2026 Academy Awards Pre-Cap

Matt Smith

13 Mar 2026 • 21 min read

The Oscars are here!

Having absorbed a bunch of Oscars intake over the last few months and seeing just about everything I wanted to, I feel more prepared for this particular Oscars than I have in... quite some time. There's almost nothing I haven't gotten to, and what I haven't is down to me not needing to be a completionist. Not watching the shorts means that I'm not covering them, nor am I covering a number of the technical categories. You're on your own for those.

Anyways. Here's a rundown of a bunch of Oscars nominees. There's what should win (who I'd give it to by fiat) and who is going on my ballot (because I want to win my small Oscars pool. For the bragging rights). Whatever happens, this is a hell of an Oscars race, and I'm so excited to see what the Academy enshrines in history.

It's gonna be a good one.

Best Supporting Actor

Benicio del Toro – One Battle After Another
Jacob Elordi – Frankenstein
Delroy Lindo – Sinners
Sean Penn – One Battle After Another
Stellan Skarsgård – Sentimental Value

Elordi got a lot of excitement coming out of Frankenstein, and between that, Euphoria, and the recent "Wuthering Heights", he's having an ascendant moment that labels him as an up and coming talent. But... this is also his first nom and for all that he's quite good in Frankenstein, his chances of winning are very small.

The same goes for Delroy Lindo, though his credits date back half a century. He's always good, and in a film like Sinners where everyone in the cast is terrific, he stands out for being casually above the rest. It's insane (and criminal) that this is his first nom, and I hope the Academy appreciates his work in future years so he can have a better chance at what would be a tremendous win. That said, if he does win here (this award should be one of the first on the night), it's going to speak to Sinners' strength with the voting body at large and Coogler's vampire thriller is probably going to have an outrageously good night.

Sean Penn's turn as Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw in One Battle After Another is an absolutely incredible performance. He is a force. It's hard to not finish the movie and think he's not the most memorable role, and the general buzz is that this is Penn's to lose. That said, Penn has already won two Oscars (first for Mystic River and then a few years later for Milk), and he (alongside a lot of the One Battle cast) hasn't done a lot of campaigning. Those two things together make a huge difference and while this might have been a settled issue dating back to September, it's not clear which is more important here.

Also from One Battle is Benicio Del Toro, playing Sergio, a revolutionary who runs counter to the anti-immigrant forces invading the town of Baktan Cross. Del Toro is having tremendous fun in the role, and every time I watch the movie I find his performance utterly infectious. The little dance he does in his final scene (when the cops pull him over) is second only to the line delivery of "a few small beers" as a capper of an outstanding performance.

But then there's Stellan Skarsgård. Like Elordi and Lindo, this is his first Oscar nomination and he's brilliant in Sentimental Value as an aging director trying to get one last project off the ground. He's not afraid to be thorny and vulnerable and funny and dramatic and aloof while trying to reconnect with his daughters through the magic of film. This is exactly the sort of thing that the Oscars have traditionally rewarded, especially for an actor who's put in tons of high profile work and has seized the opportunity to show what he's capable of. This is a fairly tight race, but if Sentimental Value is going to win outside of the tight International race, this is probably its most likely spot.

Who should win: Benicio Del Toro

Who's going on my ballot: Stellan Skarsgård

Best Supporting Actress

Elle Fanning – Sentimental Value
Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas – Sentimental Value
Amy Madigan – Weapons
Wunmi Mosaku – Sinners
Teyana Taylor – One Battle After Another

Wunmi Mosaku fits into the same position as Delroy Lindo, representing Sinners and its tremendous strength as the most-nominated film in Oscars history. This is her first nomination and reflects her incredible work as a character who delivers exposition about vampires and also has to reconcile with the pain of losing a child. She's absolutely electric, and despite bouncing around the background for a few decades at this point, it's the sort of star-making turn that should see her get a lot more work. Again, she is a longshot, but if she wins here it'll be a major sign that Sinners is going to absolutely mop the floor for the rest of the telecast.

Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas and Elle Fanning both have great performances in Sentimental Value: the former as a daughter of Stellan Skarsgård's character, the latter as a major actress who agrees to star in his film when his other daughter refuses. Both are terrific and worthy of the win, but even if they were frontrunners, it's hard to imagine they won't at the very least completely split the vote. No matter how it goes, some other nominee will probably win.

Which leaves Teyana Taylor and Amy Madigan.

Both are textbook supporting roles, missing for large chunks of the movie and haunting the outskirts of the plot when they're not present.

Teyana Taylor owns the entire first act of One Battle After Another and then the rest of the movie feels haunted by her ghostly absence. Her not returning has frustrated lots of viewers, but... that just shows how good a job she did. Perfidia Beverly Hills is a tremendous, incredible, well-drawn character, and Taylor brings all of the prickliness and weirdness right to it.

The opposite is true for Amy Madigan, who comes into Weapons late but has an outsized influence on the plot. She's terrifying and soft spoken, but also outrageously funny. Even die-hard fans of hers couldn't figure out who the hell was playing Aunt Gladys until the credits rolled. As the sole nomination for Weapons, winning would be the only validation for one of last year's best films. I admit this is me fan casting, but... it's in the air.

Who should win: Amy Madigan

Who's going on my ballot: Amy Madigan

Best Cinematography

Frankenstein – Dan Laustsen
Marty Supreme – Darius Khondji
One Battle After Another – Michael Bauman
Sinners – Autumn Durald Arkapaw
Train Dreams – Adolpho Veloso

Frankenstein's imagery was gorgeously stylized while Marty Supreme's felt naturalistic and specific. The same is true for the dark shadows in Sinners or the harsh lights of Baktan Cross during the raid in One Battle After Another. Train Dreams lives on its cinematography, and it's too bad the movie lived almost entirely on Netflix where its power is in the way it looks on the big screen of a darkened theater.

Then I think about just how gorgeous One Battle is. How remarkable some of the imagery is, how it looked during the night and during the day... and that chase scene. God that chase scene.

Who should win: One Battle After Another

Who's going on my ballot: One Battle After Another

Best Original Score

Bugonia – Jerskin Fendrix
Frankenstein – Alexandre Desplat
Hamnet – Max Richter
One Battle After Another – Jonny Greenwood
Sinners – Ludwig Göransson

Bugonia, Frankenstein, Hamnet... all good scores. I personally can't get enough of Jonny Greenwood's One Battle After Another. The plinks and sounds have been in my head since the first screening, and I've listened to that soundtrack quite a lot as I write.

That said, given Sinners is a movie that functions in part as a musical, it's difficult to imagine Göransson not winning. The music is moving and powerful and central to the film's power, something that creeps in as metatext to the actual struggle at hand. There's a number of reasons the movie works as well as it does. The score is one of its crucial tentpoles.

Wh0 should win: Jonny Greenwood

Who's going on my ballot: Ludwig Göransson

Best International Feature Film

It Was Just an Accident (France) in Persian and Azerbaijani – directed by Jafar Panahi
The Secret Agent (Brazil) in Portuguese and German – directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho
Sentimental Value (Norway) in Norwegian, Swedish, and English – directed by Joachim Trier
Sirāt (Spain) in Spanish, French, and Arabic – directed by Oliver Laxe
The Voice of Hind Rajab (Tunisia) in Arabic – directed by Kaouther Ben Hania

Didn't manage to catch Sirāt or The Voice of Hind Rajab, but given that The Secret Agent and Sentimental Value also have Best Picture nominations, I can't imagine this isn't a race between the two. The Secret Agent felt really, really hot coming off of nominations, while Sentimental Value has trucked along consistently and feels like the sort of movie that Oscars voters can latch onto easily. Maybe I'm wrong, but that gives it the edge.

I'd be remiss, though, if I ignored Jafar Panahi's It Was Just An Accident, which is an absolutely astonishing work. It's so funny while remaining tense and dramatic throughout. The performances are incredible, and the screenplay is just dynamite. Much as I think the two in this category that made it into Best Picture deserved to be there, I'd be lying if I said it's disappointing the Academy didn't make room for this as well. America going to war with Iran probably makes this too hot a button for the Oscars, but... god. What a film.

What should win: It Was Just An Accident

What's going on my ballot: Sentimental Value

Best Original Screenplay

Blue Moon – Robert Kaplow
It Was Just an Accident – Jafar Panahi; in collaboration with Nader Saïvar, Shadmehr Rastin, and Mehdi Mahmoudian
Marty Supreme – Ronald Bronstein and Josh Safdie
Sentimental Value – Eskil Vogt and Joachim Trier
Sinners – Ryan Coogler

Marty Supreme is a terrific examination of a raging asshole, with a relentless script that is about so much more than just a dude who wants to be famous for being a great table tennis player.

Sentimental Value is a great story of generations through the prism of a house through which they can trace their lineage. It does so many different things and has lovely side tangents that all try to tackle the subject of connections and strife that come from family and the world beyond.

It Was Just An Accident I talked about above, but the way Panahi tells that story, the slow unfolding of the plot, the characters who all work together to determine one crucial piece of information... Just an incredible work all around.

Blue Moon feels like a terrific play about an incredible subject. Something that tight and that good doesn't come out of nowhere, and the realization of Lorenz Hart (fabulous as Ethan Hawke is) is nothing without a script that kickass.

Coogler, though? Sinners is an undeniable work. While I might be bullish about its overall strength, it winning here feels like more of a lock than any other category. If nothing else, it'll be Coogler's guaranteed opportunity to get on the stage and accept before the Oscar audience. And also? It's a killer writing job from tip to tail. Almost a year later I'm still in awe at what he created out of whole cloth. He's a terrific filmmaker and a terrific writer and I can't wait to see his career after he wins on Sunday.

What should win: Sinners

What's going on my ballot: Sinners

Best Adapted Screenplay

Bugonia – Will Tracy; based on the film Save the Green Planet! by Jang Joon-hwan
Frankenstein – Guillermo del Toro; based on the novel by Mary Shelley
Hamnet – Chloé Zhao and Maggie O'Farrell; based on the novel by Maggie O'Farrell
One Battle After Another – Paul Thomas Anderson; based on the novel Vineland by Thomas Pynchon
Train Dreams – Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar; based on the novella by Denis Johnson

Could waste more digital ink on these movies, but no way is Paul Thomas Anderson not winning for One Battle After Another. Not only is it one of the titans of this year, but the actual work of bringing Thomas Pynchon's novel to the big screen is astonishing. He found a thread in that sprawling narrative and that became a beautiful story of a washed-up revolutionary and his daughter. It's an incredible feat of adaptation, and is one of those works to study to see just how difficult a task it is.

What should win: One Battle After Another

What's going on my ballot: One Battle After Another

Best Actor

Timothée Chalamet – Marty Supreme
Leonardo DiCaprio – One Battle After Another
Ethan Hawke – Blue Moon
Michael B. Jordan – Sinners
Wagner Moura – The Secret Agent

Right before nominations came out, this was Timmy's to lose. Having seen Marty Supreme, it's easy to see why. His full transformation and chest-puffing bravado make it a hard performance to deny. Not only that, but his Oscar win has been inevitable since he burst onto the scene with Call Me By Your Name in 2018. This would have been easier if he'd just won last year for A Complete Unknown, but the Academy thought maybe they'd give Adrien Brody another shot. No one's regretting that now. There's also no guarantee that Chalamet will continue to get these great roles that garner him awards attention, and if he doesn't win now there's no guarantee the roles will exist to earn him Oscars for a long time after this. They shoulda struck last year, and everyone's paying for it.

But the campaigning he's done has really put a sour taste in peoples' mouths. I still think it's Timmy's to lose, but the showboating and the arrogance is probably too much for an awards body that would like to at least pretend like there's some humility in the pursuit of one of the most high profile prizes in entertainment. With his level of talent and success, it's no surprise that it's gone to his head a bit. But... man. It feels like that might have turned Oscar voters against him.

It's too bad. Because his performance is good enough that his win would (or should) be uncontroversial.

But it is absolutely the wrong year to play loose with the Academy's whims. This Best Actor race is one of the best in decades. All of these performance are truly incredible and interesting and doing something memorable. Anyone upset about someone who didn't make it in would have a hard time justifying cutting one of these out.

Like... Leonardo DiCaprio is not going to win for One Battle After Another even though his performance threads the entire movie. He's funny and sad and pathetic and also caring and dedicated in his mission. But he's not campaigning, and now that he won an Oscar it doesn't seem like the sort of thing he's chasing anymore. Good for him 9and probably his mental health).

In Blue Moon, Ethan Hawke plays real life lyricist Lorenz Hart on the night his career slips through his fingers. It's a performance that gets the nomination through the sheer weight of itself. In some ways, it almost feels like Hawke is doing too much, but the script is almost play-like in its construction, a careful character study in one location. For all that the film is mostly extended monologues and grandilloquence from Hart's extravagance, where it comes together is in a late scene between him and Elizabeth Weiland (Margaret Qualley). In that coat closet, the utter tragedy of his sad existence comes into the starkest of focus. Compared to the rest of the film, he's basically silent throughout. But the performance is there. He'd be a worthy winner. And who knows, he might even pull it out.

Wagner Moura, meanwhile, holds The Secret Agent on his shoulders with an extremely quiet, tense performance that slowly unfurls as the film goes on. He owns every scene, even when he's trying to blend into the background and avoid attention. His ability to be terrified but in control, uncomfortable while appearing unflinching. Just breathtaking stuff.

But.......... I don't know, guys. Michael B. Jordan won at SAG. His performance as Smoke and Stack is so good that I literally forgot the dude didn't have a real twin brother. It's not like he makes them immediately identifiable by name (the whole point is that they are basically indistinguishable), but in every scene the acting is such that it's clear there's a difference in who these two are, what they want, how they behave... Double roles are always fun, but there's something about Coogler pulling this specific performance out of his most consistent collaborator. As I've grown more and more Sinners-pilled in the last few weeks, the more I think that maybe, just maybe, he should (and could) win this.

Who should win: Michael B. Jordan

Who's going on my ballot: Michael B. Jordan

Best Actress

Jessie Buckley – Hamnet
Rose Byrne – If I Had Legs I'd Kick You
Kate Hudson – Song Sung Blue
Renate Reinsve – Sentimental Value
Emma Stone – Bugonia

I've heard Kate Hudson is absolutely astonishing in Song Sung Blue. I have no reason to doubt that. Same with Rose Byrne in If I Had Legs I'd Kick You (which is #1 on the list of movies I wish I'd gotten to).

Emma Stone getting yet another nomination for yet another Yorgos film feels rote and tired. She's one of the great actresses of her generation, but... she's already won two Oscars and the most recent one was for a different Yorgos film. Can't imagine the Academy is going to go out of their way to give her a third trophy, as each one gets progressively harder. And is there anything in Bugonia that absolutely screams "we have to give her this Oscar"? Maybe the last chunk? Is she's doing something so beyond what we know she's capable of that the nomination feels undeniable?

Renate Reinsve is fabulous in Sentimental Value, and helps to anchor the unyielding, arms-folded stubbornness of her character when it comes to her father. It's such a calculated execution of that character, and every scene with her conveys so much.

Jessie Buckley, though? She's gotta win this. Outside of the screenplay categories, this feels like such a slam dunk that everyone else in the category is just happy to receive a nomination. She carries Hamnet on her shoulders, moving through love and courtship and joy and pain and warmth and grief and anger and release in such a way that no one has really considered anyone other than her. It's flashy and loud when the movie calls for it, soft and intimate when it needs to be. She's so completely in control at every second that it's hard to see her not winning this in an absolute blowout. I'm not even the biggest Hamnet fan and I'm not gonna fight this one bit.

Who should win: Jessie Buckley

Who's going on my ballot: Jessie Buckley

Best Director

Chloé Zhao – Hamnet
Josh Safdie – Marty Supreme
Paul Thomas Anderson – One Battle After Another
Joachim Trier – Sentimental Value
Ryan Coogler – Sinners

So Paul Thomas Anderson is still a fairly clear frontrunner to win this race. He's been working for decades and whenever he comes out with a new film, it's the sort of thing cinephiles and the Oscars pay attention to (especially after There Will Be Blood). One Battle After Another feels like such a wild departure from his usual work while still feeling completely in his canon. It's a triumph of his vision and direction. And never underestimate the Academy's sense of "it's time" when they have an opportunity like this to give laurels to someone who has so very much earned them.

For the sake of argument, though... the buzz has cooled on Marty Supreme, and most of their campaign focus has gone towards what they think they could win (Chalamet). The same is true for Hamnet. It hurts Chloé Zhao that she's already won an Oscar, but the nomination still speaks wonders of her vision and talent as one of the signature directors in today's independent space. Trier is in a similar boat, where his films have started to garner Awards consideration and it's probably a matter of time before he wins. But... Sentimental Value is simply not One Battle.

If there's an "upset" in this race, it would be Ryan Coogler winning for Sinners. It's insanely possible, especially considering what Coogler represents as one of the leaders of his generation. The hill to climb builds the sense of seniority. This award can feel like a coronation after a long, droughtless run ending with the right project (Spielberg winning for Schindler's List or the Coens for No Country For Old Men or Jane Campion for The Power of the Dog), and very rarely does it feel like the Oscars picking someone out of a lineup early in their career before they've proven themselves (Damien Chazelle for La La Land or Daniels for Everything Everywhere All At Once).

But directors who make massively populist, mainstream entertainment on the scale of Coogler have to really prove themselves before the Academy lets them in. It's almost certainly why David Fincher hasn't won (though now that we're a decade and a half removed from it, it's completely fucking insane that Tom Hooper won for The King's Speech over The Social Network). It took Chris Nolan a quarter of a century, a war movie, and a seismically successful biopic to win his. Sinners is a good first at-bat for a nomination. A few movies from now (and once he escapes the pull of Marvel) he'll take the stage for a win in this category. He will have deserved it.

And... sure. I'm biased. Again. PTA winning for my favorite movie of both his and last year means I think this is a no-brainer. His filmography is insane and he's one of the great directors of his generation. Looking at directors who have won since There Will Be Blood and the nominations PTA has gotten since then, this is one of those situations where it just makes sense. If it goes to Coogler I will be over the moon, but there's no guarantee PTA will get another shot with this many aligned stars. Coogler undeniably will.

Who should win: Paul Thomas Anderson

Who's going on my ballot: Paul Thomas Anderson

Best Picture

Bugonia
F1
Frankenstein
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
The Secret Agent
Sentimental Value
Sinners
Train Dreams

A quick rundown on these...

Bugonia sneaks in by virtue of being the weird, high-profile flick that's gotten Yorgos's films various nominations dating back to The Lobster. His distinct style and weirdness is right in line for the outskirts of the Academy. He'll definitely have more nominations in this category, but I don't know if they'll ever lock in enough to give him the win.

F1 is in the legacy Dark Knight spot, the sort of technically good, everyone-saw-it, blockbuster spot to earn it the nom. Would be wild if it wins, but no one's really considering that.

Frankenstein makes it in because it's an ornate, high profile Netflix release from a dude who's won Best Picture and Best Director. It has its defenders, and I'm glad those people have a Frankenstein film they like. But as I wrote about previously... it made me question what new he was bringing to a story that so, so many others have covered. Beyond the design and look, it's still stumping me.

Hamnet fills the slot of the high profile, artsy, indie film about drama and pain and suffering filtered through the lens of a terrific director whose already won Best Picture and Best Director (regardless of it being in the midst of the pandemic). It's a good movie and the end is quite affecting, but it didn't hit me quite as hard as it seems to have hit most people. Another year maybe this comes a bit closer, but the vibe is that even in third, it's far, far behind the frontrunners.

Marty Supreme is a high octane thrill ride anchored by Timothée Chalamet's terrific performance as a total sociopath. It didn't work for everyone (my brother-in-law wanted more table tennis) and really challenges audiences who demand "likable" characters. But as a study of a charlatan, all of the cons he operates, how they slowly catching up to him, and the one final, real thing he can't run from it's really, really excellent. One of the best films of the year. But... Hamnet has a better shot.

The Secret Agent is and old school thriller that feels straight out of the 70s. It's an extremely slow burn, with a sprawling narrative that takes odd tangents and a framing device that contextualizes how these archival stories can become artifacts for current generations to study. Like Marty Supreme, the central performance is the glue that holds the whole thing together,. Learning about Wagner Moura's character moves at an almost glacial pace. But it's never boring. There's a reason it transcended from the Best International category and landed here.

Sentimental Value did the same via a story about an aging filmmaker and his daughters. It's more traditional Oscars fare, but also tremendously emotionally complicated. In the end, it doesn't solve these cracks in the foundation of these relationships. The metaphor for the ones in the opening prologue feel like the sort of thing that will never change. But there is a sense of forward progress, like roads that once diverged have inflected back to converging. God it's beautiful.

And Train Dreams is a Sundance movie Netflix picked up that's all about silences and beautiful photography and an abstract examination of life. Its length becomes metaphor and the change the main character witnesses in a moment of perfect clarity is profound. But... sometimes it's an honor to be nominated.

Really, it's the victory for these aforementioned films is that it's an honor to be nominated. Because the main event is Sinners vs. One Battle After Another.

Since seeing One Battle in theaters, I've called the shot that it's going to win Best Picture. This is a stone cold masterpiece, the sort of movie that rarely comes around and is the consensus obvious choice. Oppenheimer, Schindler's List, No Country For Old Men... If it wins, anyone thinking it would be anything else was looking at tea leaves and trying to prognosticate for the sake of some narrative instead of noticing the giant flashing neon lights and thumping club music. Paul Thomas Anderson's biggest film is a rich text that we're going to study for years. It's immediately in the pantheon. Immediately.

Sinners is much the same. It is about so much: music, religion, community, black art, white supremacy's exploitation and cultural appropriation of black artists... vampires... freedom... Any minor fault Sinners might have is easy to ignore in the wake of everything else the film is juggling. Coogler got to make exactly the movie he wanted to, made a deal where the rights to the film revert back to him in a few decades (how in the world did he manage to get that?)... and it received universal acclaim and was a massive, undeniable box office success? Outside of Christopher Nolan's filmography, Sinners is the greatest cinematic success story in like... decades? Certainly since the pandemic.

But how close is this race?

Sean Fennesy, host of The Big Picture did this riff last week:

One Battle After Another has now won the Critic's Choice Award, the Golden Globe for Musical or Comedy, the BAFTA for Best Film. It won an ACE award, it won the DGA for Paul Thomas Anderson, it won the Producer's Guild Award, it's probably going to win the WGA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay [note: it did]. That is the strongest Best Picture package in the history of the Academy Awards. And yet Sinners has not won a single major Best Picture precursor. No critics' groups, no CCA, no Globes, no BAFTA, no PGA. Just Cinematic and Box Office Achievement at the Golden Globes. Here is one historical data point: it has won SAG Ensemble, an ACE Award, and is almost certainly going to win the award for Best Original Screenplay [note: it did]. And no movie who's ever won those three awards has ever lost Best Picture.

Sean goes on to say that if Sinners wins it would be the biggest upset in Oscar's history.

So guys.

Guys.

I don't know.

I'm still pulling for One Battle After Another. It's a tremendous film for this moment and directly tackles the world as it exists while being incredibly tense, wildly funny, deeply emotional, and tremendously empowering in the face of a fascism that is both victorious and still ascendant. It leaves on a feeling of hope for the future, which is astonishing considering how dire and bleak the film can feel at times.

But if Sinners wins I will not be mad. Like at all.

Like One Battle After Another, Sinners winning would be one of the great Best Picture wins in the past decade. For all the shit the Academy rightly gets for Green Book, every other win since 2016 has been terrific at best and interesting at worst. Ryan Coogler's vampire period piece could take the place of films like Moonlight, Parasite, Everything Everywhere All At Once, and Anora as films that didn't seem like Best Picture material on release but in retrospect feel inevitable.

Oppenheimer is basically the only film in the last ten years that feels like an immediate "this is going to be Best Picture" out the gate home run. One Battle would make a wonderful position sharing that podium.

We'll see what happens.