Houston Film Critics Go Big: “Sinners” Leads HFCS Nominations

“Years from now, we will look back on 2025 as the year where filmmakers just ‘went for it’ in a big way.” -- Travis Leamons, HFCS President.

The acting categories track that same appetite for performers who do not simply inhabit roles but wrestle them into shape. The Best Actor nominees include Timothée Chalamet as a table-tennis superstar in Marty Supreme; Leonardo DiCaprio as an aging revolutionary in One Battle After Another; Ethan Hawke as Broadway composer Lorenz Hart in Blue Moon; Michael B. Jordan playing twin brothers in Sinners; and Wagner Moura as a research scientist in The Secret Agent. These characters span the public and the private, the heroic and the unraveling, the mythic and the merely human—often in the same scene.

Best Actress, meanwhile, reads like a set of variations on pressure. Jessie Buckley appears as a loving wife and mother in Hamnet. Rose Byrne plays a troubled wife and mother in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. Kate Hudson plays a single mother and a determined singer in Song Sung Blue. Chase Infiniti shows up as a fearless daughter in One Battle After Another. Renate Reinsve plays a questioning daughter in Sentimental Value. Emma Stone appears as a questioned CEO in Bugonia. Even before any trophies land, the list hints at a year captivated by women negotiating scrutiny—domestic, professional, existential, and all at once.

For Houston’s film critics, the awards also serve as a yearly homecoming. The Texas Independent Film Award, a signature category for the group, honors productions made in the state. This year’s nominees include Joseph Kahn’s ode to science-fiction B-movies, Ick; Kim A. Snyder’s documentary The Librarians; the Houston Oilers documentary Luv Ya Bum; Isabel Castro’s documentary Selena y Los Dinos; and Rod Lurie’s second-chance story The Senior. Together, they suggest a Texas cinema that refuses to sit still: genre affection, civic memory, music history, and redemption, all sharing the same big sky.

The Houston Film Critics Society includes forty working film journalists across television, radio, online outlets, and traditional print. The organization describes its mission in plain terms: to promote the advancement and appreciation of film in Houston and beyond. That mission can sound ceremonial until you look at a year like 2025, when so many movies seemed to ask for commitment—attention, patience, nerves, maybe even a little faith. In that climate, a critics’ group does more than tally preferences. It helps a city decide what it wants to talk about, and what it wants to see together, in the dark, while something on-screen risks embarrassment for the sake of feeling alive.

Best Documentary Feature

The Alabama Solution

Cover-Up

My Mom Jayne

Orwell: 2+2=5

The Perfect Neighbor

Best Foreign Language Feature

It Was Just an Accident

No Other Choice

The Secret Agent

Sentimental Value

Sirāt

Best Original Score

Alexandre Desplat, Frankenstein

Daniel Lopatin, Marty Supreme

Hans Zimmer, F1

Jonny Greenwood, One Battle After Another

Ludwig Göransson, Sinners

Best Original Song

“Golden”, KPop Demon Hunters

“I Lied to You”, Sinners

“Last Time (I Seen the Sun)”, Sinners

“Our Love”, The Ballad of Wallis Island

“Train Dreams”, Train Dreams

Best Visual Effects

Avatar: Fire and Ash

F1

Frankenstein

Sinners

Superman

Best Stunt Coordination Team

Ballerina

F1

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning

One Battle After Another

Sinners

Best Casting

Cassandra Kulukundis, One Battle After Another

Francine Maisler, Sinners

Jennifer Venditti, Marty Supreme

Nina Gold, Hamnet

Robin D. Cook, Frankenstein

Best Ensemble

One Battle After Another

Marty Supreme

Sentimental Value

Sinners

Wake Up Dead Man

Texas Independent Film Award

Ick

The Librarians

Luv Ya Bum

Selena y Los Dinos

The Senior