Ranking the 2025 Oscar Clips
Tuesday, March 17, 2026 at 12:28PM By Ben Miller
It's been a few years, but we are finally back! The Oscars brought back acting clips for the Oscars and I'm here to rank them from 20 to 1. Let's get to it!
What Are We Doing?
"If there's a straight line, you've got a problem."
20. Sean Penn, One Battle After Another
19. Michael B. Jordan, Sinners
18. Amy Madigan, Weapons
Out of the four Oscar winners, three had downright awful clips. This isn't a situation with bad winners having nothing to give, but Jordan, Penn, and Madigan all had much more scenery to chew on that these nothing scenes. Madigan probably had the hardest role to clip out, but there is zero excuse for Jordan and Penn.
Not Really the Vibe
" I want a home. "
17. Elle Fanning, Sentimental Value
16. Stellan Skarsgård, Sentimental Value
15. Delroy Lindo, Sinners
14. Ethan Hawke, Blue Moon
I'm a big fan of all four of these performances, but I have no idea what the clip editor was doing. With Fanning and Skarsgard, they both went with big emotional scenes, but Fanning is actually acting in the clip, while Skarsgård has his few outburst of English. That's not encompassing of their performances. Lindo is in the same boat, with a throwaway line that does nothing to showcase his character. Hawke's clip would be better, if you could have heard what he was even saying. They chose the most whisper-quiet scene in the whole film.
Big and Bold
"Thank you, sensei."
13. Leonardo DiCarpio, One Battle After Another
12. Kate Hudson, Song Sung Blue
11. Jacob Elordi, Frankenstein
All three are examples of performances that had better clips but also aren't necessarily poor ones, just obvious. DiCaprio is the most disappointing, as he had a thousand clips that would have worked better. Hudson has very little to do in her clip besides an painfully obvious line, while Elordi suffers the same fate as Hawke, barely able to hear him on the broadcast.
Pretty Solid
"I will not settle down right now, okay?"
10. Timothee Chalamet, Marty Supreme
9. Renate Reinsve, Sentimental Value
8. Wunmi Mosaku, Sinners
For all the pre-ceremony talk about Chalamet, that is a clip-centric performance. Most anything Marty said was loud, brash, and encapsulates his performance. Reinsve is almost the opposite, with her clip providing one of the few outbursts for her character. Mosaku's clip was pretty good with context, but on it's own, she had better options. Can't complain much about these.
Almost There
"This can't be it!"
7. Rose Byrne, If I Had Legs, I'd Kick You
6. Jessie Buckley, Hamnet
5. Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Sentimental Value
Byrne's performance is the embodiment of exasperation, and her big speech about motherhood is indicitive of the performance as a whole. Buckley is a bit understated for what she gives in Hamnet, but her clip is a good measure of her restraint at times. Lilleaas has one of her best moments, and is thankfully subtitled.
Nailed it
"But you actually got away with it, you sick ape!"
4. Emma Stone, Bugonia
3. Teyana Taylor, One Battle After Another
2. Wagner Moura, The Secret Agent
Stone somehow always has good clips. It's impressive how she always manages it. This one was no different, and it's a perfect mask slip in her performance. Taylor's "crumbling male ego" is a great soundbite and represents her character's recklessness and justification. I was worried about Moura's clip, but that is the PERFECT scene for his simmering righteousness. It would have been the winner, if not for...
Perfection
- "I've had a few."
- "A few what?"
- "A few small beers"
1. Benicio del Toro, One Battle After Another
As fun as del Toro is having in his performance, we all knew this was coming, and we all agreed it was the correct decision. 10/10, no notes. Congrats to del Toro, who joins Lesley Manville, the ladies from The Favourite.
Reader Comments (6)
Had just finished timing them for an article on this same topic, but you beat me to it. For trivia's sake, here's how they rank by the amount of time the Oscar ceremony gave each of the performances:
1. DICAPRIO – 15.27
2. MADIGAN – 13.61
3. PENN – 12.43
4. ELORDI – 12.10
5. STONE – 11.96
6. DEL TORO – 11.46
7. REINSVE – 11.10
8. MOURA – 11.18
9. TAYLOR – 10.55
10. MOSAKU – 09.44
11. JORDAN – 08.80
12. HUDSON – 08.74
13. FANNING – 08.16
14. BUCKLEY – 08.05
15. LILLEEAS – 07.60
16. LINDO – 07.52
17. HAWKE – 07.33
18. BYRNE – 06.84
19. CHALAMET – 05.96
20. SKARSGÅRD – 05.90
In general, we have very different readings on some of these, though we agree on #1. I'd honestly put Moura and DiCaprio on basically the same level, though I prefer the latter for being the only clip to truly showcase an actor's physicality. Not a fan of when they pick an out-of-context outburst that does very little to represent the performance, so I was quite disappointed with their Lilleaas pick. Indeed, it's odd that both daughters in SENTIMENTAL VALUE get their most direct and angry scenes of rebuke to their father, while the patriarch has a clip completely disconnected from that conflict. Hell, with all the intercutting, I'd say Reinsve's clip is a better showcase for Skarsgård than his own selection!
On the opposite end of the spectrum, I really loved how they avoided demonstrative pyrotechnics, shouts, and tears for some of these, like Buckley, showing rare restraint on the show's producer's part. Love that, in some cases, they actually picked the performance's strongest scene. Chalamet, Taylor, maybe even Hawke. Moura is close, though I prefer the utterly un-Oscar-clip-able epilogue for him.
The most unexpected of the lot was probably Hudson, but I was rather delighted that they went for a moment, evidencing gallows humor. Sadly, I was pretty saddened that they went with one of Madigan's most outlandish moments as Gladys. I feel a lot of people keep dismissing the performance because they're only familiar with the red wig scenes. Her moment at the dinner table, threatening the kid seemed like such a perfect slamdunk pick for an Oscar clip.
I'd also like to say that Oscar clips have a very special place in my heart. I remember just starting to follow the awards and these snippets of scenes being my first impression of performances in films I hadn't seen. They were so tantalizing, beckoning me into a world of discovery. This was especially true when teen Cláudio started going down YouTube rabbit holes to see folks who had uploaded the entire presentation in any given category. Blethyn's clips had me obsessed with seeing her nominated performances, especially LITTLE VOICE, just so I could understand the context in which they appeared. And I clearly remember being shook by Kirkland's ANNA clip, which was a good indicator of how much I'd grow to love that performance once I finally got my hands on that underseen flick. I like to imagine a bunch of young cinephiles out there, who may not have seen most of the nominated movies but still watched the ceremony, being inspired to explore after some clip spiked their interest.
I felt the major problem with the clips was the briefness of them didn't allow them any room to breathe once the clapping and audience noise had subsided.
The best clip was Stone's,I love that sick ape line and of course Rose Byrne's,Buckley's cip was the only bit of her performance I liked
My favourite most memorable clips are Sissy Spacek smashing plates in 2001 and Marcia Gay Harden "You need "speech,back then In the dark ages I had to wait a whole year to see Pollock on an imported USA video cassette and I obsessed over her clip,playing it over and over on my taped Oscar broadcast
Agree that #1 was perfect and what we all expected.
As noted above, in the producers' decades-long, insufferable effort to make everything speed up in the show except the unfunny presenter bits, these clips seemed shorter than usual, gave no room to breathe in between them, and had no reaction shots from the stars after them. THIS IS THE POINT OF THE WHOLE SHOW -- TO GET FOLKS BACK HOME INTERESTED IN THE FILMS.
People seem to think this will be fixed when it moves to YouTube but I'm not sure why. There will still be a producer that wants everything to hurry up to get to the next presenter flop.
Madigan at the bottom?? Are you crazy1!!??? That clip perfectly showed off her loony physicality and line readings like nobody's business!!!
I thought it was pretty funny that Elle Fanning's Oscar clip was actually Rachel Kemp's "Oscar clip"