And the least likable character is… How did Oscar season become dominated by difficult people? Oscars 2026

forIn practical terms, the best way to get an Oscar for acting is to play a likable person, or a hated likable person. Not every winning actor fits into this pair, of course, but the history of the four categories is littered with spectacular bad behavior (Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs, Louise Fletcher in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, J. K. Simmons in Whiplash) as well as expressions of sheer delight in pairing actor and beloved character (Diane Keaton in Annie Hall, Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump, Gwyneth Paltrow in Shakespeare in Love). This year’s cast of nominees isn’t entirely lacking in radical interests: Michael B. Jordan makes his 1930s gangster duo twice as charming in Sinners while still nailing their individual nuance, and the even-keeled activist Benicio del Toro is utterly likable in battle after battle. Elsewhere, however, there is certainly a stronger-than-usual breed of characters who defy the usual norms of likability.

The importance of likability in an Oscar campaign is similar to its importance in a political campaign – although in the case of the Oscars, actors are campaigning twice, for themselves as actors and, primarily, for their characters as part of the cinematic firmament. Which is why likability is arguably the secret factor accelerating the long-standing trend of awarding awards to actors playing real-life characters. It’s not just about the physical transformation or seamless impersonation, because many of these biographical performances really aren’t that when you put them side by side with the real thing. It’s that extra radical interest that comes from embodying Freddie Mercury, Winston Churchill, Stephen Hawking, Abraham Lincoln, and Judy Garland — people who Academy voters probably already like or admire to some degree, at least in the abstract. Suffering can also help create an easier feeling of empathy.

As with many things, men have more freedom. The last two winners, Adrien Brody for The Brutalist and Cillian Murphy for Oppenheimer, play characters who do a lot of bad things and never seem heroic or likable. (On these purely grounds, Brody would have lost to Colman Domingo in Sing Sing, and Murphy to Paul Giamatti in The Holdovers.) But they are also ultimately more sympathetic than most, pushed forward by the ebbs and flows of history. As for the Best Actress category, recent history clearly favors the usual assortment of down-to-earth characters (Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady, Jessica Chastain in The Eyes of Tammy Faye, Renee Zellweger in Judy), wits (Jennifer Lawrence, Brie Larson, Mickey Madison, Emma Stone – twice!), underdogs (Michelle Yeoh in Everything, Everywhere, At Once) and underdogs (Michelle Yeoh in Everything, Everywhere, At Once). Frances McDormand, who in her last two wins has made presenting potentially ‘difficult’ characters extremely endearing – and that’s what it’s all about.

So it’s a bit of a shock to look at this year’s nominees and see that Stone, an Academy favorite, has made it to Bugonia, where she plays a cold-blooded executive trying to talk her way out of an abduction by a fanatic who believes she’s an alien. Her overall predicament generates some basic sympathy – which the film actively works to undermine beforehand, by calling on her cynical instincts as an insufferable corporate boss, and in the film’s finale as well, and, well, I won’t spoil it, but it’s not endearing stuff! And Stone might still look like a plucky heroine compared to Rose Byrne in If I Had Legs to Kick You, a film that taps into the bruises of motherhood by taking a character who should automatically generate sympathy (as a caregiver to a sick child) and making sure she always ends up making what feels like the wrong decision.

Mary Bronstein’s film has a soulmate in Best Actor, as Marty Supreme (co-written by Bronstein’s husband) pits his young hero against similar misfortune and self-destructive choices. Timothée Chalamet appears closer than ever to winning the Academy Award for Best Actor, all while stoking debate over whether his character is too noxious to bear. He’s accompanied by the similarly fawning (if smarter) Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke) in Blue Moon, an artist biopic that seems to relish in refusing to glorify its subject with the same enthusiasm as any other Oscar-nominated example. In the supporting categories, Stellan Skarsgård presents a cold, selfish father figure in a film of sentimental value that, even after he reconciles with his adult children, doesn’t really register that he’s changed much. And Teyana Taylor’s steely charisma is deliberately complicated in battle after battle by having her revolutionary persona betray her comrades — and abandon her infant child. Even Amy Madigan’s traditional villain in Guns doesn’t register as charismatic evil, like Hannibal Lecter; Her witch aunt Gladys is quite upset.

Again, not everyone is that hard; This year there’s still Song Sung Blue’s Kate Hudson, an almost annoying performance (and another real-life, if less famous, character), and Delroy Lindo, whose character’s alcoholism in Sinners is touching rather than a deal-breaker. Jessie Buckley looks likely to win Best Actress for her role as Shakespeare’s Agnes – although her ordeal after the death of a child is a little more prickly than most. However, the shadow of admiration (and the evil that is love-hate, which is really just a different form of admiration) does not loom large over this year’s crop of nominated actors.

Does this indicate a broader boredom with outright villainy or outright heroism? Although the “difficult” and hard-to-like characters may reflect a desire for real-world nuance, it’s not as if this real world has seemed particularly lacking in outright villains in recent history. (Maybe this helps explain Sean Penn’s “One Battle After Another” Oscar presence: On the one hand, he’s a cartoonish villain, but on the other hand, is he so hard to believe?) As the general public seems less in thrall to particular stars than ever before, it can be read as a long-overdue deconstruction of the actor’s fame and admiration. Two of this year’s most popular and high-profile nominees are Stone and Leonardo DiCaprio, who were chosen for performances that effectively undercut their radiant charm in both comedic and poignant ways, especially in DiCaprio’s case. In an old-fashioned version of Hollywood, they’d probably star in an age-gap-ignoring romance together.

On the other hand, a less likable character can inspire a different form of selfishness, allowing an artist like Chalamet to show how much he can do without succumbing to the conventions of cinematic heroism. How brave, to be so talented and good-looking and do such bad things on screen! Most Oscar bids can be viewed as a kind of professional reckoning. Still, it’s hard not to view this trend as liberating on some level, if for no other reason than that this year’s crop of nominees is particularly strong: no inappropriate impressions, no actual awards for lifetime achievement, and virtually no embarrassment. This group of unlikeable characters are also strangely easy shows to love.