10 top tips for the 2026 Oscars race

Warner Bros. Pictures

Battle after battle

How can you not love a movie that shows Leonardo DiCaprio running around in a bathrobe, gleefully trying to remember the password that would allow a revolutionary group to rescue his kidnapped daughter? One Battle After Another, a comedy-drama with a specific political theme, is one of the best films of the year and is dominating awards conversations. These two things don’t always go together. Oddly enough, Paul Thomas Anderson has never won an Academy Award, despite his numerous Best Picture nominations and a Best Director nomination for his films Phantom Thread, There Will Be Blood, and Licorice Pizza. At this point, the “it’s overdue” thing kicked in. The film is sure to earn a Best Picture nomination, Anderson could win an Adapted Screenplay award, Leo could take home another Best Actor nod, and Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, and Teyana Taylor are strong in the supporting categories. The film’s box office may have been slower than expected, but it is still, by far, this year’s top awards nominee. (CG)

Frankenstein

Guillermo del Toro specializes in extravagant shows, and Frankenstein is the most extravagant of them all. He was a perennial Oscar contender for production design, costume design, hair and makeup. But now it’s coming back from the dead in other categories as well, with fans enjoying the film on Netflix and debating its merits online. Not only is Frankenstein up for Best Picture, but there’s talk that Jacob Elordi, who plays the monster, is up for acting as well. The question is, in a film that tells its story first from Victor’s perspective and then from the monster’s perspective, is Elordi a lead actor or a supporting actor? (note)

Cannes Film Festival

Jaafar Panahi

Dynamic stories off-screen never affect an awards campaign, and respected Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s is the year’s most dramatic one. Twice imprisoned for films that displeased the government, Panahi secretly made “It Was Just an Accident” and sent it out of Iran on a thumb drive. The film won the Palme d’Or, the top prize, at the Cannes Film Festival, and is now France’s nomination for the Academy Award for Best International Film. She has a strong chance of winning because it is a victory in itself. Remarkably, this drama about an ex-con who kidnaps a man he believes is the one who tortured him, is full of counter-comedy. Panahi may also appear in the Best Director and Original Screenplay categories. But other international contenders are also strong. The powerful Brazilian political drama “Secret Agent” won best director at Cannes for Kleber Mendonça Filho and best actor for Wagner Moura. Or voters may avoid politics and turn to Norway’s sentimental value. But Panahi has years of great films under his belt and has never had a better chance to win all awards season. (CG)

Amy Madigan

Horror films are usually snubbed at the Oscars, but they’ve been such a hit lately that this could be their year. “Sinners” and “Frankenstein” are sure to do well — and a campaign is being built for Amy Madigan to get a best supporting actress nomination for director Zach Krieger’s “Horrible Weapons.” She plays Gladys, a gloriously grotesque character who has already become a social media meme and a Halloween costume. The best part is that Madigan, 75, was nominated for best supporting actress at exactly 40 years old, when she was in the drama Twice in a Lifetime. This title can be oddly appropriate. (note)

fight

Stellan Skarsgard

It’s strange to say that Stellan Skarsgård, 74, might get his first Oscar nomination. He’s been so powerful for decades that he’s often taken for granted, but he’s never been better than in emotionally valuable family dramas as Gustav Borg, a famous, self-absorbed but never brutal film director coming to terms with the hurt he’s caused his two daughters. Skarsgård is truly the heart of the film and should be considered a lead actor, but his campaign is meant to be supportive. This puts him in strong competition with Paul Mescal in Hamnet and Sean Penn and Benicio del Toro in battle after battle, all of which are certain. Together, these four make the supporting cast one of the most volatile and best-watching races this year. Stellan, father of actors Alexander and Bill Skarsgård, has already proven a refreshing hit on the campaign trail, derisively calling himself a “nepo Daddy” in an interview. (CG)

Demon hunters in kpop

Since the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature was presented in 2002, most of the awards have ended up in Pixar’s offices, with the rest split between Disney, DreamWorks and a couple of other studios. But times seem to be changing: The last three animation Oscars went to Netflix (Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio), Studio Ghibli (The Boy and the Heron), and a team from Latvia, France and Belgium (Flow). This trend could continue in 2026. The KPop series Demon Hunters began streaming on Netflix in June, however it has been so popular that it has received two short film adaptations – including one “singing” version. In a year in which mainstream animation has stumbled (Elio, the Smurfs, and The Bad Guys 2 won’t win any awards), could the Oscar go to a Netflix musical about a K-pop band that hunts monsters? (note)

Once hot…now not

One truth about awards season: You can’t count on anything. Some of the year’s most anticipated films came out hot and quickly turned ice cold. The most surprising film was The Smashing Machine, in which Dwayne Johnson went into drama as mixed martial arts fighter Mark Kerr. The film won many awards. It is a fact-based biography of respected director Benny Safdie. He’s a star known for his crowd-pleasing songs and proving he can really act, in what was supposed to be Johnson’s “we respect him now” moment. But despite strong reviews, the film’s disastrous box office put an end to all that. The other shock was the film “After the Hunt” by director Luca Guadagnino, in which Julia Roberts, who is still a Hollywood fan, played the role of a prickly university professor embroiled in a scandal. Critics and audiences dismissed the film and the #MeToo plot as exhausting and boring. Both films premiered at the Venice Film Festival, which is usually one of the strongest launch pads for awards, so… don’t count your chickens or awards too early. (CG)

Academy Award nominations will be announced on January 22, 2026. The 98th Academy Awards will be held on March 15.

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