BON Awards 2025 nominees unveiled, celebrating Nollywood’s creativity, innovation, and new “Best Series” category in Lagos

BON Awards 2025 nominees have been officially unveiled, showcasing the very best of Nollywood’s creative and technical brilliance across 25 competitive categories.

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The announcement, made during a grand ceremony in Victoria Island, Lagos, on Monday, marked another milestone for Nigeria’s thriving film industry.

Organised by The Best of Nollywood (BON) Awards, the event celebrated artistry, innovation, and storytelling excellence while recognising rising and established talents shaping the nation’s cinematic landscape.

The highlight of the unveiling was the introduction of a new “Best Series” category, reflecting Nollywood’s bold expansion into serialised storytelling.

This inclusion underscores the industry’s growing adaptation to streaming platforms and changing audience preferences.

Leading the nominations this year are Seven Doors and Abanisete, with nine and eight nods respectively. Both films dominate top categories such as Best Director, Best Actor, and Movie of the Year, signalling their critical acclaim and audience appeal.

They are followed closely by Farmer’s Bride and My Mother Is a Witch, which earned multiple nominations in both creative and technical categories. Their presence reinforces Nollywood’s diversity of themes and storytelling approaches.

For Best Actor, the nominees include Ibrahim Yekini (Abanisete), Gideon Okeke (Blackout), Femi Adebayo (Seven Doors), Razaq Adoti (Son of the Soil), Tobi Bakre (Farmer’s Bride), and Jide Awobona (Inspector Jero).

The Best Actress category sees competition among Folu Storms (Red Circle), Gbubemi Ejeye (Farmer’s Bride), Padita Agu (Blackout), Efe Irele (My Mother Is a Witch), Chioma Chukwuka (Seven Doors), and Florence Nwachukwu (Fury).

The Best Director race is led by industry heavyweights Niyi Akinmolayan (My Mother Is a Witch), Adebayo Tijani and Tope Adebayo (Abanisete), and Toka McBaror (The Waiter), with each bringing distinctive creative styles to the screen.

Meanwhile, the Movie of the Year contenders—Abanisete, My Mother Is a Witch, Farmer’s Bride, The Waiter, Her Excellency, and The Serpent’s Gift—reflect a blend of strong narratives and top-tier production values.

The inaugural Best Series nominees, The Party and Seven Doors, mark Nollywood’s growing embrace of episodic content, signalling a new frontier for local storytelling.

In supporting roles, Mercy Aigbe, Stan Nze, Tina Mba, and Lateef Adedimeji earned nods, further validating their impact on the industry.

Categories such as Best Sound, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and Best Indigenous Movie also feature strong contenders, showcasing the industry’s technical advancement.

Documentaries such as Beyond Olympic Glory, Nigeria Laughs, and Not Addressing This Anymore were recognised for their powerful narratives and real-world relevance.

The BON Awards 2025 ceremony is scheduled for 14 December in Lagos and will include an ambitious Guinness World Record attempt for the longest red carpet, symbolising the grandeur and global aspirations of Nigerian cinema.

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As anticipation builds, the 2025 edition promises to be a celebration of creativity, talent, and the unstoppable momentum of Nollywood’s golden era.