The Academy Awards on March 15 will anoint either Paul Thomas Anderson’s left-leaning political drama One Battle After Another or Ryan Coogler’s Jim Crow-era zombie flick Sinners as the Best Picture of 2025. One Battle, which features Leonardo DiCaprio in a pot-smoking role, has a decided advantage in the Stony Oscar awards given below.
These are our picks. The Academy hasn’t weighed in on any of them.
Stoner movies are not just comedies like Up in Smoke, Harold & Kumar and The Big Lebowski. They’re also dramas that point a finger at the country’s endless War on Drugs. The year’s stony movies and actors are in both camps, from humorous to heavy.
Best Picture – Grassland
Sofia (Miá Maestro) is a single mother in 2008 who grows weed. She makes tinctures from indoor plants and sells the rest with the help of her friend Brandon (Quincy Isaiah). Things change dramatically in William Bermudez and Sam Friedman’s compelling film when police officer John Duffy (Jeff Kober) moves into Sofia’s New Jersey building. It’s a sad story about how people of color got entangled in the drug war and suffer terribly for it.
Best Director – Paul Thomas Anderson (One Battle After Another)
Anderson’s second adaptation of a Thomas Pynchon novel – in this case, Vineland – is an intoxicating blend of then-and-now political protesting. The last section is non-stop with intense, hilly driving scenes and an ending that’s reminiscent of the first two Mad Max movies. Anderson is expected to win his first-ever Oscar.
Best Male Actor – Leonardo DiCaprio (One Battle After Another)
The film begins with the liberation of a migrant detention camp, with lovers Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor) and “Ghetto” Pat (Leonardo DiCaprio) leading the charge. After Perfidia is arrested, the story jumps 16 years. Renamed Bob, Pat’s a paranoid mess. He smokes weed non-stop (joints, pipe, vape pen). Some have compared DiCaprio’s performance to Jeff Bridges’ Dude in The Big Lebowski. Bob even wears a bathrobe like the Dude and drinks a lot. “I’ve fried my brain since then,” Bob admits after failing to recall an important code. “I have abused drugs and alcohol for the last 30 years. I’m a drug and alcohol lover.”
Best Female Actor – Miá Maestro (Grassland)
When police officer Duffy busts Brandon, who is Black, for possessing an eighth that Miá Maestro’s Sofia (she’s from Argentina) gave him to sell, she argues with Officer Duffy, who says Brandon will get 10 years. “It never killed anyone,” Sofia counters. “It’s a direct gateway to harder stuff,” he replies. Sofia hits a joint in one scene, and you often see her trimming.
Best Male Supporting Actor – Quincy Isaiah (Grassland)
Isaiah has a key role in Grassland as Sofia’s friend and dealer, Brandon. His bust changes the tone of the movie. In this case, a white cop arrests a Black man, so typical of the war on weed in the 2000s.
Best Female Supporting Actor – Sydney Sweeney (Echo Valley)
Sweeney’s Claire in Michael Pearce’s family drama is similar to Mila Kunis’ junkie turn in Four Good Days (2020) and other similar performances. Claire’s a handful for her mom, Kate (Julianne Moore). She regularly comes home stoned and disheveled, and then Kate sends her to rehab, for what it’s worth.
Best Musical: Cypress Hill: Black Sunday Live at the Royal Albert Hall
The London Symphony Orchestra’s collaboration with L.A. hip-hop group Cypress Hill stems from a gag on a Simpsons episode nearly 30 years ago. The 20 songs, mostly from their 1993 seminal hit album Black Sunday, feature B-Real, Sen Dog, Eric Bobo, DJ Lord, and a sizzling 70-piece band with strings, horns, and multiple drummers conducted and arranged by Troy Miller.
Best Documentary: Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie
Dave Bushell’s documentary dives deeply into the lives of Richard “Cheech” Marin and Thomas Kim Chong, the iconic comedy duo who met in Vancouver in 1969. Now in their seventies (Marin is 78) and eighties (Chong is 87), they take a drive in the desert and reminisce. But as they motor along, the longtime partners get testy with each other. To Bushell’s credit, he lets them go, like a hockey fight.
Best Comedy Special: Katt Williams: The Last Report
Just seven minutes into Williams’ fourth and latest Netflix stand-up special, he launches into a high-larious drug routine: “If you’re under 35, you can’t afford to do no drugs at all. Just smoke weed. It’s the only thing you can trust. You don’t believe me? Easter and 4/20 were on the same day last year. That’s Jesus inviting me personally. Weed is the only thing you can trust.”
CelebStoner of the Year – Seth Rogen
Rogen was so busy this year with his Apple TV series The Studio and other TV projects that he only appeared in one movie in 2025, Aziz Ansari’s Good Fortune, in which Rogen portrays venture capitalist Jeff, whose life is swapped for a week with his personal assistant Arj (Ansari) by an angel (Keanu Reeves). In one scene, Jeff attends an ayahuasca ceremony. In addition to The Studio, which has swept the awards shows, Rogen appeared in Platonic, Nobody Wants This and Hacks in 2025.
Steve Bloom is a former editor of High Times and current publisher of CelebStoner.com. Join his group at Patreon.
