Manifold Takes the Oscars
It's too late to watch the films in theaters but not too late to trade on them
Warning: discusses movies from 2025, a few borderline spoilers but nothing egregious.
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GQ thinks 2025 was the best year for movies in a decade, and I’m inclined to agree. Despite the Best Picture award being a two-film race, there’s a deep bench of truly great films from last year in the Best Picture category.
While I’ve personally only seen about half of the best picture nominees, I spoke with Manifold user Ziddletwix, our community’s resident film expert. Ziddletwix has more profit in the “TV and Movies” category than the rest of the top 10 combined, and he also manages most of the Oscars markets on the platform this year.
The Big Awards
Ever since One Battle After Another came out (and despite losing about $100 million), it has been a heavy favorite for best picture. It has all the hallmarks of a winner:
High pedigree director who is “due” an Oscar (Paul Thomas Anderson).
Elite cast including both old favorites like Leo DiCaprio and Benicio del Toro, as well as a talented new actress in Chase Infiniti.
Politically relevant theme in a historical (-ish) American setting.
Intense action balanced with character development and emotional performances.
Despite all this, and despite sweeping most of the precursor awards leading up to the Oscars, it’s not a done deal. Sinners has dogged OBAA in the market for the last couple months. Sinners has the most nominations, indicating broad appeal across many of the professions that vote for the award, populist appeal, and recent momentum through its win at the Screen Actors Guild.
The other films have little hope, according to traders. My favorite film of the year, Sentimental Value, stands virtually no chance of winning, as it’s a Norwegian film about nothing much happening. Joachim Trier’s previous film about nothing much happening, Worst Person in the World, didn’t even get a best picture nomination, despite its leading actress winning in her category (edit: clearly humans can hallucinate too, not only did Reinsve not win Best Actress, but she wasn’t even nominated… she did win Best Actress at Cannes though). Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein stands little chance of earning him a second best picture win, after The Shape of Water surprisingly clinched the 2018 awards. Del Toro’s magnum opus from a decade prior, Pan’s Labyrinth, didn’t even receive a nomination. How fickle the Academy Awards voters can be. Marty Supreme, which earlier in the year was generating slightly more best picture buzz, has now fallen below 1%, despite this perhaps being the singleminded focus of Timothee Chalamet over the last year or so, if you believe certain media reports.
Chalamet, in fact, is no longer the favorite to even win Best Actor, after Michael B. Jordan’s performance as both twins in Sinners has surprisingly won some awards leading up to the Oscars. Chalamet was trading at 80% just a few weeks ago, but now looks to be fighting an uphill battle. Ziddletwix informed me that Jordan’s win at the Actor Awards (formerly SAG), has shifted the odds in his favor. While only a narrow subset of the SAG voters select the Best Actor at the Oscars, it’s the most informative precursor award. The actors are also a big voting block across the Academy, so conditional on Jordan winning Best Actor, the odds of Sinners jump up a bit to win Best Picture as well:
Leo DiCaprio had appeared to be mounting a strong campaign last year, but since 2026 started has not shown much life in the market. All three of these actors have something in common, in my estimation: all leaned into the cringe of their characters. Jordan’s role(s) received mixed criticism. Obviously as the betting market favorite to win best picture, he was great, but many described his performance as, well… “corny.” But that perhaps might not be a bad thing. Both Chalamet and DiCaprio also played corny characters. DiCaprio staggered around the film in a bathrobe and Chalamet was shameless not just within the frame, but in his method acting sideshow stunts off screen. Perhaps moviegoers are developing a taste for more authentic — read: cringeworthy — performances?
Or perhaps not:
Emma Stone, despite getting into all sorts of cringe, as well as physical trouble, in Greek auteur Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest hit, finds herself on the outs for Best Actress. Same with Reinsve, the 2022 winner (which did not happen, once again). Jessie Buckley, of the emotionally wrought Shakespeare biopic (that also might be a very dark horse in the Best Picture category), Hamnet, looks to have locked up her first Best Actress. Perhaps this is a factor of a favorable direct comparison, as she played alongside the less talented heartthrob Paul Mescal, who has not been nominated for an acting award this year.
The supporting categories, or perhaps the “villain” categories, are a little more open. The extremely villainous Sean Penn is edging out the only-slightly villainous Stellan Skarsgård in the actor category, with Amy Madigan, who was disturbingly villainous in indie horror flick, Weapons, a slight favorite in the actress category.
According to Ziddletwix, her lead is a bit of a surprise. Three horse races in the acting categories are also quite rare, and goofy, campy antagonists tend not to win Best Supporting Actress, but there’s always a first. Ziddletwix also told me that an interesting thing to note with the supporting acting categories is the increasing screen-time over the years. While someone used to be able to win the category with just a few minutes on-screen, the categories now reward longer performances that in the past might have snuck into the main acting categories.
Rounding out the awards that people tend to pay the most attention to is Best Director. Paul Thomas Anderson looks close to a lock to win the award, which would shockingly be his first Academy Award of any kind (and perhaps a motivator for voters).
The Other Categories
Rounding out the Oscars are the categories that only film nerds and true degenerate gamblers care about.
The screenplay awards will likely go to Sinners (original) and One Battle After Another (adapted).
KPop Demon Hunters will win Best Animated Feature (your kids are breathing a sigh of relief), and also best Original Song for ‘Golden’. I finally managed to get my girlfriend to stop humming ‘Golden’ after months of psychological torture, so I’m turning off the sound during this portion of the Oscars so that there’s no chance this gets incepted back into our household once again.
Frankenstein appears likely to sweep Production Design, Costume Design, and Makeup & Hairstyling.
Sinners looks likely to take Best Score (I’m shocked that it’s only at 91% odds, to be honest, it was a movie built around a score almost as much as a score built for a movie).
Sentimental Value is locked in a close race with The Secret Agent for Best International Feature, and It Was Just an Accident, maybe the best film to get snubbed for Best Picture, has an outside chance.
One Battle After Another is also the favorite for the Cinematography award and Best Editing, while F1, the likely runner-up in Best Editing, is favored in Best Sound. Lots of nice “vrooms,” perhaps?
The new category this year is Best Casting, and Sinners holds the edge here, with a few films in contention, somehow.
Finally, the abysmal (sorry) Avatar: Fire and Ash will take home Best Visual Effects.
As for the Shorts awards, traders aren’t that confident. Ziddletwix described them as hard to predict. There are no good precursor awards, no box office data, and no good rumor mill to glean insights from. But perhaps the market serves as a good proxy for which short you should watch if you only have time for one. In the Live Action category, that would be… Two People Exchanging Saliva, I guess.
2027
I cajoled Ziddletwix into making a Best Picture market for next year. So far, the “Other” category is a heavy favorite, despite a lot of rumored good films being added. It’s hard to predict the Best Picture a full year out, before most of the contenders have even come out with a trailer.
That being said, Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey and Joel Coen’s Jack of Spades lead early in the running, along with Romanian-Norwegian drama Fjord, Iñarritu comedy Digger, and the much-hyped sci-fi flick starring Ryan Gosling, Project Hail Mary.
Get your bets in now and happy forecasting!
-Above the Fold
Appreciate the writeup, but seeing this error a few times throughout the article: Renate Reinsve has never won an Oscar. She wasn't even nominated for The Worst Person in the World.