With the 2025 Oscars rapidly approaching, it's time to take a closer look at the distinguished nominees in the best actor category.
Adrien Brody, Timothée Chalamet, Colman Domingo, Sebastian Stan and Ralph Fiennes are up for the best actor award, which will be handed out on March 2 at the 97th Academy Awards.
The roles played by this year's best actor nominees span a wide range of characters from a future president to a cultural icon to a religious figure.
Of the group, Brody is the only one who has won the award before, and Stan is the only one who hasn't been nominated in the category before.
The 97th Oscars will take place Sunday, March 2, at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT at the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood. It will be televised on ABC, streamed on Hulu and will air live in more than 200 territories worldwide.
Keep reading for everything to know about this year's best actor nominees.
Adrien Brody
Adrien Brody is nominated for best actor for his leading role as László Tóth in the critically acclaimed epic "The Brutalist."
Brody has won the award once before for his role as Władysław Szpilman, a Holocaust survivor and pianist, in "The Pianist."
As Tóth, Brody portrays an architect who escapes post-war Hungary, fleeing to the United States with dreams of starting a new life.
The actor won the Golden Globe for best actor in a motion picture (drama) in January as well as best actor honors at the Critics Choice Award. He has BAFTA and SAG Award nominations pending.
"To find a protagonist like this character and a film that's so creative and artistic and relevant is very challenging. And it takes a movie of this magnitude to even have the potential to be received like this, and I just was so -- I feel very blessed and moved to have even have been a part of this," Brody told "Good Morning America" in January.
"The Brutalist" is up for 10 total nominations at this year's Oscars.
The film and Brody's role in particular have faced some criticism after an interview with an editor on the film resurfaced, revealing artificial intelligence was used in some areas of Brody and co-star Felicity Jones' Hungarian language dialogue.
Director Brady Corbet has responded to the controversy, saying in a statement to "Good Morning America" that the actors' roles are "completely their own" and AI was used on certain vowels and letters in Hungarian dialogue for accuracy's sake.
"They worked for months with dialect coach Tanera Marshall to perfect their accents. Innovative Respeecher technology was used in Hungarian language dialogue editing only, specifically to refine certain vowels and letters for accuracy. No English language was changed," he said.
Corbet added, "This was a manual process, done by our sound team and Respeecher in post-production. The aim was to preserve the authenticity of Adrien and Felicity's performances in another language, not to replace or alter them and done with the utmost respect for the craft."
Read film critic Peter Travers' review of "The Brutalist" here.
Timothée Chalamet
Timothée Chalamet is up for best actor for his role as Bob Dylan in "A Complete Unknown."
The young star wowed audiences by physically and audibly transforming into the folk-rock and cultural icon in James Mangold's movie about the rise of a young Dylan.
Chalamet opened up about the role to "GMA" in December, revealing that stepping into the role of Dylan was "massively intimidating."
"People when they respect and love an icon of culture like Bob Dylan, like Willy Wonka, they get extremely protective, 'cause they don't want to see a young ignorant mess it up," Chalamet said. "It was intimidating, but if I can speak over-confidently, we did it justice. We are now the humble bridge to the 1960s and to Bob Dylan."
Chalamet scored high-profile best actor nominations for his role as Dylan, with ones at the BAFTAs and SAG Awards still pending.
This is Chalamet's second time being nominated for the best actor Oscar after receiving his first nod for his role as Elio in 2017's "Call Me by Your Name."
"A Complete Unknown" is nominated for eight Oscars total this year.
Read Travers' review of "A Complete Unknown" here.
Colman Domingo
Colman Domingo scored a best actor Oscar nomination for his role as John "Divine G." Whitfield in the film "Sing Sing."
In the Greg Kwedar-directed project, Domingo plays a prisoner at Sing Sing Correctional Facility. Domingo's character helps create the Rehabilitation Through the Arts program, in which prisoners put on plays while incarcerated.
He stars alongside a cast made up of 90% former inmates, including breakout star Clarence Maclin.
"It's such an incredibly hopeful film, and I think we need that -- especially where we are right now in the world," Domingo told "GMA" in February. "We need stories about people who feel like they can overcome insurmountable odds."
Maclin spoke to "Good Morning America" at the 2025 Critics' Choice Awards about the humanizing RTA program and the film.
"We gotta represent ourselves in the best possible way that we can. We gotta let the world know that … I'm not an animal, I'm not a monster, I'm actually a father, I'm actually a brother, I'm somebody's son," he said.
"Sing Sing" is up for three Oscars.
Domingo scored a best actor nomination last year for his role as Bayard Rustin in "Rustin."
Read Travers' review of "Sing Sing" here.
Ralph Fiennes
Ralph Fiennes earned his best actor nomination for playing Cardinal Thomas Lawrence in the papal thriller "Conclave," a story about the drama surrounding the selection of a new pope.
Fiennes, as Lawrence, is tasked with the role of dean of the College of Cardinals, the body in charge of electing the new pope after the sitting pope dies.
This is Fiennes' third time up for an Oscar, following his nod for best supporting actor in 1993's "Schindler's List" and his nomination for best actor in 1996's "The English Patient."
Fiennes is also up for a BAFTA and SAG Award this year, results pending.
Read Travers' review of "Conclave" here.
Sebastian Stan
Sebastian Stan's role in "The Apprentice" as Donald Trump, decades before he ascended to the presidency, scored him a best actor Oscar nomination.
The drama, set in 1970's New York City, depicts the friendship between Trump, then a young and ambitious businessman, and Jeremy Strong's Roy Cohn, Trump's friend, mentor and personal attorney.
This marks Stan's first Oscar nomination.
President Trump has publicly derided the film, calling it a "cheap, defamatory, and politically disgusting hatchet job" in an October 2024 post on Truth Social.
"So sad that HUMAN SCUM, like the people involved in this hopefully unsuccessful enterprise, are allowed to say and do whatever they want in order to hurt a Political Movement, which is far bigger than any of us," Trump added.
Stan responded to Trump's public criticism on NPR's "Fresh Air" podcast with Terry Gross.
"If the movie is really just sort of so irrelevant, then why warrant that reaction from him to begin with?" Stan replied when asked about Trump's reaction to the film. "It might be because the truth hurts, and there is something truthful to the movie, one of them probably being that, you know, he doesn't like anyone else taking credit for the way he is."
In a joking response to Trump's post, "The Apprentice" director Ali Abbasi posted on X, "Thanks for getting back to us @realDonaldTrump. I am available to talk further if you want. Today is a tight day w a lot of press for #TheApprentice but i might be able to give you a call tomorrow."
Stan is also up for a BAFTA for his role in "The Apprentice." Last month, he won a Golden Globe -- but for a different film. Stan was up for both his roles in "The Apprentice" as well as "A Different Man," winning for the latter.
Read Travers' review of "The Apprentice" here.
The 2025 Oscars will take place Sunday, March 2, airing live on ABC and streaming live on Hulu beginning at 7 p.m. ET.
