Wallace and Gromit wore sported bowties as they arrived at the 2025 Oscars at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood on Sunday evening.

The film’s creators Richard Beek, Nick Park, and Merlin Crossingham posed proudly with mini statues of the smartly dressed claymation characters on the star-studded red carpet.

The iconic duo’s movie Vengeance Most Fowl is nominated for Best Animated Feature looks set to be Britain’s best hope of a win.

The 70-minute long film premiered on Christmas Day and features the return of the iconic supervillain Feathers McGraw. 

The dastardly penguin also made the journey from the Aardman Animation’s Bristol base alongside robot gnome co-star Norbot. 

The 97th Academy Awards are honoring the best films of 2024, with the star-studded ceremony being held at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. 

Wallace and Gromit wore sported bowties as they arrived at the 2025 Oscars at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood on Sunday evening

The film’s creators (L-R) Richard Beek, Nick Park, and Merlin Crossingham posed proudly with mini statues of the smartly dressed claymation characters on the star-studded red carpet

Conan O’Brien, 61, is making his debut as Oscars host, after joking: ‘I only agreed to host so that I could get invited.’

This year’s ceremony has an unusually unsettled field in many of the most high-profile categories, including best picture and most of the acting categories.

Emilia Pérez leads the nominations this year with 13, including for best picture, actress (for Karla Sofía Gascón), supporting actress (for Zoe Saldaña), director (for Jacques Audiard), adapted screenplay and original song.

Gascón stars as the тιтle character, a former Mexican drug lord who comes out as a transgender woman and fakes her own death in order to reinvent herself as a pro-social force, while Saldaña plays an ethically challenged lawyer who helps set up her new idenтιтy.

The Brutalist landed in second place with 10 nominations, including for best picture, director (for Brady Corbet), actor (for Adrien Brody), supporting actor (for Guy Pearce), supporting actress (for Felicity Jones), and original screenplay.

Brody stars as a Jewish Hungarian architect who immigrates to the US after surviving the Holocaust. The epic historical drama follows his character László Tóth’s attempts to realize his creative vision even as it conflicts with the petty desires of his wealthy benefactor (Pearce).

Wicked tied it for 10 nominations, including for best picture, actress (for Cynthia Erivo), and supporting actress (for Ariana Grande).

The blockbuster musical is an adaptation of only the first half of the musical of the same name, a reimagined prequel to The Wizard Of Oz starring Erivo as Elphaba, future Wicked Witch of the West, and Grande as Galinda Upland, who becomes Glinda the Good 

The iconic duo’s movie Vengeance Most Fowl is nominated for Best Animated Feature looks set to be Britain’s best hope of a win

The dastardly villain Feathers McGraw (L) also made the journey from the Aardman Animation’s Bristol base alongside robot gnome co-star Norbot (R)

The 70-minute long film premiered on Christmas Day and features the return of the iconic supervillain 

Other best pictures nominees include Anora, A Complete Unknown, Conclave, Dune: Part Two, I’m Still Here, Nickel Boys and The Substance. 

The closely watched race for best actor in a leading role got a major shakeup just a week before the Oscars at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, when Timothée Chalamet scored a shock win for his Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown. 

Read More Oscars 2025: Wicked star Cynthia Erivo shocks in bold look as Felicity Jones and Amelia Dimoldenberg lead the British glamour on the red carpet

Prior to that win, Brody was seemingly the favorite after winning best actor awards at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards, the BAFTAs, the Golden Globes and the Critics Choice Movie Awards.

Ralph Fiennes has also doggedly stayed in the running for his role as a British Cardinal struggling to keep a secretive papal election from dissolving into compeтιтion and intrigue. 

The critically acclaimed film has scored multiple actor wins at smaller ceremonies and festivals for Fiennes, as well as multiple awards for the entire acting ensemble, which Fiennes has accepted on more than one occasion. 

Those three co-frontrunners are competing against Colman Domingo for Sing Sing and Sebastian Stan for his performance as a young Donald Trump in The Apprentice.

The best actress category also has no clear frontrunner. Demi Moore has been lauded for her comeback performance in the satirical body-horror film The Substance, which earned her best actress honors from the Critics Choice Awards and the Golden Globes, as well as several critics’ organizations. 

But her win a week before the Oscars at the SAG Awards suggests she may be in a prime spot to snatch the Oscar after being nominated for the first time. 

Emilia Pérez leads this year’s Oscar nominees with 13 nominations, including for best picture, actress (for Karla Sofía Gascón), supporting actress (for Zoe Saldaña) and director

The Brutalist landed in second place with 10 nominations, including for best picture, director (for Brady Corbet), actor (for Adrien Brody), supporting actor (for Guy Pearce), supporting actress (for Felicity Jones), and original screenplay

Conan O’Brien is hosting the ceremony, which is being held at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, for the first time; pictured Wednesday in Hollywood

Wicked tied it for 10 nominations, including for best picture, actress (for Cynthia Erivo), and supporting actress (for Ariana Grande) 

This year’s best lead actor race is up in the air after Timothée Chalamet’s recent SAG win for A Complete Unknown

Brody is also a favorite for The Brutalist, but Ralph Fiennes has gotten plenty of awards-season attention for the papal-selection drama Conclave

Anora star Mikey Madison, who plays an adult dancer who impetuously marries the son of a Russian Oligarch, was widely acclaimed and was honored by several critics’ organizations early in the season. 

Her chances increased significantly after she won the BAFTA for best lead actress, which she followed up with an Independent Spirit Award win in the gender-neutral lead performance category. 

Emilia Pérez star Karla Sofía Gascón was once a favorite for the award, but she was widely criticized after racist and Islamophobic tweets — some quite recent — that had somehow gone unremarked upon were translated into English and reported on.

Since then, Gascón has sat out awards ceremonies after her posts came to light. After multiple half-hearted apologies, Netflix reportedly opted to stop paying for Gascón’s travel and accommodations for awards shows, though a source told People that she still plans to attend the Oscars.

Before the controversy, her nomination was seen as historic, as she is the first openly transgender woman to be nominated in the best actress category. 

Anora’s Mikey Madison is a late-breaking best actress co-frontrunner after recent wins and controversy that erupted after offensive tweets from Emilia Pérez’s Karla Sofía Gascón resurfaced

Demi Moore is the other major frontrunner for the satirical body-horror film The Substance. She has won multiple major awards this season

The other nominees are Wicked star Cynthia Erivo, who has failed to capture any major awards, and the Brazilian actress Fernanda Torres, who stars in the historical drama I’m Still Here. She had her own controversy after a clip of her appearing in blackface in a comedy sketch from a Brazilian TV series 17 years ago resurfaced in January.

In the supporting actress category, the nominees including Monica Barbaro for A Complete Unknown, Ariana Grande for Wicked, Felicity Jones for The Brutalist, Isabella Rossellini for Conclave and Zoe Saldaña for Emilia Pérez 

Saldaña appears to be the current favorite after a string of wins at the Golden Globes, BAFTA Awards, SAG Awards and Critics Choice Awards.

But some of those early awards had voting periods that cut off prior to the controversy around Gascón surfacing, which could potentially harm her chances from voters who were turned off of Emilia Pérez altogether.

The supporting actor category seems the easiest to predict, Kieran Culkin’s string of wins for A Real Pain making him the favorite. 

The other nominees include Yura Borisov for Anora, Edward Norton for A Complete Unknown, Guy Pearce for The Brutalist and Jeremy Strong for The Apprentice. 

Among the best picture nominees, Emilia Pérez once seemed like the most likely winner, but Gascon’s offensive posts have threatened its chances.

The Palme d’Or–winning Anora got a late boost with wins for best picture at the Directors Guild of America Awards and the Producers Guild of America Awards, which are considered two of the best predictors of Oscars success by awards-season prognosticators, and its win at the Independent Spirit Awards didn’t hurt.

Saldaña appears to be the favorite in the supporting actress category after a string of wins

Kieran Culkin has dominated the supporting actor categories in recent weeks for Jesse Eisenberg’s drama A Real Pain

After Gascón’s offensive tweets surfaced, Emilia Pérez’s best picture frontrunner status seemed in question, and Anora has snatched up the top award at multiple ceremonies considered major predictors of the Oscars

The best director category seems likely to be a three-man race between Anora’s Sean Baker, The Brutalist director Brady Corbet and Emilia Pérez’s Jacques Audiard. 

This year’s original song category features two cutes from Emilia Pérez, El Mal and Mi Camino, the new Elton John song Never Too Late, from the documentary of the same name about him, Like a Bird from Sing Sing, and the latest Diane Warren effort The Journey.

The Academy Awards begin at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT and can be watched on ABC and, for the first time, on a streaming service, Hulu.

Subscribers to premium services including Hulu + Live TV, YouTube TV, AT&T TV and FuboTV can also also catch the ceremony live.