OKLAHOMA CITY – Each year, the Academy Award nominations for Best Picture feature a select few films (sometimes even just one) that fall firmly into the “genre” categories of horror, sci-fi, or fantasy, and each year, they tend to feel like welcome entries with almost no real shot at the big prize.
Of course, there have been the films that have broken that rule wide open: “The Return of the King,” “The Shape of Water,” and most recently “Everything, Everywhere, All at Once,” still the only straight-up science-fiction film to ever snag the Best Picture trophy.
But this year, it feels even more murky, with one of the season’s biggest contenders, Ryan Coogler’s vampiric social exploration “Sinners,” driving awards conversations despite its genre bonafides while the lineup’s other genre entries – Guillermo Del Toro’s epic “Frankenstein” and Yorgos Lanthimos’ paranoid “Bugonia” – both feeling once again relegated to “unlikely” status.
So while I’ve already delved into “Sinners” and its unique journey into “cultural landmark” territory, let’s take a look at the other terrifying, torturous tales from the depths of genre storytelling and from the fraying edges of both sanity and humanity.
Strap in. We’re going deep here.
‘Frankenstein’
It’s a gothic epic with a scale to match the monolithic legacy of the source material and a scope to encompass the entire tragic hubris and violent soul of mankind itself.
So yeah, it’s a pretty big movie.
But while the scale of the story, sets, and overall production of “Frankenstein” is nothing short of towering, it’s also just a big undertaking even in the life and career of the man that made it.
Oscar-winner and genre master Guillermo Del Toro has been talking publicly for years about his undying and unmatched love for Mary Shelley’s immortal novel, and to see him finally bring his vision of the tale to the screen with all the hyper-gothic, painterly, melodramatic flourishes for which he’s known just honestly feels special.
I’d be genuinely shocked if anyone doesn’t know the basic beats of the story yet, but for the sake of formality:
The egotistical, god-playing surgeon, Victor Frankenstein, stitches together a man made of corpse parts and harnesses electricity to shock the body to life, proving that man can create life and that death than be conquered.
Oscar Isaac n “Frankenstein” (Netflix)
And then, of course, things fall apart as Victor’s ego and violent impulses drive him to resentment, as the Creature escapes and is treated with hatred and fear as a monster, and as the tensions between creation and creator threaten to spill death and chaos upon the society around them.
It’s a well-worn tale to say the least, possibly one of the most often adapted novels of the English language and an obvious mainstay of anything and everything “horror.”
So what makes Del Toro’s spin on the story so welcome and so refreshing is his insistence on handling it all with beauty, humanity, and a general softness that belies its usual legacy as a horror story. Del Toro’s “Frankenstein” is a gothic tragedy, not a gritty or gloomy monster movie, but an operatic tale of heightened emotions, lush coloration, and heady themes of human cruelty and man’s own limitless ego.
And nowhere is that opera and that adherence to beauty more clear than in Jacob Elordi’s performance as The Creature.
Frankenstein’s monster is generally grotesque and piecemeal, sutured together from decaying chaos, but Del Toro’s vision sees Elordi lithe and graceful, a puzzle of flesh carefully and lovingly constructed by Victor to create something beautiful, something that he can be defiantly proud of.
Elordi embodies the role in the same way, always gentle, always graceful, a dog beaten from birth that comes to appreciate mercy and compassion above all things. In fact, just a few months ago, Elordi felt like he may be an easy lock for Best Supporting Actor in this Oscar race, but with screen legend Delroy Lindo’s unexpected nod for “Sinners” – his first-ever nomination – that’s now not so locked.
Oscar Isaac’s turn as Victor, on the other hand, is brutish and brash, convinced of his own superiority, but still compelling and still connective in the way that only an actor of Isaac’s caliber can easily pull off, even as much of his character feels broadcast rather than implied.
Jacob Elordi in “Frankenstein” (Netflix)
In a story that’s so often a dual lead and dual narrative, with a tug-of-war between Victor and his creation for who will claim the moral or humanistic high ground, it feels obvious in this adaptation that Del Toro sides firmly with The Creature and that Victor is little more than a walking ego.
The film even sees fit to make it loudly explicit by stating “you are the monster” clearly to Victor.
This is entirely Del Toro’s take, crafted to reflect the film he directed in his head as he read the book as a child. It may admittedly miss out on being the definitive adaptation because it’s so completely Del Toro’s definitive adaptation, and that’s what makes the film simultaneously so endearing and emotional and personally heartfelt and so unlikely to win over a majority of the Academy.
Del Toro’s own hands and sensibilities touch every frame of “Frankenstein” in a way that didn’t feel as bombastic as his one previous Best Picture-winner, the far more accessible “The Shape of Water.”
So while you can bet that “Frankenstein” might lead the pack for Production Design, Costume Design, and surely Makeup for the remarkable, full-body prosthesis of The Creature, and while Elordi still very rightfully contends for Supporting Actor with maybe my favorite supporting role all year, it just doesn’t feel like its Best Picture chances are alive.
‘Bugonia’
Greek contrarian auteur Yorgos Lanthimos’ newest foray to the limits of your comfort – and the limits of what our fragile filmgoing psyches can withstand – may also be his most thematically, emotionally, and even politically dense offering so far.
“Bugonia” is a genre film in the most interesting way, because by its nature, you’re not actually sure which genre it falls into. It might be a graphic and grueling paranoia thriller told through the language of a kidnapping horror film, or it might be a sci-fi cautionary tale with the fate of the Earth and the whole human race hanging in the balance.
Rest assured you’ll get no spoilers from me here.
Based on the South Korean cult classic “Save the Green Planet!”, the film follows barely hinged and wholly uncompromising conspiracy theorist Teddy (a staggering Jesse Plemons) who ropes his neurodivergent cousin Don into helping him to kidnap uber-rich corporate powerhouse Michelle Fuller (Yorgos’ Oscar-winning muse Emma Stone.)
Do they want ransom? Do they want extortion? Do they want something even more creepy or disturbing?
Nope. What Teddy wants is answers, because he’s convinced that he’s cracked open an intergalactic alien plot to enslave humanity, poison the air, and kill the bees, and that Fuller is one of the aliens – “Andromedons,” he believes them to be – in disguise.
Emma Stone, Aidan Delbis, and Jesse Plemons in “Bugonia” (Focus Features)
From there, it’s a psychological squaring-off of intimidation, humiliation, and interrogation, with Teddy’s already rough edges quickly unraveling and Fuller’s own desperation and powerlessness building, even as she begins to tug on the buried traumas fueling Teddy’s incoherent crusade.
Those are the elements that elevate “Bugonia” from an odd, uncomfortable paranoia thriller to a legitimate contender for the most densely layered and deeply considered film of the year.
It’s all designed to make you question your own sanity and to force you to a point where you begin to suspect things that you’d never allow yourself to believe, but even deeper than that, it’s all sitting on top of a trauma so deeply buried that even the film itself won’t confront it.
And that’s how this backwoods kidnapping yarn becomes quite possibly the most overtly and worryingly political film of the year. Even in the genre film outliers, the year’s films are still all about political upheaval.
The themes of wealth inequality and class struggle are obvious, and the questions of environmentalism and species decline are made pretty explicit. But there’s also so much buried in the depths of “Bugonia” that confronts radicalization, fringe internet culture, fracturing ideologies, media manipulation, policing, and even, in the most emotional and heartbreaking moments, addiction and the opioid crisis.
The way that Lanthimos offers all of this to the audience, though, is only through tiny cracks in the kidnapping story and glimmers of light through the cracks forming in Teddy’s patience and resolve.
Jesse Plemons in “Bugonia” (Focus Features)
I feel like it should be some kind of crime that the Academy didn’t even nominate Plemons for Best Actor.
The only explanation that I can even begin to understand is that Teddy is so off-putting and so creepingly frustrating that Academy voters just couldn’t bear to consider his character more deeply. Which is an awful shame, because he’s an easy contender for my pick of the best screen performance of the year, full stop.
The painful, hard-worn humanity and unyielding drive that he puts behind every line and every moment, not to mention the weight loss and physicality that he brings to it, make Teddy maybe the most challenging and demanding screen character of 2025, and Plemons nails it without question. Alas.
As for the categories in which it’s actually nominated, the original score by Jerskin Fendrix is definitely one of the most powerful and gripping. The adapted screenplay is sharp, twisting, and astute enough to please even the writer of the original. And Stone’s turn is bursting with a level of confidence and intimidation that I don’t think we’ve ever seen from her.
But just like the film’s slim shot at Best Picture, I expect “Bugonia” could be another classic example of a film appreciated enough to be nominated, but still far too divisive and uncomfortable to actually win anything.
Still, it’s a powerful one, and I suspect “Bugonia” will be one of the films of 2025 that we’ll keep thinking about even long after the Oscars.
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Brett Fieldcamp is the owner and Editor in Chief of Oklahoma City Free Press. He has been covering arts, entertainment, news, housing, and culture in Oklahoma for nearly two decades and served as Arts & Entertainment Editor before purchasing the company from founder Brett Dickerson in 2026.
He is also a musician and songwriter and holds a certification as Specialist of Spirits from The Society of Wine Educators.
