The SAG Awards 2025 are landing later than usual, with the ceremony set to take place after final Oscar voting has concluded and just one week before Hollywood’s biggest night. That’s not to say Sunday’s glitzy awards show, which will stream live on Netflix, won’t have a significant impact on some of the season’s most competitive categories.
The actors’ guild can signal key shifts in momentum and where the true passion lies among the biggest branch in the Academy. Adrien Brody has thus far been near undefeated for his performance, but SAG loved A Complete Unknown far more than The Brutalist, so we expect Timothée Chalamet to put up more of a fight here. Similarly, if there were anywhere for Ariana Grande to dent the momentum of Zoe Saldaña, look to the voters who loved Wicked so much they even nominated Jonathan Bailey.
Over on the TV side, meanwhile, Awards Insider expects yet another big night for Shōgun, Baby Reindeer, and Hacks—but newbies like Nobody Wants This have a shot at creating just a little bit of intrigue.
Below, see our predictions for every category.
Best Motion Picture Ensemble
A Complete Unknown
Anora
Conclave
Emilia Pérez
WINNER: Wicked
I suppose I’ll have to eat my shoe if I am once again underestimating Anora here. After it won the top prize at PGA, DGA, and Critics Choice, Anora could easily pick up this award from the actors as well. If it does, it is a lock for best picture. But the SAG voters usually go for a very ensemble-y film here, which Anora is not. The SAG choice often lines up with the best-picture winner: They picked Oppenheimer, Everything Everywhere All at Once, CODA, and Parasite. And when it doesn’t, they’ve gone with films that have big casts like Black Panther or Hidden Figures. So while Anora has quite a few actors, it has often felt like Mikey Madison is a bit more out front. The other two front-runners here are Wicked and Conclave. Wicked is very well-liked by this group, earning the most noms overall with five. Conclave, which won the ensemble award at the Critics Choice Awards, has a strong cast with many veteran actors and showcases the sort of delicious performances that other actors admire. A Complete Unknown also racked up four nominations, and could even win here for its talented cast, who sang their hearts out. The only film we can safely count out is Emilia Pérez, assuming that many voters will wait until close to the February 21 deadline to vote and, therefore, were aware of the scandal surrounding star Karla Sofía Gascón‘s offensive tweets and controversial comments after the fact. Other than Anora, every other film here could really use this win to keep their hopes of best picture alive. I’m rooting for Wicked to keep this race interesting. —Rebecca Ford
Best Male Actor in a Leading Role, Motion Picture
Adrien Brody, The Brutalist
WINNER: Timothée Chalamet, A Complete Unknown
Daniel Craig, Queer
Colman Domingo, Sing Sing
Ralph Fiennes, Conclave
This race has been between Chalamet and Brody for months—or at least, that’s what we, hoping for intrigue, would like to believe. The fact is that Brody has run the table thus far, taking home the Golden Globe, the Critics Choice Award, and the lion’s share of smaller, regional prizes. My feeling is that if Chalamet hopes to win the Oscar, this is his make-or-break moment—SAG has always been a relatively friendly audience to studio-produced biopics; in retrospect, when Austin Butler lost in this category for Elvis a few years ago, his Oscar bid was effectively doomed. Brody’s candidacy, meanwhile, remains viable without it, given how well he’s fared already.
