With the exception of best actress, which looks more or less sewn up for Hamnet's Jessie Buckley, most of the main categories still appear to be up for grabs, with some very tight races for the likes of best actor and best supporting actress.
Read on for our Oscars 2026 predictions.
What will win and should win best picture?
Some years, thankfully, a late surprise pops in to reverse a seeming foregone conclusion: Anora, CODA and Parasite are all recent examples of films whose wins were set in stone almost overnight, during sudden groundswells with just weeks of voting to go. And nine years ago, Moonlight famously mounted its grand upset on the night itself.
Two weeks before the biggest night on America’s film calendar, Sinners pulled a couple of last-minute surprises at the Actor (formerly SAG) Awards and finally forced a little drag onto One Battle After Another’s runaway campaign – and that could be enough for a full-on overtake.
View Green Video on the source websiteBut in addition to being very good, the $130m+ production marks the biggest film yet from respected auteur Paul Thomas Anderson, whose 11 other nominations for writing, directing and producing have spanned modern classics Boogie Nights, Magnolia, There Will Be Blood and Phantom Thread, as well as Inherent Vice and Licorice Pizza. (He missed out on a personal nomination for 2012’s The Master, which still scored three acting nods.) Having never won, Anderson is now in a position recently occupied by Oppenheimer’s Christopher Nolan: a popular titan of the medium simply awaiting his crown.
The two films, both produced by Warner Bros, share some similarities: these are fleet-footed but serious-minded blockbusters that switch between deft, blood-pumping action sequences and quieter, more affecting dramatic scenes, all in service of something charged with both political meaning and personal feeling, not least around race and Blackness in America, and the insidious, often violent maintenance of a white-supremacist status quo.
So, the films are both accomplished, but more to the point they are timely – and they explore their themes in popular, accessible styles, which certainly make them appealing for Academy voters looking to show the vitality of their industry.
And despite an impressive nine nominations apiece for fellow best picture/director nominees Sentimental Value and Marty Supreme, neither film has felt “big” enough to touch the duelling frontrunners; the Academy awarded an indie last year, with Anora – perhaps it’s time to go big again.
But actors make up more than one-eighth of Oscar voters, and many of those are also in the Screen Actors Guild, which awarded Sinners its top prize (best cast, beating One Battle’s ensemble) and, possibly more tellingly, gave Michael B Jordan a surprise best-actor win over category favourite Timothée Chalamet.
Though Sinners still looks unfortunately likely to notch up an historical number of losses (it needs to win six Oscars to avoid that fate), its hopes of taking best picture glory even while Anderson enjoys his directing gong suddenly look stronger than ever. – Calum Baker
Who will win and should win best actress?
Despite some truly astonishing snubs (how this won’t be Amanda Seyfried’s year is criminal), the best actress category is arguably the most stacked of this year’s Oscars cycle. From grieving mothers and troubled eldest daughters to potential aliens, the category is brimming with power.
Emotionally raw and completely devastating, Buckley’s rich performance as a woman living through unimaginable tragedy is exactly the kind the Academy favours. Already the recipient of all the major awards preceding Oscars night – the Golden Globe, Critics’ Choice, BAFTA and Actor Award – history dictates that Buckley will almost certainly win, with no lead actress ever having failed to take home an Oscar after winning all four.
Byrne’s anxiety is palpable across the 113 minutes, filmed predominantly with claustrophobic close-ups that allow the audience to capture the complete emotional texture of its protagonist. Byrne is ferocious and sympathetic – folding in threads of humour with her strong comedic chops. Should Buckley somehow manage to stumble on the big night, it’s probable that Byrne will be next in line, especially considering her Golden Globe win earlier this season.
Kate Hudson has also found herself a spot on the list for her charismatic yet tragic portrayal of Claire Cartwright in Craig Brewer’s Song Sung Blue. Though Hudson was praised as the standout of the musical drama, her nomination was the most unexpected of the season – with the somewhat rogue selection prompting much social media discussion – and many arguing that Amanda Seyfreid’s mesmerising performance in The Testament of Ann Lee, Jennifer Lawrence’s feverish turn in Die My Love or Chase Infiniti’s debut in best picture favourite One Battle After Another were equally, if not more, deserving. Regardless, it’s Hudson who has cemented her spot in the line-up – even though a win seems only a minor possibility.
Our predicted winner: Jessie Buckley (Hamnet)
Who will win and should win best actor?
The release of exhilarating ping-pong drama Marty Supreme in December last year took acclaim for the 30-year-old actor to new heights – and Critics’ Choice and Golden Globe awards followed. Then, the announcement of his third Oscar nomination in January saw him become the youngest individual to receive three best actor nominations since Marlon Brando in 1953. Put simply: even alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, momentum has always been with Chalamet and his coronation has seemed one of the safest bets of this year’s Oscars race.
View Green Video on the source websiteThe BAFTA best actor prize went to Robert Aramayo for Scotland-set drama I Swear, which is perhaps a case of a homegrown win that will have little impact on the Oscar race, but since then there has been a groundswell of support for Sinners. So much so, last week the vampire horror drama swept the Actor Awards and Jordan edged Chalamet to make things dicey for prognosticators and pundits.
Jordan’s performance as Smoke and Stack, two enterprising twin brothers in 1930s Mississippi, is central to the appeal of Ryan Coogler’s film, and an Oscar win would make him the first actor since Lee Marvin in 1965’s Cat Ballou to be recognised for two performances in one film. Notably, if Chalamet were to prevail, though, he would also become the first best actor winner in 22 years to win without having a BAFTA and Actor Award on the shelf in advance – as this year's best supporting actor frontrunner Sean Penn did so in 2004.
So, as Sunday night at LA’s Dolby Theatre approaches, best actor is quietly looking ever less certain. Or, in table tennis terms: Marty is still serving for the match, but the scoreline is a lot closer than he’d like. – Max Copeman
Who will win and should win best supporting actor?
Of the four acting categories at this year's Oscars, supporting actor is the only one made up entirely of nominees whose performances come in films included in the best picture line-up. The closely matched selection comprises two stars from Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another and one each from Sinners, Sentimental Value and Frankenstein – with the frontrunner in the race having switched multiple times over this long awards season.
In Lockjaw, Penn expertly embodies one of the most odious antagonists put to the screen in years, delivering a twitchy, deeply disturbing physical performance that viscerally captures the character's creepy, pathetic nature as well as both his insatiable lust and deep-rooted insecurity. He's a character who would certainly fit in with a handful of previous winners – joining other chilling villains like Javier Bardem's Anton Chigurh (No Country for Old Men) and Heath Ledger's Joker (The Dark Knight) as memorable victors in this category.
Instead, if anyone is to unseat Penn as the favourite at this stage, it looks like being Stellan Skarsgård for his turn as film director Gustav Borg in Sentimental Value. Of all the nominees, he – along with Jacob Elordi in Frankenstein – is the most likely to be found guilty of category fraud, with his role very much registering as a leading one to most viewers. But such a charge didn't stop Kieran Culkin from taking this prize last year, and Skarsgård – who already has the Golden Globe to his name – would be a popular choice: a veteran actor who's worked across both auteur and blockbuster cinema for decades finally getting his due for one of his most rich and layered performances.
Which leaves us with Delroy Lindo. The veteran London-born actor had been considered something of a surprise nomination, not because his terrific, tragic turn as Delta Slim in Sinners was in any way undeserving, but because he'd been left off many of the other nominations lists. But Lindo is another consistently strong performer who seems overdue an Oscar, and though he still seems an outside bet at this stage, few would deny that his charismatic, soulful portrayal of the ageing harmonica player would be a brilliant choice of winner.
Our predicted winner: Sean Penn (One Battle After Another)
Who will win and should win best supporting actress?
This year's nominees have been selected from five of the very best films of 2025, including two nods in the horror genre for Sinners and Weapons, two from BAFTA-winning Sentimental Value and one from One Battle After Another, which has already scooped plenty of trophies elsewhere.
As it stands, Sinners' Wunmi Mosaku seems to be the frontrunner after taking home the BAFTA, but Golden Globe and Critics' Choice prizes went to Teyana Taylor and Amy Madigan respectively – who pose the biggest threat to the British actress.
In 2021, Jodie Foster won the Golden Globe for The Mauritanian, Maria Bakalova won the Critics' Choice for Borat Subsequent Moviefilm and Youn Yuh-jung won the BAFTA for Minari. And who won the Oscar then? Youn Yuh-jung.
Mosaku faces strong competition, though, with Teyana Taylor once a frontrunner in the category after her Golden Globes win. Despite only appearing in the first half hour of the film, her performance as the fearless Perfidia Beverly Hills commanded the attention of cinemagoers and voting bodies.
That leaves Amy Madigan, whose inclusion for her portrayal of Aunt Gladys in Weapons was something of a surprise nomination, albeit a welcome one among critics and cinephiles. Audiences had seen the Academy embrace horror last year, with Demi Moore nominated for best actress after starring in body-horror The Substance, but Weapons had largely been shut out of mainstream awards chatter – which positions Madigan as a dark horse.
Our predicted winner: Wunmi Mosaku (Sinners)
Who will win and should win best director?
At the end of 2025, you might have expected Guillermo del Toro (Frankenstein) or Yorgos Lanthimos (Bugonia) to be in the final five. However, Josh Safdie moved into contention following the December release of Marty Supreme and the Oscar buzz around Timothée Chalamet’s dazzling performance as a charismatic hustler out to achieve greatness. It’s Safdie’s first nomination in any category and the first film made solo since 2008 and the 2024 split with co-directing sibling Benny.
View Green Video on the source websiteA winner at the 2021 Oscars for Nomadland, Chloé Zhao became only the second woman to receive the Academy Award after Kathryn Bigelow broke that particular glass ceiling for The Hurt Locker in 2010. The Chinese film-maker’s second nomination as director is for Hamnet, the adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s novel about the fallout from the tragic death of Shakespeare’s son, for which both women are nominated in the best adapted screenplay category. However, Hamnet’s chances of success lie with Irish actress Jessie Buckley, whose performance as Will’s grieving wife Agnes seems destined for Oscar glory.
And the winner will be... Paul Thomas Anderson for black comedy thriller One Battle After Another, the film-maker’s fourth Oscar nomination as director after There Will Be Blood, Phantom Thread and Licorice Pizza and his 14th in total, but with no wins. That is sure to change with Anderson also up for best film and his adapted screenplay about a befuddled ex-revolutionary (Leonardo DiCaprio) on the run from his military nemesis (a superb Sean Penn). With all the main awards bodies (Golden Globes, Directors Guild and, most recently, BAFTA) all voting for Anderson, the indications are that one of the finest film-makers of his generation will be celebrating on 15 March. – Jeremy Aspinall
Our predicted winner: Paul Thomas Anderson (One Battle After Another)
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