The Films of 2025. The 26th annual FiLM BiTCH Awards
PICTURE | ACTING | VISUALS | AURALS | EXTRAS | SPECIAL | SCENES
nominees and medals in every category announced
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Best Actress
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Jessie Buckley |
Jodie Foster |
Kate Hudson |
Renate Reinsve |
Emma Stone |
 Preternaturally compelling as a 16th century iconoclast who bends beautifully to marriage and motherhood. Buckley makes Agnes' grief and attraction enormously visceral. Bonus points for the fine detailing of Agnes country limitations as she struggles to open herself up to and understand her husband's art. |
Perfection (in French no less!) as a prickly therapist unnerved by a patient's death. Foster is clearly having a ball here, tossing the audience multiple ideas about this woman and her romantic and professional history. So wonderful to have her back. | A dazzling star turn from mundane origins and an ordinary woman holds tight to a reneweed dream and her new love. She's so good that the tragic (but true) story beats feel superfluous -- you'd care regardless. It's like Claire and Kate are both finally coming back to life by sharing their talent with audiences. |  Sensationally alive in her pre-show freakouts and frustratingly cold to family harmony, Reinsve fascinatingly connects the daughter to the actress; neither are okay. Reinsve remains truly gifted at diving into complex women who haven't worked through a destabilizing identity crises. (See also Armand, and Worst Person...) |
 So good at playing multiple angles, whether that's part of the scene (like Michelle perpetually shifting tactics in search of an escape route), or an element of the larger narrative game. A funny and smart characterization that also doubles as a brilliant parody of C suite inhumanity. |
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Finalist: Amanda Seyfried is rivetingly self-possessed but curiously unknowable as "Ann Lee" in The Testament of Ann Lee, and Rose Byrne tears into "Linda"s misery and exhaustion with conviction in the claustrophic If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, Semi-Finalists: Jennifer Lawrence shows fascinating committment to feral mental health problems as "Grace" in Die My Love, Tessa Thompson is disturbingly restless and reckless as bored underchallenged "Hedda Gabbler" in Hedda, Andrea Braein Hovig is gorgeously curious and receptive to new ideas as "Mariane" in Love, Ariana Grande deepens her "Glinda the Good" characterization in Wicked For Good, and Margaret Qualley is deliciously dry as sexually adventurous lesbian detective "Honey O'Donaghue in Honey Don't!... by movie's end I needed multiple quick and dirty sequels. |
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Best Actor
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Timothée Chalamet |
Lee Byung-hun |
Wagner Moura |
Dylan O'Brien |
Stellan Skarsgård |
| Chalamet's cockiness as a movie star is not unearned; He's on fire here especially when he's embracing the most repugnant traits of this self-mythologizing maddening manboy. |
A star turn of tonal range, physical comedy, and real feeling. He makes Man Soo's downward spiral sad, pathetic, hilarious... and deliciously and weirdly inevitable. |
Magnetic and thoughtful especially in the way he never leans into the anger or fear (both ever present), but tilts away casually; just a good man living under infuriating circumstances. Bonus point for nailing the tricky epilogue | Moving as dull inexpresive Rocky who is in mourning. But the performance truly unlocks when you meet his late twin, gay extroverted Roman. O'Brien draws you a map of the exact pain points in the gulf between them. |
How can he convey so much while doing so little? Funnily obtuse (those dvds!), maddeningly entitled, and utterly believable as both as a once important auteur and a terrible dad. He wants the former back and to correct the latter... but not, alas, in equal measure. |
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Finalists: Leonardo DiCaprio plays "Bob" with a wonderful mix of physical humor and hazy thought processes in One Battle After Another, Channing Tatum dazzles with an incongruous mix of strategic smarts and impulse control problems as Jeffrey Manchester in Roofman Semi Finalists:Paul Mescal is gorgeously possessed by love, grief and creativity "William Shakespeare" in Hamnet; Jan Gunner Roiser sucks you into his gradual existential confusion as "Feier" in Sex - he really hadn't thought any of this through; Robert Pattinson is funny and intentionally half-formed as a series of clones in the year's most underappreciated star turn; Jacob Elordi gives a star turn of fascinating physicality and inner growth as "the creature" in Frankenstein, and Harry Melling expertly guides you through "Colin"'s sexual and emotional awakening in Pillion. Honestly such a strong year for leading actors (generally much slimmer "brilliance" to choose from than Best Actress - though not this year at all!) as I had to leave out other performances I respected a great deal. (I often feel like I'm stretching in this category to name a top twelve.) |
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Zoey Deutch |
Kirsten Dunst |
Nina Hoss |
Amy Madigan |
Teyana Taylor |
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Winning and appropriately charismatic as "Jean Seberg", a restless movie star having a strange career moment (which she alternately resists and playfully accepts)... all in Seberg's bad French. |
This actress! Dunst doesn't even need a heightened character to work magic. Give her an ordinary woman and she'll still create pure magic with character insight, unfussy humanity, and gorgeous connection to co-stars. |
Riveting in her intelligent swagger but emotionally vulnerable enough to make you fear for her sanity. The anger, self-doubt, and despair from external (sexism) and internal (addiction) limitations keep bubbling up. |
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Finalists: Inga Ibsdottir Lilleas is quite moving as a caught-in-the-middle daughter and mother "Agnes Borg Petterson" in Sentimental Value, Youn Yu Jun is once again supporting perfection as sharply perceptive "Ja-Young" in The Wedding Banquet, and Gwyneth Paltrow aces, hell, elevates the meta-ness of her casting as a once-famous actress who maybe regrets giving it up. Semi-Finalists: Elle Fanning deftly handles the tricky role of "Rachel Kemp", a good actress who is nevertheless wrong for the part she's cast in; Tania Mora is authentic and memorable as "Dona Sebastian", a den mother of political refugees in The Secret Agent, Lesley Sharp is sharply protective and fearless as "Peggy" Colin's sick mother in Pillion, and, finally, Wunmi Mosaku brings fierce resilience, erotic charge, and spirituality to anchor Sinners to earth. PLEASE NOTE: We also have a "limited role" category for actors with two scenes or less... |
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Best Supporting Actor |
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Benicio Del Toro |
Jacobi Jupe |
Sean Penn |
Lewis Pullman |
Andrew Scott |
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The tragedy of his passing wouldn't have been half as effective without his open-hearted and effortless work as a devoted brother and eager daddy's boy. And he can sell a death scene, too.
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Penn remains one of the greatest, in a highwire act of almost cartoonish embodiment of toxic masculinity and racism. Nevertheless he's human-sized enough to be fully recognizable. |
Consistently funny and surprising as a confused blank slate who is much more than he at first appears, You have to buy the innocence and also suspect him. (Bonus points: Just right in The Testament of Ann Lee) |
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Finalists: Ricardo Teodoro is fully three dimensional and sexually charged as the aging hustler "Ronaldo" in Baby, Brando Huang is sympathetic and funny with adorably eager hesistancy as night-market neighbor "Johnny" in Left-Handed Girl Semi Finalists: Conan O' Brien is a dramatic surprise as "Linda's Therapist" in If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, Delroy Lindo knows just how to serve the vision of Sinners as local music legend "Delta Slim", Min Tanaka brings gravitas and piercing insight as "Onaga Mangiku, Living National Treasure" in Kokuho, Harish Patel is endearing as confused but loving patriarch "Archit" in A Nice Indian Boy, and Kayo Martin is chilling as cruel bully "Jake" in The Plague PLEASE NOTE: We also have a "limited role" category for actors with two scenes or less... |
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Best CastingThe related but not the same category "Best Ensemble" is on the "Extras" page. |
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HAMNET |
MARTY SUPREME |
NOUVELLE VAGUE |
THE SECRET AGENT |
WEAPONS |
| For the casting coup of the Jupe brothers, the soul-deep but sexually charged chemistry of the leads, and also the interesting lived-in family histories of its supporting cast. Every connection resonates. | Of the chaotic mosaic casts of '25, Venditti's achievement shines bright, immersing you in a highly specific insular world with amazing sideway flourishes (Paltrow, O'Leary, Kawaguchi) to the larger world surrounding it. |
How did they find so many doppelgangers that could also pull off the assignment of a disarmingly featherlight snapshot of a world-shaking artistic revolution. Deutch as Seberg? *chef's kiss* | So many truly memorable faces in a teeming ensemble who are all in tune with the odd tone, specificity of time period, and the frayed identities, found families, and moral bankruptcy of life under fascism. |
In the moment actors without feeling like an agency package, a child actor discovery, a smartly off-putting leading lady, and the stroke of genius to enlist Amy Madigan as Aunt Gladys' vessel. Brava. |
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Finalists: Francine Maisler for Sinners and Cassandra Kulukundis for One Battle After Another both doing right by their auteurs and populated these complex movies with very talented stars and interesting multi-tasking peripheral support. Semi Finalists: Yngvill Kolset Haga & Avy Kaufman for the 'only great actors allowed' minefields of Sentimental Value, Rebecca Dealy for finding so many very talented junior actors who could sell the psychological warfare of The Plague, Nadia Acimi, Luis Bértolo & Maria Rodrigo for those impressive novices in Sirat, Bonnie Timmerman for an eclectice winning mix of stars for Roofman , and Breanna Amodia, Judy Lee, and Maia Michaels for the central family unit and the hesistant romance of A Nice Indian Boy |
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The Films of 2025. The 26th annual FiLM BiTCH Awards
PICTURE | ACTING | VISUALS | AURALS | EXTRAS | SPECIAL | SCENES
2020s 2029 | 2028 | 2027 | 2026 | 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020
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