrun 
• James Mangold, Jay Cocks, A Complete Unknown
• David Scarpa, Peter Craig, David Franzoni, Gladiator II

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