Oscars 2025: Wallace and Gromit lead the early red carpet arrivals as film looks set to be best hope for Brit win

Wallace And Gromit led the early red carpet arrivals at the 2025 Oscars at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood on Sunday night.

The film’s creators Richard Beek, Nick Park, and Merlin Crossingham posed with mini statues of the characters.

Hoping to be the best win amongst the British stars, Wallace & Gromit is up for six Oscars nomination with Vengeance Most Fowl, as it made the list for Best Animated Feature Film. 

The 70-minute long film premiered on Christmas Day and features the return of the iconic supervillain Feathers McGraw. 

Joining the cast on the carpet, Terri Seymour, 52, brought the glamour in a ruffled pink gown.

The actress, who plays Zsófia in the series, showcased her jaw-dropping physique in the figure-hugging gown. 

Kit Connor, 20, renowned for his role in Heartstopper, looked dapper on the red carpet in a black tuxedo. 

The Brutalist’s cinematographer Lol Crawley made his arrival alongside the series’ film producer Annie Marter.

Actress and filmmaker Emily Mortimer, 53, looked effortlessly chic in a black satin gown as she struck a pose on the carpet.

The Brutalist actress Raffey Cassidy, 23, looked out of this world in a one-shoulder gold gown, adorned with a dramatic tie detailing.

The 97th Academy Awards are honoring the best films of 2024, with the star-studded ceremony back for another year round.

Conan O’Brien, 61, is making his debut as Oscars host, after joking: ‘I only agreed to host so that I could get invited.’

This year’s ceremony has an unusually unsettled field in many of the most high-profile categories, including best picture and most of the acting categories.

Emilia Pérez leads the nominations this year with 13, including for best picture, actress (for Karla Sofía Gascón), supporting actress (for Zoe Saldaña), director (for Jacques Audiard), adapted screenplay and original song.

Gascón stars as the title character, a former Mexican drug lord who comes out as a transgender woman and fakes her own death in order to reinvent herself as a pro-social force, while Saldaña plays an ethically challenged lawyer who helps set up her new identity.

The Brutalist landed in second place with 10 nominations, including for best picture, director (for Brady Corbet), actor (for Adrien Brody), supporting actor (for Guy Pearce), supporting actress (for Felicity Jones), and original screenplay.

Brody stars as a Jewish Hungarian architect who immigrates to the US after surviving the Holocaust. The epic historical drama follows his character László Tóth’s attempts to realize his creative vision even as it conflicts with the petty desires of his wealthy benefactor (Pearce).

Wicked tied it for 10 nominations, including for best picture, actress (for Cynthia Erivo), and supporting actress (for Ariana Grande).

The blockbuster musical is an adaptation of only the first half of the musical of the same name, a reimagined prequel to The Wizard Of Oz starring Erivo as Elphaba, future Wicked Witch of the West, and Grande as Galinda Upland, who becomes Glinda the Good 

Other best pictures nominees include Anora, A Complete Unknown, Conclave, Dune: Part Two, I’m Still Here, Nickel Boys and The Substance. 

The closely watched race for best actor in a leading role got a major shakeup just a week before the Oscars at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, when Timothée Chalamet scored a shock win for his Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown. 

Prior to that win, Brody was seemingly the favorite after winning best actor awards at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards, the BAFTAs, the Golden Globes and the Critics Choice Movie Awards.

Ralph Fiennes has also doggedly stayed in the running for his role as a British Cardinal struggling to keep a secretive papal election from dissolving into competition and intrigue. 

The critically acclaimed film has scored multiple actor wins at smaller ceremonies and festivals for Fiennes, as well as multiple awards for the entire acting ensemble, which Fiennes has accepted on more than one occasion. 

Those three co-frontrunners are competing against Colman Domingo for Sing Sing and Sebastian Stan for his performance as a young Donald Trump in The Apprentice.

The best actress category also has no clear frontrunner. Demi Moore has been lauded for her comeback performance in the satirical body-horror film The Substance, which earned her best actress honors from the Critics Choice Awards and the Golden Globes, as well as several critics’ organizations. 

But her win a week before the Oscars at the SAG Awards suggests she may be in a prime spot to snatch the Oscar after being nominated for the first time. 

Anora star Mikey Madison, who plays an adult dancer who impetuously marries the son of a Russian Oligarch, was widely acclaimed and was honored by several critics’ organizations early in the season. 

Her chances increased significantly after she won the BAFTA for best lead actress, which she followed up with an Independent Spirit Award win in the gender-neutral lead performance category. 

Emilia Pérez star Karla Sofía Gascón was once a favorite for the award, but she was widely criticized after racist and Islamophobic tweets — some quite recent — that had somehow gone unremarked upon were translated into English and reported on.

Since then, Gascón has sat out awards ceremonies after her posts came to light. After multiple half-hearted apologies, Netflix reportedly opted to stop paying for Gascón’s travel and accommodations for awards shows, though a source told People that she still plans to attend the Oscars.

Before the controversy, her nomination was seen as historic, as she is the first openly transgender woman to be nominated in the best actress category. 

The other nominees are Wicked star Cynthia Erivo, who has failed to capture any major awards, and the Brazilian actress Fernanda Torres, who stars in the historical drama I’m Still Here. She had her own controversy after a clip of her appearing in blackface in a comedy sketch from a Brazilian TV series 17 years ago resurfaced in January.

In the supporting actress category, the nominees including Monica Barbaro for A Complete Unknown, Ariana Grande for Wicked, Felicity Jones for The Brutalist, Isabella Rossellini for Conclave and Zoe Saldaña for Emilia Pérez 

Saldaña appears to be the current favorite after a string of wins at the Golden Globes, BAFTA Awards, SAG Awards and Critics Choice Awards.

But some of those early awards had voting periods that cut off prior to the controversy around Gascón surfacing, which could potentially harm her chances from voters who were turned off of Emilia Pérez altogether.

The supporting actor category seems the easiest to predict, Kieran Culkin’s string of wins for A Real Pain making him the favorite. 

The other nominees include Yura Borisov for Anora, Edward Norton for A Complete Unknown, Guy Pearce for The Brutalist and Jeremy Strong for The Apprentice. 

Among the best picture nominees, Emilia Pérez once seemed like the most likely winner, but Gascon’s offensive posts have threatened its chances.

The Palme d’Or–winning Anora got a late boost with wins for best picture at the Directors Guild of America Awards and the Producers Guild of America Awards, which are considered two of the best predictors of Oscars success by awards-season prognosticators, and its win at the Independent Spirit Awards didn’t hurt.

The best director category seems likely to be a three-man race between Anora’s Sean Baker, The Brutalist director Brady Corbet and Emilia Pérez’s Jacques Audiard. 

This year’s original song category features two cutes from Emilia Pérez, El Mal and Mi Camino, the new Elton John song Never Too Late, from the documentary of the same name about him, Like a Bird from Sing Sing, and the latest Diane Warren effort The Journey.

The Academy Awards begin at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT and can be watched on ABC and, for the first time, on a streaming service, Hulu.

Subscribers to premium services including Hulu + Live TV, YouTube TV, AT&T TV and FuboTV can also also catch the ceremony live.