A reading list for the 2025 Oscars from the Amazon Editors
It’s award season—and I’m not just talking about the Grammys and the Caldecott and Newbery awards. Recently, the nominations for the 2025 Academy Awards have been announced and it’s clear it’s been an incredible year for movies inspired by books (a whopping five out of the ten films nominated for Best Picture have their roots in literature).
The 97th Oscar nominations were delayed twice due to the wildfires ravaging Los Angeles, but the award ceremony is still slated to take place in Los Angeles on March 2. The Academy CEO Bill Kramer and Academy President Janet Yan, shared: “We are all devastated by the impact of the fires and the profound losses experienced by so many in our community. The Academy has always been a unifying force within the film industry, and we are committed to standing together in the face of hardship.”
The Amazon Book Editors have culled together all of the books that have inspired the 2025 Oscar nominations, offering readers a great list of books to add to your TBR pile in excitement/preparation for when the winners are announced in March. Without further ado, here are the books:
Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Nickel Boys made its big screen debut this year, garnering two Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. One of Amazon's Best Books of 2019 (along with countless other outlets), Whitehead's novel is based on a real school for boys in Florida that closed in 2011 after more than 100 years of existence and 100 years of purportedly turning “bad boys” into good men. The novel follows Elwood Curtis, a promising young Black boy living in the Jim Crow South who is thrown into a juvenile reformatory school called Nickel Academy for a crime he didn’t commit. The school is a horror show of violence—while Elwood tries to internalize Martin Luther King Jr.’s maxims, his friend Turner takes a different approach to survive—and their decisions will forever change the course of their lives. An extraordinary novel that reminds us just how powerful fiction can be at sharing the truth. —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor
Nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Ralph Fiennes), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, Conclave—adapted from Robert Harris's best-selling thriller by the same name, is a heart-pounding read and watch. Power, intrigue, and secrecy collide in this story of the Vatican and the hundred Cardinals who vie to be named the next pope. Stanley Tucci, who starred in the movie, told the Amazon Book Review in 2021 that Conclave is “Yet another wonderful book by this extraordinary author. There seems to be no subject he can’t write brilliantly about and keep us captivated.” And here's a fun fact for you, while Stanley Tucci was on set for the movie, he was writing What I Ate In One Year—a memoir of food, acting, and family—which we named a Best Book of the Month when it published. —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor
Everyone has been buzzing about Timothée Chalamet playing Bob Dylan, and for good reason. The movie, The Great Unknown, is nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Chalamet), Best Supporting Actor (Ed Norton), and Best Supporting Actress (Monica Barbaro). Based on Elijah Wald's best-selling biography Dylan Goes Electric!, the movie charts a brief snapshot in time, when the Nobel Laureate landed in New York finding success within the world of folk, and then turned his fans on their heads when he decided to go electric at the Newport Folk Festival. An artist that refused to be pigeonholed, Dylan (and Chalamet's version) emerges as an artist, committed to music, to sound, and to creating art that reflected the moment. —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor
A best-seller when it published in 2004, Gregory Maguire’s Wicked went on to become a Tony Award-winning musical that’s still in theaters across the country today. And then came the movie last fall. Wow. A cinematic wonder, nominated for 10 Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Actress (Cynthia Erivo), Wicked is back in the zeitgeist with a bang. If you haven’t read the incredible novel behind the film, the backstory of the Wicked Witch of the West—real name Elphaba—and the Oz she grew up in long before Dorothy and the gang showed up, then I hope the wild success of the movie will inspire you to pick it up. Trust me, it’s a literary adventure worth clicking your ruby red slippers for. —Seira Wilson, Amazon Editor
With 13 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (Karla Sofía Gascón), and Best Supporting Actress (Zoe Saldaña), Emilia Perez is just one award nomination shy of the all-time record of most nods in a year. While Emilia Perez is an original screenplay, the director credits finding inspiration from the French novel Écoute. Jacques Audiard shared in an interview with W, “The idea came to me through a book called Écoute. Halfway through, there is a character who is a drug kingpin who wants to transition to become a woman. The author, who is a friend of mine, did not develop this character. I asked for the right to expand the character myself.” —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor
In 2022, Dune (Part 1) won six Academy Awards (cinematography, editing, score, visual effects, production design, and sound) and Part Two, which came out this year has been nominated for five. Once again, Denis Villeneuve makes Frank Herbert’s sci-fi classic come to life. Set thousands of years in the future, Part Two follows Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) trying to survive battles—political and physical—on a planet responsible for creating a drug called Spice. A true epic, the movie series is an ambitious undertaking, so be sure to check out the novel—and the rest of the series. —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor
The Wild Robot was nominated in multiple categories, including Best Animated Feature, and while it has some strong competition (Inside Out 2, we're looking at you), the book will always be a winner in my home. The film, based on the first book in the three-book series, tells the story of a robot named Roz who finds herself completely alone on a remote island. Forging unlikely relationships with the animal inhabitants is the only way to survive. Action-packed, full of heart and sweeping emotions, this memorable, beautifully bittersweet book holds pride of place on my sons' book shelf. And it surely will continue to, as the film sequel is currently in the works. —Lindsay Powers, Amazon Editor
Looking for more great reads? Check out these recommendations from the Amazon Editors:
- Previous Oscar reading lists for the 2024 awards, 2023, and 2022.
- A reading list for the 2025 Grammy Awards
- The Most Anticipated reads of winter and spring 2025: fiction and nonfiction
- Best Books of 2024, as chosen by the Amazon Editors
