Official Rules

• ANY movie that has been NOMINATED or WON an Academy Award counts
• There is NO time limit, meaning it doesn't matter how long or short the item in question is, as long as it has been nominated or won an Academy Award
• You can watch a movie once then count it again if you watch the same film with a commentary
• There WILL BE a separate thread for LISTS ONLY created shortly before the challenge begins.
• You can count the actual Academy Awards Ceremony to be televised on Sunday March 2, 2025 as an entry if you'd like.
• There will be an "In Memoriam" Wild Card option. You can select up to 10 films to watch featuring a celebrity that died since the last Oscar Ceremony. But only ONE movie per celebrity. For example: You can watch “Die Hard 2” to honor Art Evans but you cannot watch another Evans movie that did not win or was not nominated for an Oscar unless it stars another eligible celebrity. If that makes sense... The celebrity has to have died since the last ceremony.
• There is a Snubbed Wild Card option. You can select up to 3 films that you believe should have been nominated for an Oscar. Please feel free to explain your choice in the discussion thread.
• The challenge begins at dawn local time Thursday, January 23 at and will end at 11:59 pm on Sunday, March 2.

Past Challenges
2024 Rules and Discussion Thread
2024 List Thread
2023 Rules & Discussion Thread
2023 List Thread
2022 Rules & Discussion Thread
2022 List Thread
2021 Rules & Discussion Thread
2021 List Thread
2020 Rules & Discussion Thread
2020 List Thread
2019 Rules & Discussion Tread
2019 List Thread
2018 Rules & Discussion Thread
2018 List Thread
2017 Rules & Discussion Thread
2017 List Thread
2016 Rules & Discussion Thread
2016 List Thread
2015 Rules & Discussion Thread
2015 List Thread
2014 Rules & Discussion Thread
2014 List Thread
2013 Rules & Discussion Thread
2013 List Thread
2012 Rules & Discussion Thread
2012 List Thread
2011 Rules & Discussion Thread
2011 List Thread
2010 Rules & Discussion Thread
2010 List Thread
2009 Rules & Discussion Thread
2009 List Thread
2008 Rules & Discussion Thread
2008 List Thread
2007 Rules & Discussion Thread
2007 List Thread

External Links
This Year's Nominees
Academy Award Database - to check if a movie has been nominated or won (link still won't work with Safari)
2024 In Memoriam via Entertainment Weekly
TCM's 31 Days of Oscar


Checklist
Watch a film winner from the following decades:

• 1927-1939:
• 1940-1949:
• 1950-1959:
• 1960-1969:
• 1970-1979:
• 1980-1989:
• 1990-1999:
• 2000-2009:
• 2010-2019:
• (optional) 2020-

Watch a winner from the following categories:

• Actor in a Leading Role
• Actor in a Supporting Role
• Actress in a Leading Role
• Actress in a Supporting Role
• Animated Feature Film
• Cinematography
• Costume Design
• Directing
• Documentary Feature Film
• Documentary Short Film
• Film Editing
• International Feature Film
• Makeup and Hairstyling
• Music (Original Score)
• Music (Original Song)
• Best Picture
• Production Design
• Short Film (Animated)
• Short Film (Live Action)
• Sound
• Visual Effects
• Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
• Writing (Original Screenplay)

The nominee ceremony has been pushed back again until the 23rd.

Might I suggest that we still start the Challenge on the 17th? That was the original date...

Or maybe a pre-challenge?

I'm a purist with this challenge, but I'm eager to get started!

I'd be good with that. I've been bad the past few years of overly focusing on the current years nominees and it'd be nice to have time where I have to work on older stuff.

I changed the start date to the 23rd since the fires are changing everything. If people want to do a pre-Challenge, I have zero problems with that. I'll still start the list thread today or tomorrow for the early birds.

The list thread is up for those who want to get a jump start on the proceedings. I would say, if you're going to do a "pre-challenge," start your lists on the original start date of the 17th, just to keep things even. For everyone else who likes to go from nomination announcement to winner announcement, hopefully we'll begin on the 23rd. I'm so glad I didn't put the dates in the thread title like I usually do or I'd be harassing some poor moderator to change the thread title already.

Thank you! We've done a pre-challenge before...I just forget why...

But, yes, keeping that list seperately!

My Pre-Challenge has begun!!! Thursday can't come fast enough...

I'm planning to watch some of the probable nominees before the nomination announcements. My movie group watched Emilia Perez this evening, and I enjoyed it with a couple of caveats. I'm a sucker for melodrama and what I call "anti-musicals" - musicals that don't aim for accessibility and catchy tunes - so I was on the movie's wavelength for much of the runtime. I'm planning to see Sing SIng and The Substance in the next couple of days.

The fun and excitement officially begins tomorrow. Does anyone have any nomination predictions?

I need to see what all this hubbub is about with Emilia Pérez. Think I'll start the challenge there this year. Here we go!!!

Original post has been updated to include a link to the nominee list and to the list thread. Happy watching.

How To See The 2025 Oscar Nominees At Home Before The Big Night: 32/35


Feature Films:

Alien: Romulus (DVD/Blu/4K / Digital Rental / Purchase / Hulu)

Anora (Digital Rental / Purchase)

The Apprentice (DVD/Blu / Digital Rental / Purchase)

Better Man (Digital Rental / Purchase)

Black Box Diaries (Digital Rental / Purchase / Fubo / Paramount+ with Showtime)

The Brutalist (Digital Purchase)

A Complete Unknown (Digital Rental / Purchase)

Conclave (DVD/Blu/4K / Digital Rental / Purchase / Peacock)

A Different Man (Digital Rental / Purchase / Max)

Dune: Part Two (DVD/Blu/4K / Digital Rental / Purchase / Max / Netflix)

Elton John: Never Too Late (Disney+)

Emilia Pérez (Netflix)

Flow (Digital Rental / Purchase / Max)

The Girl With The Needle (Digital Rental / Purchase / Mubi (Free Trial!)

Gladiator II (Digital Rental / Purchase / Fubo / MGM+ / Paramount+)

Inside Out 2 (DVD/Blu/4K / Digital Rental / Purchase / Disney+)

Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes (DVD/Blu/4K / Digital Rental / Purchase / Hulu)

Maria (Netflix)

Memoir Of A Snail (Digital Rental / Purchase / AMC+ / Sundance Now)

Nickel Boys (Digital Rental / Purchase / Fubo / MGM+)

Nosferatu (2024) (DVD/Blu/4K / Digital Rental / Purchase / Peacock)

A Real Pain (Blu / Digital Rental / Purchase / Hulu)

The Seed Of The Sacred Fig (Digital Rental / Purchase)

September 5 (DVD/Blu / Digital Rental / Purchase) / Fubo / Paramount+)

Sing Sing (Digital Rental / Purchase)

The Six Triple Eight (Netflix)

Soundtrack To A Coup D'Etat (DVD/Blu / Digital Rental / Purchase / Kanopy / Kino (Free Trial!)

The Substance (DVD/Blu/4K / Digital Rental / Purchase / Mubi (Free Trial!)

Sugarcane (Digital Rental / Purchase / Disney+ / Fubo / Hulu)

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (Netflix)

Wicked (DVD/Blu/4K / Digital Purchase)

The Wild Robot (DVD/Blu/4K / Digital Rental / Purchase / Peacock)


*************************************************************************************

Documentary Short Subject:

I Am Ready, Warden (Paramount+)

Incident:


Instruments Of A Beating Heart:


The Only Girl In The Orchestra: (Netflix)


*************************************************************************************

Animated Short Film:

Beautiful Men (Vimeo Digital Rental / Purchase)

In The Shadow Of The Cypress (Vimeo Digital Rental)

Wander To Wonder (Vimeo Digital Rental / Purchase)

Yuck! (Vimeo Digital Rental / Purchase)

*************************************************************************************

Live Action Short Film:

Anuja (Netflix)

A Lien:



I'm Not A Robot:


The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent (Vimeo Digital Rental)


*************************************************************************************

When we do this Challenge next year, I need you all to remind me NOT to watch the shorts without reading a synopsis first. Every year I watch them via the links Mao provides (thank you kindly) and every year I'm blindsided by a short that is about something I wasn't prepared for. Take the warnings on Incident seriously y'all. This happened previously with A Night at the Garden: wasn't prepared for a whole ass Nazi rally.

Drat! Live Action Short "The Last Ranger" was taken down...

But I've added a link to the rental/purchase of Animated Short "Wander To Wonder", as well as the Live Action Short "The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent"

You gotta watch em quick because they'll get yanked in a heartbeat

I watched Nickel Boys a couple days ago, and I've been mulling it over ever since. It's a very poetic, beautiful movie that manages to fuse its experimental form with a compelling story. It made me think of the last year's The Zone of Interest which also uses experimental filmmaking, not for the sake of the experiment, but to enhance the plot and themes of the story. I'm so glad when an experimental film get nominated for Best Picture.

I'm trying to see Nickel Boys and read the book it's based on. I watched Emilia Perez today and I did not enjoy it at all.

I haven't yet read the book, but it's on the "to read" pile of books on my nightstand.

I watched Emilia Perez with my movie group a few weeks ago, and I enjoyed it with several asterisks. I'm a fan of some modern operas so a lot of the melodrama and silliness worked for me. I've listened and read criticisms of the movie, and I agree with a lot of critiques of the portrayals of Mexico and trans identity. I thought the film was operating within an opera framework where the melodrama is so heightened that it has almost no real connect to our world so the weird (often tone deaf) portrayals didn't bother me. There were some stylistic choice that made me cringe (a constellation of faces on a black background, really?), but I liked some of the staging of the songs - obviously the banquet scene is the standout.

A great pairing is September 5 and One Day in September (1999), which won for Best Documentary Feature in 2000. It's pretty graphic though, so tread carefully.

Made some "Weekend Update"s to the How To See The 2025 Oscar Nominees At Home Before The Big Night post above...

Too late for the challenge, but Anora will be released by Criterion on April 29th, for those that are interested.

Added a link to TCM's 31 Days of Oscar schedule.

Other than Memoir of a Snail, which I saw at a festival in the fall, I blew through all the animation features for 2025. Despite my love for stop-motion, Flow blew me away! Basically the same message as The Wild Robot but able to make its point without a single word of dialog! The amazing animation had me mesmerized as well. This is an extremely strong contender in ANOTHER year of very strong candidates!

Loved "The Wild Robot"...but "Flow" was amazing!! Looking forward to it's physical release soon...