2026 Oscar Predictions: How to Build a Best Picture Contender

Anne Thompson has always said you build a Best Picture contender “branch by branch.” That makes sense when you think about how the Academy votes. Each branch can vote in its own category, but they all vote for Best Picture. It would be odd to separate how they vote in their categories with their favorites to win Best Picture, but it obviously does happen. When Selma was nominated for Best Picture, it only earned a Best Song nomination. A Best Picture contender usually comes with more nominations, not just one.

It used to happen more than a film would land in many of the “below the line” categories, but not in Best Picture, but since the Academy expanded the ballot, most of those movies make it in, though not all. A movie like Netflix’s Frankenstein will be a monster for nominations in almost every branch and category, I figure. That and Sinners are likely to be your nominations leaders.

Here is an optimistic look at how these could go, in the best-case scenario:

Frankenstein
Picture
Director
Adapted Screenplay
Supporting Actor
Production Design
Editing
Cinematography
Visual Effects
Costumes
Score
Casting
Hair and Makeup

That’s 12, could be more.

For Sinners:
Picture
Director
Actor
Editing
Supporting Actor
Screenplay
Cinematography
Production Design
Costumes
Sound
Casting
Hair & Makeup
Score
Song X 2

So 12 probably at a minimum, for a max of 13 or 14.

One Battle After Another should come in with:

Picture
Director
Screenplay
Actor
Actress
Supporting Actor X2
Supporting Actress
Editing
Cinematography
Score
Sound
Casting

Any of these might come in with more or less, but at this moment in time, these look like the nominations leaders. The other movie that would have joined this list would have been Wicked: For Good, and it still might. If Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo are acting contenders, that could easily drag the movie into the race. It is too premature to write it off completely. But let’s say it’s written off – then how do we build our Best Picture list?

Wagner Moura seems to be all the rage right now for a Best Actor nomination. This is inexplicable to me and seems 100% blogger-based, and yet, they’ve all gone along with it. You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone at Gold Derby not predicting him. So does that mean The Secret Agent gets in? I’d say it has a better chance than its Neon cousin, It Was Just An Accident, another nominee that feels blogger-based – what else do we have to go on? In that case, Jafar Panahi is a potential Best Director nominee. But can it get in with just those nominations and nothing else?

We saw I’m Still Here get a Best Picture and Best Actress nomination last year. That had three nominations, which The Secret Agent will also have if you count International Feature. Then, we have It Was Just An Accident, which could come in with four – Picture, Director, Screenplay and International Feature. Can both get in? Both can, with this Academy.

Then we have Neon’s third movie, Sentimental Value, which will have two acting nominations coming in, along with Picture, probably Director and Screenplay. Do all three films get in? If Wicked is out, possibly.

In that case, I would strongly urge the Academy to shrink Best Picture down to five and expand International Feature to ten, and change the rules so that it’s not the country of origin that wins the prize but the producers. That way, they can help fortify America’s dying film industry. Will they? Probably not. They, like so many on the Left now, see themselves aligned with like-minded people all over the world as opposed to aligned by country. That’s why we see no good stories told about America anymore. Hollywood no longer knows America, doesn’t care about it, sees much of it as their opposition, and wouldn’t know how to tell stories of everyday Americans without driving some kind of issue through the work, some way to “fix” them or make them think better. Which is a drag.

Without Wicked: For Good, it doesn’t have to be the Neon Three. It could be the Netflix Three: Frankenstein, Jay Kelly, Train Dreams. It’s possible.  The problem with the Oscar race is that it is all more or less decided before it ever gets to Oscar voters. It should not be that way. The public should have a say.

Warner Bros. put out major hits this year: Sinners, Weapons, and F1. Now, the frontrunner for Best Picture is the one that wasn’t a hit and just barely broke even. That is partly why the Oscars and the film industry overall are becoming less relevant in the lives of everyone else. They are stuck inside a bubble, one that reflects back to them what they want to see. That’s always been true about Hollywood, but because the Oscars rewarded films that also played well to the public, those of us peasants out here in the dark felt a part of the experience. It was our chance to be invited in and gaze upon our gods and goddesses. We were part of it because we bought tickets to see those movies.

Well, not anymore. The film critics, Film Twitter, the awards industry is an island unto itself, and now that what it needs is a central sense of purpose, the end result is the most privileged people in the world looking down their noses at the working class, calling them “fascists” and “racists” and then expecting them to care about any of it.

As for what film will win Best Picture, I don’t know. If Film Twitter is to be believed, One Battle After Another is about to suck in everything around it like a black hole. Is there anything I can do about that? No. As my friend Mark Johnson said, the combo of Trump hatred and Paul Thomas Anderson finally winning might prove to be an overwhelming force to be reckoned with.

I had a dream where I heard someone say, “Ryan Coogler just made history by becoming the first Black director to win the DGA and the Oscar.” It took almost 100 years but it finally happened. And then I woke up. This is not an industry that would ever do that.  Even though he earned the right to win because he made one of the best movies of the year that was successful, a movie that lots of people saw and were excited about, a movie that reaches all the way back to the early days of the blues and redeems it from being the “Devil’s music” into a rich tradition of African American influence all the way up to modern day.

It’s deep and sophisticated, sexy and entertaining. And yet, this Hollywood can’t come out of its own bubble and reward a film that would bring people in and allow them to share in the experience because they saw that movie too.

So if it isn’t Sinners, it might be Hament, one of the three frontrunners that is a universal experience, as opposed to a specific one. And that might be the winning combo. It’s hard to argue with the impulses of the heart. When I think of Hamnet I swoon. Everything about it I loved. So I know even if it wasn’t my number one choice, it would be number two or number three. That is how you win on a preferential ballot.

Goodwill toward both Ryan Coogler and PTA might push those movies to the top, too, but I’m not sure they inspire the same kind of passionate love.

At any rate, still not sure what to do with Wicked: For Good.  Does it make it because it could still get:

Supporting Actress
Makeup
Costume Design
Production Design
Original Song

It seems to me that if it gets this many nominations, and maybe even Best Actress for Cynthia Erivo, then it’s probably in for Best Picture, too. Just a guess but that’s my hunch at the moment.

And with that:

PGA: Hamnet
DGA: Ryan Coogler, Sinners (A girl can dream, but probably PTA)
SAG: One Battle After Another (maybe Sinners)

Best Picture

1. Hamnet
2. One Battle After Another
3. Sinners
4. Marty Supreme
5. Frankenstein
6. Sentimental Value
7. Bugonia
8. It Was Just An Accident
9. Avatar: Fire and Ash
10. Wicked: For Good

Best Director

1. Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another
2. Chloé Zhao, Hamnet
3. Ryan Coogler, Sinners
4. Guillermo Del Toro, Frankenstein
5. Jafar Panahi, It Was Just an Accident

Alts: Yorgos Lanthimos, Bugonia; Joachim Trier, Sentimental Value, James Cameron, Avatar: Fire and Ash

Best Actress
Jessie Buckley, Hamnet
Cynthia Erivo, Wicked for Good
Renate Reinsve, Sentimental Value
Emma Stone, Bugonia
Alt: Rose Byrne, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

Best Actor
Timothée Chalament, Marty Supreme
Leonardo DiCaprio, One Battle After Another
Jeremy Allen White, Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere
Michael B. Jordan, Sinners
Wagner Moura, The Secret Agent
Alt. Ethan Hawke, Blue Moon

Supporting Actress
Amy Madigan, Weapons
Teyana Taylor, One Battle After Another
Ariana Grande, Wicked for Good
Elle Fanning, Sentimental Value
Wunmi Mosaku, Sinners

Supporting Actor
Paul Mescal, Hamnet
Stellan Skarsgård, Sentimental Value
Jacob Elordi, Frankenstein
Sean Penn, One Battle After Another
Benicio Del Toro, One Battle After Another

Original Screenplay
Sinners
Marty Supreme
It Was Just An Accident
Eddington
Sentimental Value

Adapted Screenplay
Hamnet
One Battle After Another
Frankenstein
Bugonia
No Other Choice

Casting
One Battle After Another
Sinners
Wicked For Good
Hamnet
Bugonia

International Feature
Sentimental Value
The Secret Agent
No Other Choice
Sirat
The Voice of Hind Rajab

Editing
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
Sinners
Frankenstein
Hamnet

Cinematography
Frankenstein
One Battle After Another
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Sinners
Hamnet

Production Design
Frankenstein
Hamnet
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Sinners
Wicked: For Good

Costume
Frankenstein
Sinners
Wicked: For Good
Hamnet
Marty Supreme

Score
Sinners
Hamnet
One Battle After Another
Frankenstein
F1

Makeup and Hairstyling
Frankenstein
The Smashing Machine
Christy
Wicked: For Good
Sinners

Sound
Sinners
Avatar: Fire and Ash
F1
Wicked: For Good
One Battle After Another

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By: Sasha Stone
Title: 2026 Oscar Predictions: How to Build a Best Picture Contender
Sourced From: www.awardsdaily.com/2025/11/21/2026-oscar-predictions-how-to-build-a-best-picture-contender/
Published Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2025 17:29:07 +0000