On Sunday, Hollywood’s biggest stars will gather to honor some of 2025’s best films during the 98th Academy Awards ceremony.
When the nominees were announced in late January, one thing that jumped out about the list was how many Latinos were included.
“In terms of volume, there are more Latino nominees than we have seen historically,” Ernesto Acevedo-Muñoz, a cinema studies professor at University of Colorado Boulder, told The Times.
According to USC Annenberg’s Inclusion List, 7% of all nominees at this year’s Oscars are Latino. While that number feels paltry, that’s above the historical 2% average that the demographic has made up in nominations across the ceremony’s history.
Featured among the show’s nominees are several prominent Latino faces, including Oscars darling Guillermo del Toro, Academy Award winner Benicio Del Toro and first-time nominee Wagner Moura.
Moura’s nomination has been one of the more attention-grabbing items of this awards season as he became the first Brazilian performer to be nominated in the leading actor category for his work in “The Secret Agent.” He is also the only Latino nominated in the Big Five categories (picture, director, actor, actress and screenplay) that has even an outside chance of taking home a little gold trophy.
“We know that this [increase in representation] happened largely due to the pressure of the #OscarsSoWhite movement from 10 years ago,” Acevedo-Muñoz said. “There is now a visible shift, but it wasn’t out of the kindness of the academy. It came from people calling out that [the 2015 and 2016 Oscars] had all white nominees in the acting categories.”
So strong was the outcry that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — the Oscars voting body — began inviting and accepting a diverse sampling of new members starting in 2016. By 2020, AMPAS finally reached its goal of doubling its number of women and people from underrepresented ethnic/racial communities. The Oscars voting body has also significantly globalized, with around 20% of all members being from outside the U.S.
The effect of the “new” academy has led to an increase in nominations for women, people of color, members of the Deaf community and international talent over the last decade.
“But a pattern we’ve seen in the last number of years is a good number of Latino and Black nominees, but mostly white winners,” Acevedo-Muñoz said.
Latinos have historically done better in the supporting category than in lead — Zoe Saldaña won the supporting award last year for her role in “Emilia Pérez.”
While applauding the steps toward progress, Acevedo-Muñoz also pointed toward larger issues in the film industry that prevent continued recognition for Latinos.
“There is a brown ceiling here that continues to limit the leading parts for Latino actors,” he said.
That “brown ceiling” was examined in the 2026 UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report, released Thursday.
The study, which analyzed 108 of the top English-language theatrical film releases of 2025, found that only 2.8% of lead roles and 5% of all roles in theatrical releases were played by Latinos. The numbers were even bleaker in other categories. Only 2.5% of film directing jobs and 0.5% of writing jobs went to Latinos.
This marked regression comes despite the fact that Latino audiences continue to be the most loyal film-going demographic in the country.
A recent Pew Research Center study found that 59% of Hispanic adults had been to a movie theater in the last year, compared with 53% of white adults and 49% of Black adults.
Diversity in theatergoers was reflected in the types of movies that found the most box-office success. Films in which 41% to 50% of the cast were people of color had the highest median domestic and global box office hauls and, on average, secured top spots at the box office during opening weekend, the study found.
The Latino footprint at this year’s Oscars goes beyond the Big Five categories or even outright nominations.
Makeup artist Ken Diaz is a nominee in makeup and hairstyling for the third time for his role as makeup department head in Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners” — alongside Mike Fontaine and Shunika Terry — making him the most nominated Latino in the category since the category’s establishment in 1982.
Latino audio artisans are being recognized for their contributions to the two biggest front-runners of the awards show. Mexican sound mixer José Antonio García nabbed an nomination in the sound category for his work in “One Battle After Another” and Costa Rican sound editor Felipe Pacheco is being recognized for his work on “Sinners.”
While not themselves nominated for Oscars, 29-year-old Mexican American screenwriter Danya Jimenez and her writing partner Hannah McMechan penned the script for animated feature favorite “KPop Demon Hunters.”
Speaking on the Oscar nomination for Adolpho Veloso — the Brazilian director of photography of “Train Dreams” who is up for the cinematography award — Acevedo-Muñoz touched on a crucial truth of all the Latinos nominated for awards this Sunday.
“Nobody did Veloso a favor for nominating him,” he said. “He got this because of who he is [and his work], not where he’s from.”
De Los SXSW Showcase
(Photo Illustration by Diana Ramirez / De Los; Photos by Cat Cardenas, SXSW)
De Los is back in Austin, Texas, for South by Southwest for the third year in a row.
As in the past, the De Los showcase will provide a stage for up-and-coming Latin artists as part of the festival’s activities.
If you’re in town, join us at Mala Fama, located at 422 E. 6th St., Austin, on Sunday, March 15 starting at 8 p.m.
Performers at the De Los showcase include South Texas Norteño group Hermanos Espinoza, San Antonio electro-cumbia artist Vanita Leo, East L.A. psychedelic rock and cumbia band Tropa Magica, emerging música Mexicana artist Eddy and viral Dominican-Colombian singer Nezza.
‘ICE stole someone here’
(Katerina Portela / De Los)
De Los intern Katerina Portela wrote about a recent project by an immigrant activist group in the historically Republican Inland Empire that is raising awareness about ICE activity in the region.
Since November, signs reading “ICE stole someone here” have been placed throughout the Inland Empire by volunteers from Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice — which provides the IE immigrant community with legal support and resources.
With limited local media outlets, IC4IJ’s rapid response network has taken it upon itself to help document ICE’s ongoing operations in the IE after a string of violent actions by ICE agents rocked the region in 2025.
“We realized we had to do something, because so many people don’t know what’s happening,” one activist said.
Click here to read the full story.
(Jackie Rivera / For The Times; Martina Ibáñez-Baldor / Los Angeles Times)
Stories we read this week that we think you should read
Unless otherwise noted, stories below were published by the Los Angeles Times.