The Dallas Movie Lover’s 2025 Oscars Prep Guide

When the 97th Academy Awards go live on March 2, Hollywood’s biggest stars will gather under one roof to celebrate excellence in film in 2024 (and judge first-time host Conan O’Brien’s monologue).

Although North Texas has some nominees on the ballot, Dallas is a long way from Hollywood. Whether you want to debate who wore it best on the red carpet, which acceptance speech is the most winning or just have a meltdown when a movie you didn’t like wins an award, everything you need for a satisfying 2025 Oscars viewing experience can be found right here in town.

Where To Watch the Oscar-Nominated Movies

There is no shame in still needing to catch up with a few of the nominated films, but the clock is ticking. Countless movies come out every year, and a solid number of those get nominated for awards. The Best Picture category alone has 10 nominees, and some of them (such as The Brutalist) are a brutal 3.5-hours long.

If you need to fill in a few (or a lot) of blind spots before March 2, you have plenty of options. First off, by now, most nominated films can be streamed or rented on one service or another. JustWatch.com is the best resource for finding out where to watch a movie once it leaves theaters.

But for the purists out there, those cinephiles who insist on seeing movies in theaters, Dallas has options for you.

True movie obsessives may be tempted to attend AMC’s Best Picture Showcase. The theater chain will have locations hosting marathon screenings of the Best Picture-nominated films ahead of the Oscars. You can either spend about 13 hours in the theater on Feb. 22 watching the first half of the Best Picture nominees and then repeat the process on March 1 for the other half, or find an AMC hosting a 24-hour mega marathon of the movies beginning March 1 and ending the afternoon of March 2 with just enough time afterward for a quick nap before the Oscars.

Right now, tickets are available from participating AMCs for the two-day version of the marathon. It’s also worth noting that, because of Netflix’s ambivalence toward theatrical distribution, the most nominated film of the year, Emilia Pérez, is not included in the lineup for these screenings. Audiences may find that to be more of a blessing than a curse, as the movie has been highly divisive since its debut and has grown more so thanks to controversies surrounding leading lady Karla Sofía Gascón.

Now, if you are a person with a job or a significant other or just better things to do than lock yourself in a theater for 12 to 24 hours, Cinemark is offering a much more manageable option to see the Best Picture nominees, hosting standalone screenings of the films for the week leading up to the ceremony.

This is a great option if all you need is to fill in a blind spot or two – or just want to experience the worms in Dune: Part Two in their full cinematic glory one more time. (It’s also worth noting that Emilia Pérez will be screening as part of this promotion at Cinemark.)

Where to Watch the Oscars

You could watch the Oscars from the comfort of your home, but if you want the rush of watching stilted banter between presenters with a crowd, Dallas has some excellent options for you.

Throughout the North Texas, local bars and restaurants may put the Oscars on screen. Some may even roll out a literal red carpet to set the mood, while others have movie-inspired cocktails available to order. But for the full Oscars experience, Dallas movie lovers have two main options to choose from this year: the Texas Theatre’s Movie Award Watching Party and the Dallas International Film Festival’s (DIFF) Oscars Night Watch Party.

The Texas Theatre

5:30 p.m., Sunday, March 2
231 Jefferson Blvd.
This is the granddaddy of Oscars watch parties in Dallas. The Texas Theatre has been doing this for years, streaming the awards on the big screen, and bringing everyone together for the festivities. The party is free to attend, though there are voting ballots available for $10. If you guess the winner of a category correctly, you can win prizes, and the money raised benefits the Oak Cliff Film Society.

DIFF

4 p.m., Sunday, March 2
208 S. Akard St.
Recently named an “Oscar-qualifying festival,” DIFF is getting into the spirit of the awards with its first Oscars watch party, to be hosted at the AT&T Theater in the AT&T Discovery District. The event will require attendees to pre-purchase a ticket. Your $20 ticket earns you a commemorative badge, an awards ballot and a drawing entry for a $500 STAR+ Pass to the 2025 Dallas International Film Festival. Proceeds will benefit DIFF and the Inter-Tribal Council of AT&T Employees.

How to Host an Oscars Watch Party

Maybe you want to stay in and enjoy the magic of the biggest night in entertainment from the comfort of your couch. If you have time to kill and creativity to burn, you can always re-create the magic of an Oscars watch party at home.

The main thing to do is make sure you can actually watch them (through ABC, either live on network TV or on a streamer like Hulu). Once you check that box, buy some celebrity-branded liqueurs, ask your most fashionable friends to come dressed to the nines and order some appropriately cinematic food (pizza, probably) or, like everyone in the audience at the actual ceremony, just suffer through the entire show hungry but looking fabulous.

In Dallas, there’s no wrong way to celebrate the magic of the movies.