With the Baftas confirming this past weekend that the 2025 awards season is wide open and thoroughly competitive, attention has already turned to who could triumph at the Oscars.
With most awards split between Conclave and The Brutalist at the Baftas, with gained four each, many have been looking at one of those two to clinch the all-important best picture Oscar next weekend.
However, there’s still potential for a surge in support for Anora – whose leading lady Mikey Madison clinched best actress over Demi Moore for The Substance at the Baftas – as well as US-friendly Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown finally getting a showing.
It’s now less likely that former front-runner Emilia Pérez, with its record-breaking 13 nominations for a non-English language film, will blaze much of any kind of trail given the controversial movie’s most recent backlash against lead actress Karla Sofía Gascón and her past tweets.
But a curious fact relating to best actor nominee Ralph Fiennes may provide a strong clue as to which movie will be crowned best picture from the 10 listed nominees that include those mentioned above, plus Wicked, Dune: Part Two, I’m Still Here, Nickel Boys and The Substance.
For while Conclave lacks a best director nomination for Edward Berger (who claimed the Bafta), which normally somewhat hampers a film’s chances of being awarded the night’s top prize, it does still have a secret weapon in its star actor Fiennes.
The 62-year-old thespian is on his third Oscar nomination – and every time he has been nominated, the film in which he gives this performance duly wins best picture.
It first happened in 1994 for Schindler’s List, when he was nominated for his brutal turn as Nazi SS officer and war criminal Amon Göth in the supporting actor category, and the film won best picture alongside six other Oscars.
And then in 1997, romantic war drama The English Patient also won best picture among its haul of nine, while Harry Potter star Fiennes was nominated for – and lost – best actor.
So could this be Conclave’s – and finally Fiennes’ – year?
As was first pointed out by Variety too, another film the British actor has appeared in is also a best picture winner, thanks to The Hurt Locker’s triumph in 2010.
While Fiennes’ role was smaller in that film, and his performance unrecognised by the Academy, he is currently tied with 19 other performers as the only people to have three best picture winners on their CV, according to the publication.
However, if Conclave wins on March 2, Fiennes will become the first and only actor with credited roles in four Oscar-winning best picture films.
Conclave won best film, outstanding British film, best adapted screenplay and best editing at the Baftas, while The Brutalist clinched best director for Brady Corbet, best actor for Adrien Brody, best cinematography and best original score.
‘We live in a time of a crisis of democracy and institutions that are usually used to bring us together are used to pull us apart,’ Berger said in while accepting the outstanding British film award.
‘And sometimes it’s hard to keep the faith in that situation but that’s why we make movies and that’s why we made this movie.’
Conclave, based on the book by best-selling author Robert Harris, follows events in the Vatican after the pope dies of a heart attack, with the College of Cardinals gathering in seclusion for a papal conclave to choose the new pope.
Fiennes’ Cardinal Lawrence, who is the dean and therefore in charge of running the conclave, is then put to the test by political machinations on all sides as different factions jostle for their candidate to be elected.
The film also stars best supporting actress nominee Isabella Rossellini, Stanley Tucci and John Lithgow.
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