<![CDATA[ A corrida aos Óscares: os nomeados, as histórias e as controvérsias ]]>

After successive postponements caused by the fires that ravaged California in January, the announcement of the nominations for the 2025 Oscars once again put some of the best and most important films released last year in the spotlight.

Similar ceremonies, such as the BAFTAs and the Golden Globes , have already given us some insight into the most likely candidates, but the Academy's nominees, which continue to hand out the most coveted awards in the film industry, will only be announced in the early hours of Sunday (2/3) into Monday. For now, here's everything we know about the nominees and potential winners, starting with the candidates for Best Picture.

Continuing its path of reaching out to the general public - which even included plans to introduce a new Oscar for Best Popular Film, which have since been abandoned - the Academy has recognized major productions that have been well-received by audiences. This is the case of Dune: Part Two , the second film in Denis Villeneuve's trilogy of adaptations of Frank Herbert's science fiction saga, nominated for five Oscars.

It is just one of the nominated films starring Timothée Chalamet, the other being A Complete Stranger , an exploration of Bob Dylan's troubled personal life and most celebrated period in his career. With Chalamet himself performing the songs as Dylan, it is nominated for eight awards, including Best Picture, Leading Actor and Actress, Supporting Actor and Adapted Screenplay.

With more authorial inclinations, the scale of The Brutalist is also grandiose, a revelation on the big stage of cinema by the young director Brady Corbet, 36, who, through the story of a Hungarian Jewish architect who survived the Holocaust, explores the relationship between the migrant experience and the American dream, to critical acclaim and an impressive 10 nominations at the ceremony, including Best Film, Leading Actor, Supporting Actor and Actress and Original Screenplay.

Two musicals have been recognised in this year's nominations: Wicked , the pop culture phenomenon that subverted expectations, garnering 10 nominations at these Oscars, and Emilia Pérez , the experimental film by French director Jacques Audiard that, with 13 nominations, but whose controversy seems to have reduced its chances of winning. After becoming the first trans actress to win an award at Cannes , Spanish actress Karla Sofía Gascón was removed from the campaign by the film's producer, Netflix, for past discriminatory tweets against ethnic minorities.

Other comments put her in direct confrontation with Fernanda Torres, this year's big sensation in the Portuguese-speaking world for her role as a housewife turned lawyer and political activist in Ainda Estou Aqui , a drama by Walter Salles that recovers traumatic memories of the Brazilian military dictatorship - dividing Brazil between those who fervently support it and those who defend the boycott of the film - and was nominated for Best Film, Best Foreign Film and Best Actress for Torres.

Another film that divided audiences, this time along religious lines, was Edward Berger's Conclave , a thriller set in the Vatican that uses the Pope's death as a pretext to discuss the direction of the Catholic faith in the face of turbulent ideological debates: defenders of the Church criticized it for its anti-clericalism, but the secular world admired it enough to make it one of the strongest contenders for Best Film and Best Actor (for Ralph Fiennes) at the Oscars, following the awards that preceded it .

Also tipped as a strong contender for Best Picture is Anora , Sean Baker's comedy-drama that won the prestigious Palme d'Or at Cannes and has garnered awards for its lead actress Mikey Madison, also nominated for Best Actress. The tale of a sex worker caught in a web of lust, power and influence is one of the most contemporary films at this year's ceremony.

Equally contemporary is The Substance , a shocking mix of horror and comedy by French director Coralie Fargeat that dissects substance addiction and the pressures on femininity in a context of patriarchal power - a film of strong emotions, which has made its protagonist, Demi Moore, favorite in the race for the Oscar for Best Actress.

It's not just the Best Picture nominees that deserve attention at this 97th Academy Awards ceremony: beneath the main category, there are great gems that we've been able to follow throughout the year. Such is the case of Sing Sing , a drama by Greg Kwedar about a group of inmates who put on plays in prison - played by real ex-convicts and which earned its lead actor, Colman Domingo, his second consecutive nomination for Best Actor, in addition to garnering recognition for Adapted Screenplay and Original Song.

Winner in practically all the ceremonies leading up to the Oscars, Kieran Culkin is the favorite to take home the statuette for Best Supporting Actor for his role in True Pain , written and directed by fellow actor Jesse Eisenberg, who is nominated for Original Screenplay for his story of two distant cousins ​​who reunite for a thematic tour about their Jewish heritage, rekindling old family conflicts.

Also nominated for Best Original Screenplay is The 5/11 Bombings , a German historical thriller that follows a Palestinian organization's attack on an Israeli motorcade during the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. Israeli-Palestinian tensions are also at stake in No Other Land , nominated for Best Documentary Feature, about the expulsion of the Palestinian people from their land.

The Best Animated Feature category also had a big year: in addition to the return of Wallace & Gromit in Vengeance Most Fowl and the rise of Latvia's Flow as the favorite (also nominated for Best International Feature), this year's top contenders include DreamWorks' Wild Robot , about the relationship between a robot and a baby goose, and Inside Out 2 , the box office smash about the personified emotions of a teenage girl in the making.