There's something rather dispiriting about a cut-and-dried Oscars race, the kind of year in which we all have to feign excitement about results which have been set in stone since the awards season revved up six long months ago. For a while at least, it seemed as though 2026 would be that kind of year. The narrative was set: One Battle After Another would sweep the board. But then came the Oscar nominations announcement and the first indication that Paul Thomas Anderson might have another kind of battle on his hands. And for the first time in months, awards season got interesting.
The impressive haul of 16 nods for Ryan Coogler's Sinners – it set a new record for the most nominations – repositioned the film as a serious contender. While the number of nominations doesn't always translate to statuettes (just ask The Color Purple, which racked up 11 nominations without a single win), the support for Sinners at the nomination stage lit a fire under the film’s campaign.
Many pundits are now predicting it for the big prize. And there’s another factor that can't be discounted: the groundswell of sympathy from Oscar voters following the Baftas, when Tourette's activist John Davidson’s involuntary verbal tics caused him to shout a racial slur while Sinners actors Michael B Jordan and Delroy Lindo were on stage. With last-minute shifts in allegiances, plus a few ill-advised comments from nominees (will Jessie Buckley's anti-cat stance affect her chances? Will Chalamet’s criticism of ballet and opera turn the Academy against him?), there are now plenty of question marks hanging over the ceremony on Sunday. One thing we can be sure of, however, is that it won’t be boring.
Best Picture
Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another was, for a while, such a firm favourite that Anderson ran out of fresh things to say in acceptance speeches: at both the Baftas and the London Film Critics’ Circle awards he made the same joke (“Is there a bar here? Let's get drunk!”). But a late rally for Sinners suggests One Battle is no longer a certainty, and PTA may be drowning his sorrows rather than celebrating. My instinct is that One Battle will still edge it.
Best Director
Paul Thomas Anderson still has this one in the bag, even if Sinners director Ryan Coogler has been closing the gap between them. My personal pick, however, would be Josh Safdie for Marty Supreme.
Best Actress
There are few certainties in awards season, but a Jessie Buckley win for Hamnet seems locked in. We can also be 99% confident that her speech will contain the words “disobedience” and/or “misbehaviour”.
Best Actor
Poor Timothee Chalamet – a sure thing for Marty Supreme became a long shot in just a couple of weeks. It wasn’t the opera comments that did for him, however, but the swell of support for Michael B Jordan following The Unfortunate Bafta Incident.
Best Supporting Actress
This is a tough call. My gut says Wunmi Mosaku for Sinners, but Amy Madigan still has a fighting chance for her gruesomely compelling turn in Weapons. I would be delighted with either.
Best Supporting Actor
Anyone but Sean Penn, please! It would be galling to see Penn's gurning monstrosity of a performance take the prize over the exquisite, elegantly restrained work from Stellan Skarsgård in Sentimental Value.
Photograph courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
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