You can make your own predictions for Oscar nominations, for the Critics’ Choice, and for the Golden Globes by heading over to our Contest page.
The first rule of Oscarwatching is to know your voters. The Academy, despite efforts to diversify its membership by adding 3,000+ new members mostly because of their gender and skin color, is still majority straight, white, and male. Even if that majority has been chipped away, it nonetheless exists as a fact. Therefore, you do well if straight white dudes like your movie. That’s why Anora did well, like every film that has won Best Picture has. You have to figure out what makes them feel good about themselves, and that’s really the only thing that has changed.
Movies that I call a “kick in the balls” never do so well. Gone Girl was shut out. The Substance didn’t do that well. Movies that make them feel like heroes (Oppenheimer, Argo) do well, as do movies that make them feel like noble fighters for the good cause, even at the expense of their own careers (Birdman). So, to answer the question about One Battle After Another, we have to ask, does it flatter straight white men? Does it make them feel good about themselves? And the yes is yes, it does.
Does Sinners make them feel good about themselves? No, it doesn’t. It makes them uncomfortable because there is no place for them in the movie. It takes place in the Jim Crow South when the mass hysteria crippled Southerners left over from the Civil War, when freeing the slaves became an existential crisis. Once freed, they believed they would “go mad” and become dangerous. Hence, segregation. It was so much worse than that, as Ryan Coogler lays out in Sinners, when the stepfather of blues great Robert Johnson became a successful farmer, they chased him off his land, and he had to go into hiding.
But Sinners isn’t about the misery of that time so much as it is about the salvation, the celebration through music, and how music was the thread that wove through their history, taking us all the way to today. Sinners is a celebration of art more than it is anything else, but it is also an entertaining movie that many people saw and loved. It has real buzz, not manufactured buzz. It was funny, sexy, unpredictable, original. It cost less than One Battle and made more. It was better reviewed by both critics and audiences, and if it doesn’t win, and it doesn’t look like it will, you have to wonder, what’s a guy gotta do?
What it doesn’t do is flatter straight white men. I am not trying to be “woke” so much as factual. You can’t predict the Oscars unless you understand how they roll, and that’s how they roll. This is especially true in the era of the preferential ballot. That usually means it’s harder for films to sweep. The most any movie has won in this era is 7. In the old days, there were much bigger sweeps. As you can see from FilmSite, no film since the preferential ballot has won more than 7 (except Gone with the Wind from way back in the first era of the expanded ballot):
Lately, with the new voters, we are seeing more wins than usual. In the older times, movies would usually win three Oscars, but now, 7 with both Oppenheimer and Everything Everywhere All At Once was a change.
Sinners doesn’t flatter white men. Hamnet most certainly does, but for whatever reason, the film bros have decided it’s too much emotion for them. Still, I would not count it out on a preferential ballot, earning the passion vote. You never know until we get to the PGA what movie a large consensus will like.
But One Battle has something the others don’t. It is both their political worldview in a movie (Trump is Hitler and the Gestapo is disappearing American citizens and putting them in concentration camps). Picking this movie would be an act of war for them. And a way to “get Trump” (who would not care, btw). It’s more than that. It centers the straight white guy as the emotional center, the anchor. Teyana Taylor has been driven mad by our racist, oppressive country and even sacrificed being a mom to serve the revolution. Chase Infiniti is the daughter who has no idea she’s living in a racist, dangerous country full of white men who want to kill Black women (or f*ck them).
The Get Trump method of campaigning has reared its head in recent days with George Clooney getting political in Variety and so many musical acts quitting the Kennedy Center, including Stephen Schwartz.
They’re praised for it because the people with all of the culture, the wealth and the power have decided they are the oppressed side. And thus, they will punish the rest of the country for choosing Trump and alienating them from their movies, award shows, etc. It is a soft form of fascism to demand everyone comply or else we’ll PULL OUR SHOW! It would be career-ruining to perform there, and that’s the real reason they aren’t doing it. Okay fine.
In One Battle, Leo is the one noble failure, the one character who holds steady through the storm. This is the role of the modern liberal white man. They accept that this is their role. They will fade into the background and be grayed out so marginalized groups can shine. Leo can’t rescue his daughter; she must rescue herself, because now she’s the revolutionary. But he can be there for her and provide the same kind of nurturing support mothers once did (before the revolution).
It is a sweet story in a way, especially when you see Paul Thomas Anderson working out his own irrational fears that his daughters will grow up in such a country where they disappear Black and Brown people off the streets and throw them in concentration camps or just shoot them. That his kids are mostly sheltered, as all nepo babies are, isn’t a consideration when it comes to life inside the Doomsday Bunker. Just turn on NPR. You’ll see.
Sinners offers the Academy’s dominant group nothing anywhere near that. So why would they vote for it? They won’t. One Battle has more than just flattering the straight white guy vote. It is also the favorite of the film critics, who pretty much decide the Oscars now. Who can forget David Ehrlich praising the Golden Globes? Did you ever think you’d see the day? Well, it’s a snake eating its own tail because the public is no longer a factor in the equation. The ticket buyers don’t matter—the critics, the bloggers, the super fans, perhaps, but not audiences.
The Critics Choice will likely anoint One Battle as the FRONTRUNNER. Then, we’ll go on to the Globes where it should win big. The big test is the bigger guilds. Since DGA goes first, it seems likely Paul Thomas Anderson wins there, and the dominoes will fall.
So let’s say it sweeps the guilds, and these voters seem to be the kinds of voters that do throw Oscars at a movie they love. They gave Sean Baker and Anora Picture, Director, Screenplay AND Editing. Like, how? Everything Everywhere won Picture, Director, Actress, Supporting Actor AND Actress. These are anomolis, stats-wise. So if One Battle is THE RAPTURE like Everything Everywhere was then how many can it/will it win?
This is what most people are predicting now as safe bets:
Picture
Director
Supporting Actor (Paul Mescal should take this)
Adapted Screenplay (Hamnet might take this)
Cinematography (Sinners might take this)
Editing
What other Oscars could it win?
Supporting Actress for Teyana Taylor
Casting
Score
Best Actor for Leonardo DiCaprio
Sound
That would mean One Battle wins 11.
Is it Gone with the Wind? Is it Titanic? No, but this is the first year of Trump’s second term and if anything, the hysteria is even more profound than it was last time. So it’s hard to say how many Oscars it will win. We’ll know by Oscar night, that’s for sure.
Predictions for this week
Best Picture
One Battle After Another
Sinners
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
Frankenstein
Sentimental Value
It Was Just an Accident
Bugonia
Train Dreams
Wicked for Good
Alt: Jay Kelly, The Secret Agent, No Other Choice
Best Director
Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another
Ryan Coogler, Sinners
Chloé Zhao, Hamnet
Guillermo Del Toro, Frankenstein
Jafar Panahi, It Was Just an Accident
Alts: Yorgos Lanthimos, Bugonia; Joachim Trier, Sentimental Value, Josh Safdie, Marty Supreme
Best Actress
Jessie Buckley, Hamnet
Renate Reinsve, Sentimental Value
Emma Stone, Bugonia
Rose Byrne, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Chase Infiniti, One Battle After Another
Alt. Cynthia Erivo, Wicked: For Good, Amanda Seyfried, The Testament of Ann Lee
Best Actor
Timothée Chalament, Marty Supreme
Leonardo DiCaprio, One Battle After Another
Michael B. Jordan, Sinners
Wagner Moura, The Secret Agent
Ethan Hawke, Blue Moon
Alt. George Clooney, Jay Kelly, Joel Edgerton, Train Dreams
Supporting Actress
Amy Madigan, Weapons
Wunmi Mosaku, Sinners
Teyana Taylor, One Battle After Another
Ariana Grande, Wicked for Good
Gwyneth Paltrow, Marty Supreme
Supporting Actor
Benicio Del Toro, One Battle After Another
Paul Mescal, Hamnet
Sean Penn, One Battle After Another
Stellan Skarsgård, Sentimental Value
Jacob Elordi, Frankenstein
Alt. Adam Sandler, Jay Kelly
Original Screenplay
Sinners
Marty Supreme
It Was Just An Accident
Jay Kelly
Sentimental Value
Alt. Eddington
Adapted Screenplay
One Battle After Another
Hamnet
Train Dreams
Bugonia
Frankenstein
Alt. No Other Choice
Casting
Sinners
One Battle After Another
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
Frankenstein
Editing
One Battle After Another
Marty Supreme
Sinners
Frankenstein
Hamnet
Cinematography
Sinners
One Battle After Another
Frankenstein
Train Dreams
Hamnet
Production Design
Frankenstein
Sinners
Hamnet
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Wicked: For Good
Costume
Frankenstein
Sinners
Wicked: For Good
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
Score
Sinners
Hamnet
One Battle After Another
Frankenstein
F1
Song
“I Lied To You” from “Sinners”
“The Girl In The Bubble” from Wicked: For Good
“Train Dreams” from Train Dreams
“Dream As One” from Avatar: Fire and Ash
“Drive” from F1
Alt. “Dear Me” from Diane Warren: Relentless
Makeup and Hairstyling
Frankenstein
Marty Supreme
Nuremberg
Sinners
Wicked: For Good
Sound
Sinners
One Battle After Another
Avatar: Fire and Ash
F1
Wicked: For Good
Visual Effects
Avatar: Fire and Ash
F1
Frankenstein
Sinners
Wicked: For Good
International Feature
Norway, Sentimental Value
France, It Was Just an Accident
Spain, Sirât
Brazil, The Secret Agent
South Korea, No Other Choice
Documentary Feature
The Perfect Neighbor
The Alabama Solution
Cover-Up
My Undesirable Friends: Part 1 – Last Air in Moscow
Mr. Nobody against Putin
That’s it. Have a great weekend. Don’t flip out too much about what I wrote. It’s healthy to hear a little dissent now and again.
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By: Sasha Stone
Title: 2026 Oscar Predictions: Will One Battle After Another Sweep the Oscars?
Sourced From: www.awardsdaily.com/2026/01/02/2026-oscar-predictions-will-one-battle-after-another-sweep-the-oscars/
Published Date: Fri, 02 Jan 2026 22:23:45 +0000
