The highly anticipated nominations for the 2025 Oscars were released on Jan. 23, and LSU students are passionate about their favorite nominees.

The prestigious award show is hosting its 97th ceremony this year at Hollywood’s Dolby Theater. Many popular movies this year received nominations, such as “The Brutalist” and “Nickel Boys.”

The nominations for Best Picture, generally believed to be the most important award, has several impressive contenders this year. The announcement garnered both positive and negative opinions from students.

Junior Isabella Cerniglia, a business management major, had a hard time choosing just one winner.

“It’s between ‘Anora,’ ‘Wicked’ and ‘The Substance,’” she said. “I just have such strong emotions towards being a woman and girlhood.”

Body horror film “The Substance” is a strong contender among students for Best Picture.

“‘The Substance’ should win Best Picture, because it rocks and it’s gross and bloody and it’s awesome,” theatre performance junior Ricardo Mendoza said. “It is boundary pushing and had me jumping out of my seat in the theater.”

Another popular nominee for Best Picture is “Nickel Boys,” which film and television freshman DJ Flood feels strongly towards.

“There were so many details in the cinematography, the performances and the script that made it amazing,” Flood said. “It absolutely sucks you in, and when it’s done, you have to take a second to remember who you are and what else you have to do today.”

Several students believe that “The Brutalist” will end up winning the prestigious Best Picture award. Oreoluwa Onasanya, a recent alumni of LSU’s theatre program, shares this opinion, though he does not feel it is necessarily deserved.

“It’s basically how I felt about ‘Oppenheimer’ last year,” Onasanya explained. “One is just so good at being the great American epic that it ends up sweeping, even though something else is basically breaking the form and changing how you think of movies being made.”

“Emilia Pérez” dominates overall nominations with 13, which is just two nominations shy of being the most Oscar-nominated movie of all time. Several students are adamantly against the film’s nominations, some even calling them foul.

“I am shocked ‘Emilia Pérez’ has been propelled this far into award season,” Cerniglia said. “I think it really shows the extent favors and pulling strings can get you in Hollywood.”

Mendoza feels that the public’s dislike of “Emilia Pérez” is due to its divisive nature.

“It’s polarizing because both communities it sought to represent have turned on it,” Mendoza said. “Both Mexicans and the trans community are offended by it.”

Another nominee that some students were unhappy about is “Wicked,” which Flood called completely overhyped. Onasanya shares this opinion with Flood and stated that “Wicked” was his least favorite film this year.

“It’s one of those cases of them knowing it’s so loved that simply making it would make memories for people, whether or not any actual effort was put into it,” Onasanya said.

However, what caused the most uproar among students were the films snubbed from a nomination entirely. One such movie is “Challengers,” directed by Luca Guadagnino.

“‘Challengers’ was absolutely snubbed of best screenplay, best director, best cinematography and best original score,” Flood said.

Mendoza agreed that “Challengers” was snubbed, declaring that the snub will go down in history.

“That was my favorite movie last year,” he said. “Justice for everybody involved.”

Many actors and actresses were also snubbed from awards such as Best Actress in a Leading Role.

“I was distraught to find out [Nicole Kidman] didn’t get nominated for ‘Babygirl,’” Mendoza said.

“Jodie Comer not getting nominated for ‘Bikeriders’ isn’t surprising, but it’s by far the performance of the year,” Onasanya said.

Will students tune in to watch the ceremony? Cerniglia said definitely not.

“I feel over the years, The Academy has actively snubbed actors and projects that were more than deserving of an award,” she added. “To be actively excluded in order to highlight weaker performances in the industry is insane.”

The Oscars will take place on March 2 at 6 p.m.