With the nominees for the 2026 Academy Awards being announced on January 22, here’s a look ahead at what films and performers may get those coveted nominations ahead of the final ceremony in March. 2025 was a bumper year for cinema, with many films in the running for the grand prize and the nominations pool even more difficult to predict.
Best Picture
There are some clear frontrunners, though, with Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another a sure nominee. Winning big at Cannes Film Festival often bodes well for films, so we should expect to see Grand Prix winner Sentimental Value, as well as It Was Just an Accident, Jafar Panahi’s winner of the coveted Palme d’Or. Audiences can often have an impact on what films get nominated, and that could certainly help the case of both Sinners and Marty Supreme.
In 2018 and 2021, respectively, Guillermo del Toro and Chloé Zhao directed Best Picture winners, and so they have every reason to believe a return to the category could be on the cards with their films Frankenstein and Hamnet. The remaining three spaces will probably still be up in the air until the day they are announced. Lanthimos’ Bugonia, Netflix’s Train Dreams and Brazilian political drama The Secret Agent are positioned as the most likely to snap them up, meaning Wicked: For Good and No Other Choice are both set to miss out on that coveted title.
Best Actress
Sentimental Value is expected to do very well in the acting categories this year, with Renate Reinsve set to be nominated in the Best Actress category, and both Elle Fanning and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas likely to feature as Supporting Actress nominees. Ariana Grande looks ready to become only the second woman nominated for an Oscar for playing the same character, as she reprised her supporting role as Glinda the Good in this year’s Wicked sequel. Both Chase Infiniti and Teyana Taylor could be set to be nominated for their performances in One Battle After Another.
The potential surprise nominee in the Supporting Actress category comes in the form of Amy Madigan, for her transformational portrayal of Aunt Gladys in Weapons. Three of the favourites for the top actress award are Jessie Buckley as the wife of William Shakespeare in Hamnet, Rose Byrne for drama If I Had Legs I’d Kick You and a third Best Actress nomination (having won in each of her last two attempts) for Emma Stone. The unlucky star set to miss out this year is likely Amanda Seyfried for her musical performance in The Testament of Ann Lee.
Best Actor
For the Best Actor category, it will likely be One Battle After Another that dominates the nominations with Leonardo DiCaprio in the leading category, and both Benicio del Toro and the more-than-deserving Sean Penn are both expected to be recognised for their supporting roles. All of the acting categories have some contentious inclusions when it comes to what qualifies as a leading and supporting role, with Shakespeare himself Paul Mescal, Sentimental Value‘s Stellan Skarsgård, and Jacob Elordi for Frankenstein could all be set for nominations in the latter category.
A year after giving an impassioned speech about greatness before missing out on the grand prize for his portrayal of Bob Dylan, Timothée Chalamet will return to the nominees this year for his show-stopping performance of the titular Marty Supreme, with Michael B. Jordan potentially nominated for the year’s blockbuster Sinners. There is always one actor nominated that surprises audiences when they discover they’ve never won an Oscar before, and it looks to be the turn of Ethan Hawke this year for his starring role in Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon. Last year, Fernanda Torres saw an incredible campaign from Brazilian audiences secure her nomination for Best Actress, and this year, Wagner Moura is set to receive the same treatment for his part in The Secret Agent.
Best Screenplay
There are a number of films that seem sure to be among the nominees for Original Screenplay, with Ryan Coogler’s Sinners and Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident two of the most deserving. Ronald Bronstein’s screenplay, written with Josh Safdie on Marty Supreme, is also likely to feature, alongside Sentimental Value, written by its director, Joachim Trier and his frequent collaborator Eskil Vogt. The final nominee in the Original category will likely be Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent, narrowly beating Jay Kelly and Sorry, Baby to the shortlist.
Best Adapted Screenplay
As for Adapted Screenplay, One Battle After Another is set to feature once more, with PTA’s film being a loose take on Pynchon’s Vineland. Maggie O’Farrell worked with director Chloé Zhao to adapt her novel Hamnet for the screen, while Will Tracy’s only second feature film screenwriting credit came in the form of Bugonia, an English-language remake of cult favourite Korean film Save the Green Planet! which could bring him his own Oscar nomination. The final two nominees in this category could go to any of Guillermo del Toro’s ‘faithful’ adaptation of Frankenstein, Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar’s version of the novella Train Dreams, or the Korean adaptation of The Ax, No Other Choice.
Best International Feature
With both Norway’s Sentimental Value and France’s submission It Was Just an Accident tipped to feature in the Best Picture category, they both seem the favourites in the International Feature category. Joining them will surely be the Brazilian The Secret Agent and No Other Choice from South Korea, with the fifth nominee likely to go to Spain’s drama Sirât. This does mean that Tunisian entry The Voice of Hind Rajab will miss out on a nomination, despite being a crowd favourite at Cannes.
Best Animated Feature
Disney seem set to have a double nomination in the Animated Feature category this year, with both Elio and Zootopia 2, with French/American film Arco also a likely contender. As always, there will be an arthouse animation in the running with this year’s entrant coming in the form of Little Amélie or the Character of Rain yet, it will take an almighty upset for any of these to come close to the biggest hit of the year, Netflix’s KPop Demon Hunters.
