So with the 98^th Oscars upon us, a significant chunk of the nominated films I have either already written reviews for, Sinners, One Battle After Another, Hamnet, or they made it into my Best of 2025 list, Frankenstein, Marty Supreme, and Bugoina. So let’s examine the leftover nominees and some other categories and my Oscar bets (note: the payouts for Kpop Demon Hunters for Best Animated and Golden for Best Song are really bad but Alabama Solution for Best Documentary has a huge payout).

Best Live Action Short Film

Only one I have seen is Jane Austen’s Period Drama. It is available on YouTube (and even on the new Canadian streaming service ParrotTV underneath the category of 2026 Oscar Nominated), and is very funny and definitely worth a watch. There are a lot of Live Action Shorts that go for Profound in 40 minutes or less, but this is a brief bit of absurdity. A Victorian era woman gets her period while on a date with a suitor. He, as a dim Victorian era man who knows nothing about womanhood, proceeds to freak out that she’s bleeding. She then explains very patiently the mensural cycle, while he gets more confused and her family overhears, horrified that she is trying to explain it. It is basically one joke for a few minutes but, like all good comedy sketches, it gets more funny and absurd as it goes on. Definitely worth a watch, and it has a huge payout if it wins. Probably won’t but it has my vote!

Best Documentary Feature Film

The two I have seen, The Perfect Neighbor and The Alabama Solution, are both harrowing watches, with a common thread in both of how about Stand Your Ground laws, are really very awful and literally let people get away with murder. The Netflix doc, Perfect Neighbor, takes a localized view about an angry lady (the kids nicknamed her “Karen” like it’s her real name) who keeps calling the cops all the time about kids playing in the field beside her house. She lies about what is happening, and it gets worse and worse until one night she shoots the mother of one of the kids. She declares she was afraid and Stand Your Ground laws protect her but everyone doesn’t want to let her get away with murder. Put together entirely with security footage and police body cams, it takes the viewer along the various calls until that fateful night. Like a lot of Netflix docs, it feels a bit exploitive, but it does make one invested in the outcome as the shooter is clearly angry and something horrible happened, and there at least is some catharsis by the end.

Alabama Solution is the feel bad movie of the year. It follows the inmates in Alabama prisons and the horrible and inhumane conditions they face. Some inmates take it upon themselves to launch legal challenges, but get stuck in legal circles. The Department of Justice wants to take a look at Alabama prisons but the state of Alabama and department of corrections doesn’t want them to interfere. There is also a story about an inmate who was murdered by a guard and while it seems open and shut, the guard is defended by, unsurprisingly, a stand your ground law. Eventually the inmates decide to stage a non-violent work stoppage but the prisons literally starve them out. Unlike Perfect Neighbor, there is no catharsis or justice and the system just seems helplessly broken. As for betting payouts, Neighbor is in the lead but Alabama has a crazy big payout. It’s the better documentary, too.

Best Animated Feature Film

Personally speaking, the best Animated film of 2025 and #2 on my Best Of list is Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc. Unfortunately it wasn’t nominated, but one should really watch it. The nominated films are an interesting and eclectic bunch, showing the diversity of the animated medium. The frontrunner that has been winning all the animated awards (so much so that the betting payout is terrible) is the Netflix juggernaut Kpop Demon Hunters. While a strict anime film wasn’t nominated in 2025, Kpop has some definite anime touches in the visuals, like how the girls’ faces suddenly turn into anime style. Like the Spider-Verse films by Sony Pictures Animation, it is a lot of great flourishes. The story of the singer discovering her true self while falling for a demon singer is compelling, and the songs are all bangers, especially the gargantuan hit Golden. Zootopia 2 is a long awaited sequel to the first film. And it kind of sticks a bit too closely to the grooves of that first movie, Judy Hopps and her Fox friend get involved with a noir detective mystery, it is very fun, there’s some great twists, the voice cast is really energetic, and the animation pops. The other animated Disney film is Elio. It gets bonus points for being very frantic and crazy. The story of a boy who yearns to be abducted by aliens has some zany moments like Elio being replaced on Earth by a helpful but weird clone (at one point the clone says as he is being disposed to use him on a plant for “nitrous fertilizer”). There are more than a few Disney / Pixar clichés in here, the ugly alien turns out to be harmless and friendly, there’s a bonding climatic sacrifice that brings them together. But as just a weird, wacky move, Elio is quite entertaining.

The remaining two animated films are unique. Arco is a time travel adventure about a kid from the far future who accidentally gets sent back to the year 2075. This is rather harrowing for him as the year of 2075 is a literal garbage fire of an environmental disaster. Arco mentions in the far future his family lives in the sky (kinda like the Jetsons) because “the Earth has to rest”; that’s how terrible humanity has been. The move is a brisk as Arco meets a friend, gets chased by a mysterious crew, and tries to jump back to the future with his Technicolour Dreamcoat (no, really, his time travel device is a rainbow coat). When Arco eventually is reunited with his family, the twist hits hard. The other animated film, Little Amélie or the Character of Rain, is a strange film about a baby that spends years not talking until eventually is becomes very smart and very verbose. The kid also refers to themselves as God which just adds to the strange factor and they believe they understand and control everything around them. As a toddler living in Japan, the child has a caretaker who teaches them the character of rain, and she learns about culture clashes between her family and the locals. The animation is a bit basic but the emoting is great as the kid can convey volumes with just some few frames of eye movement. It is slow paced but heartfelt.

Best Picture

First off is F1, a zippy ride by Joseph Kosinski the director of Tron: Legacy and Top Gun: Maverick, that has some fantastic visceral scenes. Brad Pitt plays Sonny, aging F1 racer who decides to help his buddy, Ruben (Javier Bardem), who is the owner of the crummiest F1 team in the league. But when Sonny clashes with his young teammate and the pit crew it looks like they’re racing to the bottom, until they start winning. While the plot may be a bit standard sports drama of losers to winners, it is done with a lot of conviction and flair. There is a lot of racing technobabble that flew over my head, but the actors sell whenever things are important and intense. Definitely a widescreen cinematic experience. More low key is Sentimental Value. Yes, once again it is yet another movie about the transcendent value of art which at this point just screeches Oscar bait (and Hamnet did it better). But there are some great performances, like the daughters who have had a on again and off again relationship with their often absent filmmaker dad. Stellan Skarsgård plays the dad and with his usual intensity. And Elle Fanning as the actress not wanting to disappoint him seems very real (oddly, this Fanning movie along with Predator: Badlands has something to say about dealing with family and grief). Not the most visually striking film but one with some great moments, like the final scene of the film that the dad has been trying to make.

The Secret Agent is a sprawling film that can get a bit darkly wearying and the story is told in such a jumbled manner that it can be hard to follow in places. There’s a former professor who is trying to survive the military chaos of Brazil in the 1970s, with corrupt and deadly politicians and even a hit put out on him. There’s also a bit where people are laughing about a story about a killer severed leg which turns the movie into a body horror film for a few minutes. The whole of Secret Agent is actually flashbacks as two modern history students are listening to the audio tapes. It’s pretty weird but there is an emotional payoff final scene that sells the weight of history. Train Dreams is also a historical slice of life, this for a railroad worker/lumberjack who yearns for the simple domestic happiness with his wife and child. Unfortunately, while he is away they seemingly perish in a fire. Joel Edgerton as Robert conveys a lot with just some sparse glances and grunts, and emotional moments when he lets it all go. There’s also William H Macy as one of his coworkers who talks a lot, dispenses wisdom and then dies tragically on the job when the workmen are sawing down trees. There’s a couple of random moments of unexpected violence, like when one worker is accosted and tossed off a bridge, or another guy who is just shot down by a man visiting the work site. Life working on the rail and cutting down trees can often be confusing and harsh. Train Dreams is very good at small moments of grace, like at the end when Robert takes a plane ride and feels connected to the entire universe.

Finally, the Betting!

Going heavy on Sinners, as it was my #1 movie of the year, and Michael B Jordan’s dual performance has shot his odds up lately. The bets on Kpop are too easy and don’t pay off well a lot but some others do. Payout for the excellent score for Hamnet is huge. Also I’m pretty sure Conan is going to make a Heated Rivalry reference and The Bride! bombing. And betting on no crying at this Awards!