Oscars 2026 Predictions

~ philthebearblog

The 2026 Academy Awards will take place on Sunday 15th March and this year there are some intriguing possibilities in the major categories. Last year my prediction success rate was just under 50%, so lets see if I can do better this time!

Below I will provide links to my reviews of each film in the major categories along with who I think will win and who I would like to win.

Best Picture

The Nominees are:

My Winner – One Battle After Another

My Prediction – One Battle After Another

At the time of writing this one feels like a two horse race between One Battle After Another and Sinners. The former has swept the Picture award at every major awards ceremony until Sinners won the Best Ensemble Cast at the Acting Awards. It feels like that sweep and voting apathy could be the major concern for One Battle After Another.

As for my personal thoughts I think this is a good list. One Battle After Another was my favourite film of 2025, whilst Train Dreams was my 2nd choice and Sinners my 6th. I would also happily see the likes of Sentimental Value or Marty Supreme pick up the award if something crazy were to happen.

Directing

The Nominees are:

My Winner – Paul Thomas Anderson

My Prediction – Paul Thomas Anderson

This award feels like one that is absolutely sewn up for PTA, who happens to be one of my all time favourite directors. This would be his first ever Oscar despite having received 11 nominations before this year’s ceremony and 3 more this year. Already considered a great director, this year gives voters the opportunity to ratify that and I suspect he might go home with all 3 awards that he is nominated for. Unlike with Best Picture where Sinners seems to be a real threat, here Ryan Coogler is an outsider to cause an upset, especially as every precursor award to this ceremony has awarded PTA.

Of course if you want to read why PTA is one of the greats, check out this article – Paul Thomas Anderson Retrospective

Actor in a Leading Role

The Nominees are:

My Winner – Leonardo DiCaprio

My Prediction – Michael B. Jordan

This category has to be the hardest to predict at this year’s ceremony. At the Golden Globes Wagner Moura and Timothee Chalamet took the two leading actor awards. At the BAFTAs Robert Aramayo, not even nominated here, took the award for I Swear. Whilst at the Actor awards Michael B. Jordan took the honour.

At the outset of the race it seemed like Timothee Chalamet was the favourite. Considered the next actor in the guise of De Niro and DiCaprio he talked up his desire to win the award. However his publicity drive for the award seems to have turned a corner to the point that there is some backlash. The BAFTAs choosing to not even honour one of the Oscar nominees was a turn up for the books but one favouring a home town choice. Whilst Sinners is becoming more and more popular resulting in Michael B. Jordan winning the most recent major award which is why I am predicting him.

Personally I think DiCaprio or Hawke are the most deserving. But I think both would be highly unlikely to win.

Actress in a Leading Role

The Nominees are:

My Winner – Rose Byrne

My Prediction – Jessie Buckley

From the most difficult category to pick to what is seemingly the simplest. Jessie Buckley has won every award possible for her performance in Hamnet and the only possible thing stopping her getting the clean sweep is voter apathy or her marketing campaign taking a recent sideways turn where she has had to explain that she does like cats really.

Personally I think this category features the biggest miss of the ceremony with Jennifer Lawrence not getting a nomination for Die My Love. A performance that is easily better than all of those nominated and one that I would have placed as my winner were it nominated. It would be simple to pluck Kate Hudson off of the current list to accommodate her given that her nomination seems to be based on her being well liked and actually making a decent film for the first time in a long while.

Of those nominated Byrne and Reinsve are by far and away the best performances from my perspective and I would vote Byrne.

Actor in a Supporting Role

The Nominees are:

My Winner – Sean Penn

My Prediction – Delroy Lindo

I think the supporting actor award is as hard to predict as the leading actor award. Skarsgard won the Golden Globe, Elordi won the Critics Choice and Penn won the BAFTA and Actor Award. But even on top of all of that Delroy Lindo is picking up lots of support as part of the Sinners campaign.

Overall it is an interesting situation. Lindo was considered snubbed for not receiving anything for his performance in Da 5 Bloods and has a large body of work which garners him both the “lets make it up to him” sympathy vote and the “lifetime achievement” vote. Skarsgard is certainly in the latter category as well. Elordi would seem out of the running on that basis as he is a young man but his depiction of the creature in Frankenstein is arguably a better performance than both of those.

For me, the two best performances come from the only previous Oscar winners in the category who appear in the same film, which could split their vote and is never useful if you want to win. Del Toro has zero buzz around him though which leaves it to Penn. He previously won Best Actor for Mystic River in 2004 and Milk in 2009 and is a controversial figure outside of giving some rather great performances. For me, he should win despite the arguments that he already has two awards. But I think it is going to Lindo because he has none yet.

Actress in a Supporting Role

The Nominees are:

My Winner – Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas

My Prediction – Amy Madigan

This is another open category with Madigan, Mosaku and Taylor all picking up awards at different ceremonies. Personally I think it is a two horse race between Madigan and Mosaku which is rather crazy given the Academy Awards normal aversion to horror. Following Madigan taking the most recent Acting awards and running to the stage like the children in the film I think she may have won the popular vote!

The most surprising facet here for me is that Sentimental Value scored two nominees when I expected One Battle After Another to do that with Chase Infiniti added to the roster. Either way, it is Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas who delivers the best performance on this list. Sentimental Value is a really good film and of its four acting nominations this is the one I would hope to win the most.

Animated Feature Film

My Prediction – Kpop Demon Hunters

For the first time in a very long while I have only seen 2 of the 5 nominees in this category. Even worse, at the time of writing I still have not written a review for either of those. I therefore will abstain from saying who my winner would be, given that neither of those films wowed me in any way. It feels like Kpop has to be the zeitgeist win and it is a film that I have no desire to watch.

Writing – Adapted

My Winner – One Battle After Another

My Prediction – One Battle After Another

Given that One Battle After Another is an adaptation of a Thomas Pynchon novel and it has been updated to fit with the current times it seems like this is the obvious choice here. The fact that Sinners is in a different category will allow the two favourites to share the writing awards also.

Writing – Original

My Winner – Sinners

My Prediction – Sinners

Ryan Coogler may miss out on Picture/Director but should be a lock for this.

And the Rest…

  • International Film – The Secret Agent
  • Costume Design – Frankenstein
  • Editing – One Battle After Another
  • Makeup and Hairstyling – Frankenstein
  • Music Score – Sinners
  • Music Song – KPop Demon Hunters
  • Production Design – Frankenstein
  • Sound – F1
  • Visual Effects – Avatar – Fire and Ash
  • Casting – Sinners (this will be the inaugural award for casting and it seems odd that Sentimental Value is not here given it garnered the most acting nominations)

I will not predict in the short film and documentary categories as they are well outside of my area of interest.

As with last year, I would not be at all surprised to see my favourite (One Battle After Another) pipped to the post in every category (by Sinners). The only categories I think are really locked are Actress, Animated Feature and both Writing awards. Elsewhere I think that we will see either Sinners or One Battle After Another sweep and Frankenstein somehow win more awards than one of them because it will take the technical achievement honours!

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