Though the year isn’t over yet, 2025 has been a very good year for Oscar contenders. Although the 98th Academy Awards is still slated for March 16 of next year, that doesn’t mean that Oscar voters, critics, and audiences alike have been shy about predicting which films and performances are guaranteed to win the race. And now, Philippine audiences have the delightful opportunity to witness some of these competing films on the silver screen.
While this list is in no way comprehensive of all the potential Oscar contenders coming to Philippine cinemas, it does highlight several of the most talked-about titles from Hollywood. For your viewing pleasure, here are some of the stand-out movies to watch to help you get a head start on this year’s Oscar buzz.
‘One Battle After Another’
Currently in Philippine cinemas
Don’t be fooled: beneath its dark, anarchist, guns ablazing persona, Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another is a comedy through and through. In the director’s 10th addition to his impressive filmography, Leonardo DiCaprio plays Bob Ferguson, an ex-revolutionary-turned-stoner-dad doing his best to protect his daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti) from military man Colonel Lockjaw (Sean Penn) pursuing and persecuting them. Variety recently predicted One Battle After Another to be a major Oscar contender, potentially racking up to 14 nominations.
‘No Other Choice’
Special preview currently in IMAX Cinemas. In Philippine cinemas on October 29
How far would you go to not be unemployed? That is the question Park Chan-Wook (Oldboy, The Handmaiden) aims to answer in his latest dark thriller-comedy. No Other Choice centers around You Man-Soo (Lee Byung-hun), a paper industry expert who is unceremoniously laid off from his job after 25 years of loyal service. In a last-ditch effort to get back into the paper game, Mr. You decides that his only option is to kill off his competition, one by one. The Korean Film Council selected No Other Choice as South Korea’s submission for best international feature at the 98th Academy Awards.
‘Bugonia’
In Philippine cinemas on November 5
Any collab project between director Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone is guaranteed to be a good, albeit strange, time (ahem, Poor Things, The Favourite, and Kinds of Kindness). The same can be said for Bugonia, in which Stone plays the cold, high-powered CEO of a major company who gets kidnapped by two conspiracy theorists (Jesse Plemons and Aidan Delbis), who think that Stone’s an alien intent on destroying the planet. Although Lanthimos, Stone, and Plemons have all repeatedly basked in the Oscar limelight, as Vulture writes, “the question is whether audiences (and voters) will be receptive to whatever outré warping of reality [Lanthimos] is up to this time.”
‘Die, My Love’
In Philippine cinemas on November 5
In director Lynne Ramsay’s latest drama, Robert Pattinson and Jennifer Lawrence get messy as a couple trapped in what TIME described as a “postpartum fever dream.” Grace (Lawrence) is a writer and young mother slowly losing her sanity, locked away in a secluded house in Montana. Jackson (Pattinson) can do nothing except watch her and join the ride. Lawrence gives such a compelling performance that it demands, as Vanity Fair wrote, “instant Oscar attention.”
‘Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere’
An Ayala Malls exclusive. In Philippine cinemas November 12
Yes, Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen can sing. Directed by Scott Cooper, Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere chronicles the making of Bruce Springsteen’s 1982 “Nebraska” album when he was a young musician on the cusp of global superstardom, struggling to reconcile the pressures of success with the ghosts of his past.
‘Hamnet’
QCinema screenings starting November 14
Hamnet follows the William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) and his relationship with his wife Agnes (Jesse Buckley). Directed by Chloé Zhao, the lush, dreamy drama explores how the couple find themselves again after the death of their son Hamnet, which goes on to become The Bard’s inspiration to write his famous play, Hamlet. “If you were to write the perfect recipe for a potential best picture nominee, the ingredients would broadly resemble Hamnet,” wrote the BBC.
Oscars International Feature Film Contenders
QCinema screenings starting November 14
This year’s QCinema lineup sees several international feature films that also serve as the official submissions from their respective countries to the Academy Awards for Best International Feature. These include the Thai supernatural dark comedy A Useful Ghost, the Chilean mining town drama The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo, and the Iraqi tragedy centered on a nine-year old child tasked with baking the main event for the president’s birthday, The President’s Cake. The lineup also features the chilling docudrama, The Voice of Hind Rajab, which is Tunisia’s official entry at the Oscars and the Ukrainian documentary 2000 Meters to Andriivka.
