The Worst 2025 Best Picture Oscar Nominee, According To Rotten Tomatoes

We are fully in the throes of awards season with the Golden Globes behind us and, more importantly, the Academy Awards just around the corner. The 2025 Oscar nominations were announced recently and we now know which movies will be competing for the coveted Best Picture prize. That list includes several critical darlings such as "The Brutalist" and "Anora," and it also features a couple of surprises — perhaps most notably Mubi's body horror flick "The Substance." But one of the nominees is not like the others, because it's by no means a critical favorite.

Netflix's "Emilia Pérez" has the worst overall critical approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes of the ten movies nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars this year. As of this writing, it holds a so-so 76% approval rating from critics on the site, with 237 reviews counted. More amazingly, it holds an abysmal 34% audience approval, suggesting that quite a few average viewers did not care for what writer/director Jacques Audiard had to offer with this one. For context, here is the full list of 2025 Best Picture nominees along with their respective RT score.

• "I'm Still Here" – 95%

• "Conclave" – 93%

• "The Brutalist" – 93%

• "Anora" – 93%

• "Dune: Part Two" – 92%

• "Nickel Boys" – 90%

• "The Substance" – 89%

• "Wicked" – 88%

• "A Complete Unknown" – 80%

• "Emilia Pérez" – 76%

For those who may not be familiar, "Emilia Pérez" traces the journey of four women in Mexico, each pursuing their own happiness. The fearsome cartel leader Emilia (Karla Sofía Gascón) enlists Rita (Zoe Saldaña), an unappreciated lawyer stuck in a dead-end job, to help fake her death so Emilia can finally complete her gender transformation and live authentically as her true self. Selena Gomez, Adriana Paz, and Edgar Ramírez also star.

The film not only scored a Best Picture nod, but it leads all other competing films with a total of 13 nominations, including one for Zoe Saldaña, best known for her work in big sci-fi franchises like "Avatar" and "Guardians of the Galaxy," who is a first-time nominee in the Best Supporting Actress category. Unless Netflix is in for a disappointing night overall, it's probably going to walk away with at least a couple of major awards. That might rub quite a few people the wrong way.

Jeremy Mathai called "Emilia Pérez" 2024's "biggest swing and miss" in his review for /Film out of New York Film Festival. It's been a mixed bag, to be certain. More than that, it's been downright controversial, yet has managed to become a true awards season favorite. In particular, the movie has been questioned for its portrayal of Mexico and lack of Mexican actors or filmmakers. Its director, Jacques Audiard, is French. None of the main actors are of Mexican descent.

In an interview with Deadline, "Pedro Páramo" director Rodrigo Prieto said that he was "unhappy that the film was not shot in Mexico" before adding "the whole thing is completely inauthentic." Netflix's buzzy, musical/drug cartel drama has also come under fire for its representation of the transgender community. GLADD, for example, published a piece in November saying the film was "not good trans representation" while also calling out what they labeled as a "profoundly retrograde portrayal of a trans woman."

There is more nuance in this situation than this particular piece can afford the film and the discussion around it, but it's at least worth understanding that this movie is not even close to being universally beloved. Despite that, though, "Emilia Pérez" is now a serious contender at the Oscars and quite a few more people are likely going to be checking it out now that i's racked up several major nods ahead of Hollywood's biggest night.

The 97th annual Academy Awards ceremony takes place on Sunday, March 2, 2025 on ABC.