The actors still rule the Academy, but there is no doubt that things have dramatically changed in the past few years to impact the overall balance of the voting body. Two things changed in the past several years. The first was that the Academy made the decision to go from a random number of Best Picture contenders to a solid 10. This happened in 2021.
Before that, the preferential ballot would decide the nominees in a slightly different way, which would amount to a random number that only ever hit 9 or sometimes 8. Before that, there were ten – in 2009 and 2010. Before that, there were five Best Picture nominees from 1943 to 2009.
The original idea for the expanded Best Picture slate was to include what we called “genre movies,” like The Dark Knight. When that film failed to get a nomination, it caused enough of a stir to motivate the Academy to expand the ballot. But we didn’t really see so much of a change in terms of “genre movies.” The expanded ballot did help them deal with their diversity, equity and inclusion.
It slots so nicely into pendulum theory, which tracks how we shift from a “we” cycle (collectivism) to a “me” cycle. If you’re not trapped inside the bubble, you will see and feel this shift happening right now. Because I follow pendulum theory, I already knew it was coming. According to the authors of Pendulum: How Generations of the Past Shape Our Present and Predict Our Future, humans always take a good thing too far. The extreme end of collectivism is what we’ve just lived through and are still living through, what they call the “witch hunt phase.”
The extreme end of the “me” phase, which should hit 40 years from now (I will be dead and this site will be long gone) is hopelessness and nihilism, kind of like what we lived through in the late 1980s and 1990s. Either way, there is probably very little chance the Academy will shift back to five Best Picture contenders. There is no reason for them to do so. They are heading toward their 100th year and they already know streaming is their future. There are no market pressures on them, or on Hollywood, because what they all care about is being seen as “good people doing good things” and their status inside utopia.
These cycles happen over a 40-year period, believe it or not, and the last one like this was roughly 1943, exactly when they shrank back Best Picture to five.
The second big change has been the change to membership, with the Academy trying to diversify its membership by adding roughly 3,000 International members who were anything but old white men – younger people of color and women.
With a solid 10 Best Picture nominees and 3,000 new members which has resulted in more films being nominated without acting nominations. Since 2,000, Best Picture nominees have been driven by the actors because they usually had a nomination. But movies can win even without them, as we saw with Parasite and Slumdog Millionaire. But it’s rare.
The wins in each category break down like this (since 2000):
Supporting Actor with Best Picture: 7
Best Actor with Best Picture: 4
Best Actress with Best Picture: 3
Supporting Actress with Best Picture: 2
For nominations only–
Supporting Actor with Best Picture: 9
Supporting Actress with Best Picture: 8
Best Actor with Best Picture: 6
Best Actress with Best Picture: 2
For total nominations, with wins:
Supporting Actor with Best Picture: 16
Supporting Actress with Best Picture: 10
Best Actor with Best Picture: 10
Best Actress with Best Picture: 5
And here are the charts, which I hope I did right. There might be a mistake here or there but I did the best I could.
There were two years with five Best Picture nominees that had no acting nominations, which is a little strange. But it does reflect a changing Academy and that the added numbers, with the growing segment of the short films and documentary branches, aren’t shaped by actors as much as they used to be.
That said, actors do drive the Best Picture race. Five consecutive Best Picture winners have a Best Acting winner. It’s not the worst idea to shape your predictions accordingly. It does happen when the winner doesn’t win in acting or doesn’t even have acting nominations at all, but in general, actors tend to be the “true north” of the Best Picture race. Next week, we’ll track Best Director to see how that has shifted over time.
But the new members and the changing Academy mean that if you love a movie (like Weapons) but you don’t think it has a chance because actors might not go for it, it might not matter that much anymore. Do actors still matter? Yes, of course they do, but their power has been diluted a bit.
When we look at the films that look strong right now, like Sinners, we see potential for acting nominations, like Michael B. Jordan in the dual role of the twins. Hailee Steinfeld should also get noticed for her supporting turn, along with, I think, Delroy Lindo or Miles Caton for Sinners. They will have to show up at the Critics Choice and the Golden Globes, though the latter group seems like the tougher sell for this movie.
The Academy’s International bloc does tend to be more in sync with the new Golden Globes so if Sinners is strong there, that might be an indication it’s headed for the Oscars. It’s a shoo-in for the Producers Guild and for The Directors Guild. The SAG will also nominate this film in multiple categories, I figure.
Sentimental Value is about the film business and featured strong performances as well, like Renate Reinsve, Dakota Fanning and Stellan Skarsgard.
The actors will drive After the Hunt, and the film could land in all four acting categories, if Andrew Garfield is the lead. Julia Roberts in lead, Ayo Edebiri in Supporting, and perhaps Michael Stuhbarg in Supporting. But Garfield will probably be in the Supporting category too so if it’s very good, both will get in.
Acting will also drive Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly, with George Clooney in Lead, perhaps Adam Sandler in Supporting, who knows who else will get in.
And just like that, we have four of our SAG ensemble frontrunners, potentially:
Sinners
Sentimental Value
After the Hunt
Jay Kelly
But other films with big ensembles might find their way in, like the Paul Thomas Anderson movie, One Battle After Another with so many heavy hitters in the cast, like Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro, etc. They’ve been out front in the press promising all of us the movie is not agonizingly political. Fingers crossed they’re telling the truth.
Obviously, Wicked for Good is another big ensemble that likely finds its way into the SAG lineup.
But there are lots of other potential contenders that aren’t necessarily ensembles but could be driven by a strong leading role, like Marty Supreme with Timothee Chalamet, or The Ballad of a Small Player with Colin Farrell, or Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere with Jeremy Allen White.
There is also the heavily buzzed film from Cannes that won the Palme d’Or, It Was Just an Accident, distributed by last year’s BP winner, Neon:
So, for Venice, the big ones we have are:
After the Hunt
Jay Kelly
A House of Dynamite
Frankenstein
The Testament of Ann Lee
Bugonia
The Smashing Machine
But before that, we’ll get some action in Telluride. Let’s quickly check in on Michael Patterson’s Telluride lineup predictions a couple of weeks out of what he thinks might be going:
1) Hamnet/Zhao
2) It Was Just an Accident/Panahi
3) Sentimental Value/Trier
4) Ballad of a Small Player/Berger
5) The Secret Agent/Filho
6) Nouvelle Vague/Linklater
7) Tuner/Roher
8) Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere
9) The History of Sound/Hermanus
10) Jay Kelly/Baumbach
11) Bugonia/Lanthimos
12) The Mastermind/Reichardt
13) Cover-Up/Poitras
14) Ghost Elephants/Herzog
15) Hamlet/Karia
16) Pillion
17) La Grazia
18) Resurrection
19) Nuestra Tierra
20) Blue Moon
And Toronto, the big ones are:
Roofman (Channing Tatum)
Nuremberg (Russell Crowe)
The Lost Bus (Matthew McConaughey)
At least for now, we have a big picture of what our Oscar season might look like, give or take a breakout film no one expected (like The Housemaid, for instance).
Here are my latest predictions on Awards App (you can follow me there if you download it). These should be taken with a huge grain of salt since we’re just about to see how all of these films land.
Best Picture
Sinners
Sentimental Value
Wicked for Good
Hamnet
Jay Kelly
Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere
Marty Supreme
After the Hunt
The Testament of Ann Lee
Bugonia
It was Just an Accident
One Battle After Another
The Lost Bus
Ballad of a Small Player
Avatar: Fire and Ash
A House of Dynamite
Warfare
Frankenstein
The Life of Chuck
Director
Ryan Coogler, Sinners
Joachim Trier, Sentimental Value
Yorgos Lanthimos, Bugonia
Jafar Panahi, It Was Just an Accident
Jon M, Chu Wicked for Good
Best Actress
Renate Reinsve, Sentimental Value
Amanda Seyfried, The Testament of Ann Lee
Cynthia Erivo, Wicked for Good
Julia Roberts, After the Hunt
Emma Stone, Bugonia
Best Actor
Jeremy Allen White, Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere
George Clooney, Jay Kelly
Michael B. Jordan, Sinners
Timothee Chalamet, Marty Supreme
Colin Farell, Ballad of a Small Player
Supporting Actress
Ayo Edebiri, After the Hunt
Hailee Steinfeld, Sinners
Ariana Grande, Wicked
Jennifer Lopez, Kiss of the Spider Woman
Elle Fanning, Sentimental Value
Supporting Actor
Adam Sandler, Jay Kelly
Stellan Skarsgard, Sentimental Value
Miles Caton, Sinners
Benicio Del Toro, One Battle After Another
Delroy Lindo, Sinners
That’s it for today. Have a great weekend.
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By: Sasha Stone
Title: 2026 Oscar Predictions: Best Picture and Why Acting Nominations Matter
Sourced From: www.awardsdaily.com/2025/08/15/2026-oscar-predictions-best-picture-and-why-acting-nominations-matter/
Published Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2025 22:37:00 +0000
