This year's Oscar nominations already had a Colorado edge, since the January 23 nomination announcement ceremony was hosted by Bowen Yang, who was raised in Aurora and graduated from Smoky Hill High School before becoming a Saturday Night Live cast member and appearing in one of the year's most nominated films, Wicked.
But Yang was far from the only hometown hero on display. Four films led by current or former Coloradans are up for Oscars, collecting fifteen nominations in total...with The Brutalist in the lead.
Colorado hasn't been a big winner in the past, but registered a historic honor when Hattie McDaniel, a graduate of East High School, became the first African American to win an Oscar for her role as Mammy in 1939's Gone With the Wind.
Here are the local nominees Coloradans can root for during the 2025 Academy Awards:
Colorado's Brady Corbet directed Adrien Brody in The Brutalist; the director, star and picture are all up for awards.
The Brutalist
The Brutalist
Nominations: Best Picture; Best Director (Brady Corbet); Best Actor (Adrien Brody); Best Supporting Actor (Guy Pearce); Best Supporting Actress (Felicity Jones); Original Screenplay; Production Design; Cinematography; Editing; Original ScoreThe awards season dark horse that has become one of the year's biggest films has Colorado ties: Brady Corbet, director of The Brutalist, grew up in Glenwood Springs. He moved to the mountain town with his mother when he was seven, and later worked in a local bookstore. Corbet has spoken about how living near the sites of the Columbine High School shooting and the murder of JonBenét Ramsey influenced his filmmaking, particularly his 2018 movie Vox Lux.
Corbet already took home the Golden Globe for Best Director for The Brutalist, a film following the story of a Jewish architect (played by Adrien Brody) who moves to America in the 1950s after World War II. It won two more Golden Globes for Best Motion Picture Drama and Best Actor for Brody, in addition to nine nominations from the BAFTAs.
The Brutalist is tied for the second-most Oscar-nominated film this year, matching Wicked's ten nominations, but falling short of the thirteen nominations for Emilia Pérez.
The Wild Robot
Nominations: Best Animated Feature; Sound; Original ScoreChris Sanders, director of The Wild Robot, was raised in Colorado Springs and graduated from Arvada High School. Sanders has credited his childhood spent hiking and picnicking along the Front Range for inspiring his appreciation of nature — which he instilled in The Wild Robot. He also partially attributes the film's theme of adapting to the outdoors to his frequent altitude sickness while hiking; he told the Denver Post that the Devil’s Head, the Flatirons and the Royal Arch were his favorite spots to go.
The film is about a service robot that becomes shipwrecked on a deserted island, learning to adapt to its new surroundings and build relationships with the native animals. The Wild Robot was nominated for four Golden Globes, tying with Beauty and the Beast to become the second-most nominated animated film of all time (first is Aladdin). The film did not win any Golden Globes, however.
Up for three Oscars, The Wild Robot is the most nominated animated film at the Academy Awards this year.
Anuja
Nomination: Best Live-Action ShortThe two people behind the Oscar-nominated short film Anuja live and work in the Mile High City. Anuja was written and directed by Adam J. Graves — a professor of philosophy at Metropolitan State University of Denver — and produced by his wife, Suchitra Mattai, a Denver-based multi-disciplinary artist whose work has been featured in the Denver Art Museum. Graves also founded and directs the Denver Project for Humanistic Inquiry, a center exploring the intersection of philosophy and the arts. He often teaches courses on the philosophy of film at MSU.
Anuja follows the story of a nine-year-old girl who works in a New Delhi garment factory with her sister, who is offered a once-in-a-lifetime chance to attend school.
Porcelain War
Nomination: Best Documentary FeatureThe married couple at the center of Porcelain War, a Ukrainian war documentary, have called Colorado their temporary home for the last year, Colorado Public Radio reported. Slava Leontyev and Anya Stasenko are artists from Ukraine, known for creating delicate porcelain creatures. When Russia invaded their home country, the couple continued their work as a form of resistance, eventually inspiring U.S. filmmaker Brendan Bellomo to document their efforts. The film has another local tie: It was produced by Colorado-based Paula DuPré Pesmen, who was born in Boulder.
Porcelain War showcases the experiences of Leontyev and Stasenko (as well as Ukrainian artist Andrey Stefanov) as they work to defend their country and find beauty amid the chaos and destruction of the Russian invasion.
