Oscars Diversity Report 2025: Landmark Nominations for LGBTQ Community

The 2025 Oscar nominations were revealed bright and early Thursday morning, with Spanish-language “Emilia Pérez” topping all nominees with 13, including Best Picture.

Karla Sofía Gascón, who plays the film’s title character, lands herself in the Oscar history books as the first out trans actress to receive a nomination. Coralie Fargeat is this year’s only woman to break into the male-dominated Best Director category, for her body-horror shocker “The Substance.”

Here are notable highlights from this year’s Oscar nominations.

Landmark Day for LGBTQ+ Community

Karla Sofía Gascón solidifies her place in Oscar history as the first out transgender woman to land an acting nomination. The “Emilia Pérez” star, who received a Best Actress nod, isn’t the first trans actor to be recognized by the Academy. Elliot Page, who came out as trans in 2020, was nominated for an Oscar for their lead role in “Juno” back in 2008.

Colman Domingo and Cynthia Erivo, who are both queer, each earn their second acting Oscar nominations. For Domingo, “Sing Sing” marks back-to-back Best Actor nominations two years in a row following “Rustin.” For Erivo, “Wicked” is her second Best Actress nomination after she scored her first nod five years ago for playing Harriet Tubman in “Harriet.”

Crashing the Boys (Directing) Club

In a category that often overlooks women directors, Coralie Fargeat becomes just the ninth woman in the history of the Academy Awards to be nominated for Best Director. (Jane Campion was nominated twice, for “The Piano” and for “The Power of the Dog,” making Fargeat’s the 10th directing nom for a woman.)

Only three female directors have actually won: Campion in 2022 for “The Power of the Dog,” Chloé Zhao in 2021 for “Nomadland” and Kathryn Bigelow breaking the glass ceiling in 2010 for “Zero Dark Thirty.”

With Fargeat’s directing nomination, “The Substance” filmmaker — who also received an Original Screenplay nod — follows in the footsteps of “The Anatomy of a Fall” director Justine Triet’s nomination last year. Fargeat competes against male directors Jacques Audiard (“Emilia Pérez”), Sean Baker (“Anora”), Brady Corbet (“The Brutalist”) and James Mangold (“A Complete Unknown”).

In the Best Picture category, the nomination for “The Substance” makes this the sixth consecutive year that at least one nominee was directed by a woman.

Black Acting Nods Take a Dip

Despite it being a down year for Black acting nominations compared to 2024, when five actors (Colman Domingo, Sterling K. Brown, Danielle Brooks, Jeffrey Wright and Da’Vine Joy Randolph) were recognized, there is still plenty to celebrate.

In addition to Domingo’s second straight Best Actor nomination (this time for the prison-set feature “Sing Sing”), “Wicked” star Cynthia Erivo, who earned her first Oscar nomination in 2020 for “Harriet,” becomes the second Black actress ever to receive two Best Actress nods after Viola Davis. Zoe Saldaña, who has said she identifies as Black Latina, was also nominated.

Latinx Actors Gain Ground

Four Latinx actors are nominated this year in Oscars’ acting categories, an improvement from the two (Colman Domingo and America Ferrera) received last year. “Emilia Pérez” supporting actress Zoë Saldaña, who is of Puerto Rican and Dominican descent, earned her first career nod for her performance in the Spanish-language musical. (Her costar Karla Sofía Gascón was born in Madrid and moved to Mexico more than 15 years ago. She has said she considers herself “Mexican by adoption.”)

Last year, Domingo became the first Afro-Latino to be nominated for Best Actor, and he’s back this year (for “Sing Sing”). Monica Barbaro, who is partially of Mexican and Nicaraguan descent, is a first-time nominee for her supporting work in the Bob Dylan feature “A Complete Unknown.” Brazilian-born Fernanda Torres, who won the Golden Globe earlier this month, scores her first Best Actress Oscar nomination for “I’m Still Here.”

In another landmark, for the Asian community, Black Box Diaries director Shiori Ito became the first Japanese filmmaker ever nominated in the Best Documentary Feature category.

The 97th annual Academy Awards, hosted by Conan O’Brien, will take place at the Dolby Theatre on Sunday, March 2, and will be broadcast live coast-to-coast at 4 p.m. PT/7 p.m. ET on ABC.

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