2025 Oscars: Best Sound Predictions

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Nominations voting is from January 8-12, 2025, with official Oscar nominations announced January 17, 2025. Final voting is February 11-18, 2025. And finally, the 97th Oscars telecast will be broadcast on Sunday, March 2, and air live on ABC at 7 p.m. ET/ 4 p.m. PT. We update our picks throughout awards season, so keep checking IndieWire for all our 2025 Oscar predictions.

The State of the Race

The Best Sound Oscar shortlist from December 17 includes “Alien: Romulus,” “Blitz,” “A Complete Unknown,” “Deadpool & Wolverine,” “Dune: Part Two,” “Emilia Pérez,” “Gladiator II,” “Joker: Folie à Deux,” ““Wicked” and “The Wild Robot.”

'Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,' 20th Century Studios

The Most Horrible X-Mas Ever," "Last Christmas," and "Trancers"

The list leans heavily toward musicals (“Wicked,” “Emilia Pérez,” “A Complete Unknown,” “Joker: Folie à Deux”), and even “Blitz” has musical performances amidst the aerial bombing destruction. Then there’s the sci-fi action of “Dune: Part Two,” “Alien: Romulus,” and “The Wild Robot,” the superhero antics of “Deadpool & Wolverine, and the wild Colosseum battles in “Gladiator II.”

The anticipated favorites are “Wicked” (Universal), “A Complete Unknown” (Searchlight Pictures), “Dune: Part Two” (Warner Bros.), “Gladiator II” (Paramount), and “Emilia Pérez” (Netflix).

In “Wicked,” Jon M. Chu’s adaptation of the Broadway musical by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman, we get the unlikely friendship between Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) and Galinda (Ariana Grande), who eventually become the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch. The sound team included supervising sound editor/sound designer/re-recording sound mixer John Marquis, supervising sound editor/sound designer Nancy Nugent-Title, Oscar-winning re-recording mixer Andy Nelson (“Les Miserables”), production sound mixer Simon Hayes, and supervising music editor Jack Dolman. The “Defying Gravity” climax is the centerpiece in which Alphaba flies away on her broomstick. Throughout the film, all of the solo musical performances were recorded live on-set (allowing dialogue delivery to develop naturally into song). But for this sequence, Erivo sang while flying on wires with silent wind focused on her cape.

“A Complete Unknown,” James Mangold’s Bob Dylan biopic starring Timothée Chalamet, chronicles the folk star’s rise in New York’s West Village in 1961 to the controversial 1965 Newport Folk Festival, where he turned electric. The sound team handling the musical performances was led by Oscar-winning supervising sound editor Donald Sylvester (“Ford v Ferrari”), re-recording sound mixer Paul Massey and production mixer Tod A. Maitland. The many musical performances (in clubs, at the Newport Folk Festival, in recording studios) were done primarily live on-set, at the insistence of Chalamet, who spent five years preparing for the part. The 22-minute Newport segment was shot from beginning to end with 20 mics.

Macall Polay / © Searchlight Pictures /Courtesy Everett Collection

In “Dune: Part Two,” Oscar-winning supervising sound editor/sound designer Richard King (“Dunkirk,” “Inception”) reunited with re-recording mixers Ron Bartlett and Doug Hemphill and worked with director Denis Villeneuve for the first time. “Dune” won the sound Oscar, but the sequel was more action-driven with lots of battles on Arrakis, as well as the noise of Harkonnen crowds during the gladiator fights on Giedi Prime. Crucially, there were many sand recordings in the field and on the foley stage, the most interesting of which were low-end groans. Plus, the sandworms were much more prominent and required more movement sounds in the sequel.

“Gladiator II,” Ridley Scott’s sequel to his Oscar winner, takes place two decades later as the Roman Empire continues to implode. It concerns Lucius (Paul Mescal), the former heir to the Empire, forced to enter the Colosseum as a ruthless gladiator in what becomes a political power play engineered by former slave-turned-merchant Macrinus (Denzel Washington). Handling the action-packed sound design were supervising sound editor/re-recording mixer Matthew Collinge, supervising sound editor Danny Sheehan, and Oscar-winning re-recording mixer Paul Massey (“Bohemian Rhapsody”). The highlights include designing battle sounds like an orchestra, creating sounds of a Rhino and baboons, recording customized arrows, and delivering the immerse crowds at the Colosseum.

“Emilia Pérez,” the musical crime thriller from Jacques Audiard, stars Zoe Saldaña as a lawyer who assists the titular Mexican cartel leader (Karla Sofía Gascón) in undergoing gender confirmation surgery. Shot on stages in Paris to emulate Mexico City, the director audaciously offers an operatic fever dream about the hope of a new life through song and dance. The musical sequences were live and pre-recorded and flowed naturally from dialogue to song in hybrid fashion. A standout is “El Alegato,” Saldaña’s opening protest number in the marketplace. Supervising sound editor Aymeric Devoldère handled the crucial musical numbers with re-recording sound mixer Cyril Holtzm, who created a new vocal tool to stylize and modulate Gascón’s singing performances.

Steve McQueen’s “Blitz” (Apple TV+) explores the harrowing German aerial assault on London during World War II, focusing on the incredible journey of biracial youngster George (Elliott Heffernan) to make his way back home to East London after being evacuated to the countryside. Handling the myriad sounds of London during wartime, including the loud, destructive bombings and flooding of the train station, and the musical performances, is the sound team led by sound designer/supervising sound editor James Harrison and supervising sound editor/re-recording mixer Paul Cotterell.

Fede Álvarez’s “Alien: Romulus” (20th Century Studios), a standalone set between “Alien” and “Aliens,” concerns young colonists who encounter the parasitic Xenomorphs while scavenging a derelict space station. Led by supervising sound editors Lee Gilmore and Will Files (also re-recording mixer), and sound designer Chris Terhune, the focus was to recall the vibe of the first two films. A warbly tape effect was added to the entire mix, and they even repurposed tapes from “Alien” for space and ship sounds. The sounds of the Xenomorphs were created with the aid of rotting meat and seafood.

EMILIA PEREZ, Zoe Saldana, 2024. © Netflix /Courtesy Everett Collection

“The Wild Robot” (DreamWorks/Universal), directed by Chris Sanders, is an animated sci-fi adventure that finds robot Roz (Lupita Nyong’o) washed ashore on an uninhabited island, who must adapt and live among the animals. The sound team had the organic sounds of Roz and the island (including a snowstorm), as well as the battle with Roz’s company. It was led by legendary sound designer Randy Thom (director of sound design at Skywalker Sound), supervising sound editor Brian Chumney, and supervising sound editor/re-recording mixer Leff Lefferts.

Shawn Levy’s “Deadpool & Wolverine” (Marvel/Disney) reunites Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool and Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine for the first time as part of the R-rated “Deadpool” franchise within the MCU. The soundscape for the music-driven fights was led by supervising sound editors Craig Henighan (also re-recording mixer of effects) and Ryan Cole, re-recording mixer Lora Hirschberg, and sound designer Eric A. Norris. The highlights include the Void, weapon sounds for the katana swords (made of adamantium) and claws, and recording lots of loop group for the “100 Deadpools” fight.

“Joker: Folie à Deux” (Warner Bros.), Todd Phillips’ musical thriller, picks up with Arthur/Joker (Joaquin Phoenix) facing the death penalty for multiple murders and striking up a delusional romance with Lady Gaga’s Harley Quinn while incarcerated in Arkham Asylum. Here the sound team expanded on the deluded reality and musical aspects of “Joker” with the intimacy and spectacle of live on-set musical performances by the two leads. It opens with the wide expanse of the prison hallway and gets more dynamic and immersive from there. The soundscape was led by Oscar-winning sound designer/supervising sound editor Ethan Van der Ryn (“King Kong,” “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers”), sound designer/supervising sound editor Erik Aadahl, and re-recording mixers Tom Ozanich and Dean Zupancic.

Potential nominees are listed in alphabetical order; no film will be deemed a frontrunner until we have seen it.