Who will win and who should win at the 2026 Oscars

Will win: Jessie Buckley for Hamnet
Should win: Jessie Buckley for Hamnet
Should’ve been a contender: Chase Infiniti for One Battle After Another

The Irish actor’s leave-it-all-on-the-table turn in Chloé Zhao’s period piece, personally, left me cold—in my humble opinion, she’s been better in everything from Beast and Wild Rose to The Lost Daughter and Women Talking. But, she’s had a brilliant career and you can’t deny that she’s put all her heart and soul into Hamnet. Her acting awards sweep has been this year’s most convincing steam roll—she’s won at the Critics’ Choice Awards, Golden Globes, BAFTAs and Actor Awards—and she seems unassailable.

The only possible reason she might not win? All the kerfuffle around her latest film, The Bride!, deemed by some to be divisive enough to harm her Oscar chances. (And those comments about cats.) In reality, though, these developments probably came too late to actually sway votes, but if they do, I’d watch out for If I Had Legs I’d Kick You’s Golden Globe-winning Rose Byrne, and Song Sung Blue’s beloved industry fixture Kate Hudson. Justice for Chase Infiniti, too, who should have been on this shortlist for her mesmerising work in One Battle—yes, at 25, she is young and will have other opportunities, but, lest we forget, that’s the same age that Anora’s Mikey Madison was when she won last year’s Best Actress prize.

Best Actor

Will win: Wagner Moura for The Secret Agent
Should win: Ethan Hawke for Blue Moon
Should’ve been a contender: Joel Edgerton for Train Dreams

This is a race for the ages. Rewind just over two weeks, and this award looked to be Timothée Chalamet’s for the taking, for Marty Supreme. (He’s secured the Critics’ Choice Award, Golden Globe and a string of other critics’ prizes.) But then, he lost both the BAFTA (to I Swear’s Robert Aramayo) and Actor Award (to Sinners’s Michael B Jordan, another possible spoiler in this contest). This doesn’t take Chalamet out of the running by any means, but it suggests that it’s a closer race than we previously assumed. (And, er, his comments about the irrelevance of opera and ballet haven’t helped.)

One Battle After Another’s Leonardo DiCaprio doesn’t seem to be soaring ahead, and nor does Blue Moon’s Ethan Hawke—though the latter gives what is easily my favourite performance in this category: a true transformation from a veteran who’s had one hell of a career and never before won an Oscar. But, look out for The Secret Agent’s Wagner Moura—the 49-year-old is a well-respected actor who gives a magnetic, old-school, heroic-leading-man turn in Kleber Mendonça Filho’s ’70s thriller, and has already taken home a Golden Globe for his efforts. I could see international voters, in particular, rallying behind him, while the American consensus is split between Chalamet, Jordan, DiCaprio and Hawke, handing Moura the win. Or, maybe it’s still Chalamet, but just imagine if it’s not?

As for those who were left behind, Joel Edgerton is magnificent in Train Dreams—gentle, nuanced and quietly brimming with emotion—and his work deserved more attention.

Best Supporting Actress

Will win: Amy Madigan for Weapons
Should win: Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas for Sentimental Value
Should’ve been a contender: Tânia Maria for The Secret Agent

Another contest in which almost anyone can win, perhaps barring Sentimental Value’s wonderful Elle Fanning, who fully deserves her nomination but seems to be in fifth place here. One Battle’s Teyana Taylor was the early frontrunner following her Golden Globes victory, after which Sinners’s Wunmi Mosaku took the BAFTA, and then Amy Madigan, the Critics’ Choice winner, returned to pole position after her triumph at the Actor Awards. As the skin-crawlingly terrifying Aunt Gladys, the Weapons star knocks it out of the park, and at 75, is finally getting her due and giving delightful speeches while doing it. It’s a powerful narrative that’s difficult to compete with, though Taylor and Mosaku remain very much in contention, too.

However, the revelation in this category, for me, is Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, a startling discovery who broke my heart cleanly in two in Joachim Trier’s delicate family drama. She’s unlikely to win, but given the sizeable international support behind her, it’s not totally impossible. And there’s another international performer I would’ve loved to have seen fighting it out here: Tânia Maria, the 79-year-old Brazilian who steals every scene she’s in in The Secret Agent. Here’s hoping Kleber Mendonça Filho has another plum part lined up for her soon.

Best Supporting Actor

Will win: Stellan Skarsgård for Sentimental Value
Should win: Stellan Skarsgård for Sentimental Value
Should’ve been a contender: William H Macy for Train Dreams

Yet another race which could swing in any direction, the field leader of late has been One Battle’s Sean Penn, who clinched the BAFTA and Actor Award back to back. However, the double Oscar winner doesn’t seem to want a third statuette—he’s been MIA for much of awards season (though I did enjoy him smoking indoors at the Golden Globes), and was absent from those last two ceremonies, the most recent of which took place during the final Oscars voting period. I’m hopeful that this has created an opening for the recent Golden Globe winner, Stellan Skarsgård, who is genuinely masterful in Sentimental Value—a prickly, complex and towering turn from a 74-year-old who’s worked tirelessly for over half a century. If it isn’t Oscar worthy, I don’t know what is—and Skarsgård has been happy to play the game and campaign diligently.

Having said that, there’s no bad outcome here: yes, One Battle’s Benicio Del Toro already has an Oscar, but he’s as charming as ever as the sensei with a heart of gold; Sinners’s Delroy Lindo, at 73, is another too-often-overlooked legend (after the reception to his closing speech at the Actor Awards, it’s clear the room would be jubilant if he won); and Jacob Elordi is astoundingly good in Frankenstein. I wouldn’t squeeze any of them out, but if there was a sixth spot, I’d award it to William H Macy for his grizzled, wistful, underrated turn in Train Dreams—a goosebump-inducing achievement which warrants more praise.

Best Original Screenplay

Will win: Sinners
Should win: Sentimental Value
Should’ve been a contender: Sorry, Baby

Ryan Coogler is basically guaranteed to take this prize, having scooped the Critics’ Choice Award, BAFTA and Writers’ Guild of America Awards’ accolade for Best Original Screenplay, and it’s easy to see why—the world-building of Sinners is exceptional, and Coogler has been such an engaging, dynamic, galvanising breath of fresh air this awards season. With this ingenious, original, non-IP-driven concept, he’s done the impossible—won over both critics and audiences, raking in over $370 million from a budget of less than $100 million. Given that PTA has the Best Director statuette in the bag, it’s only right that this award be set aside for Coogler.

This is a tough category, also featuring the rat-a-tat relentlessness of Marty Supreme, the colourful extended monologues of Blue Moon, and the delightfully dark humour of It Was Just An Accident, but my favourite screenplay of the year was Joachim Trier and Eskil Vogt’s meticulous dissection of intergenerational trauma in Sentimental Value. It won’t win, but it’s a sublime script that’s sure to be remembered. A close second for me was Eva Victor’s Sorry, Baby—brilliantly written, and also acted and directed, by the debut filmmaker. Victor was, of course, always unlikely to squeeze into Best Director or Best Actress, but a spot here seemed feasible—likely, even, after Julia Roberts’s shout-out to the film at the Golden Globes. But, alas, it was not to be.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Will win: One Battle After Another
Should win: Train Dreams
Should’ve been a contender: No Other Choice

As with Coogler, PTA’s adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland has taken all of the Best Adapted Screenplay awards, including the BAFTA, Critics’ Choice Award, Writers’ Guild of America Award and the Golden Globe (the latter organisation has a single Best Screenplay prize). It’s slick, funny, fast-paced and definitely superior to three of its opponents—Bugonia, Frankenstein and Hamnet—but I prefer the lyricism of Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar’s take on Denis Johnson’s 2011 novella Train Dreams. Tender, melodic and moving, it’s a film built on a gruff, meditative voiceover, and wouldn’t work quite as well without it.

Another film with a killer script which should have made it in here is Park Chan-wook, Lee Kyoung-mi, Don McKellar and Lee Ja-hye’s No Other Choice, a wild retelling of Donald Westlake’s The Ax. It’s a stranger film than the ones on this line-up, but I’d hoped the now-much-more-international Academy would have given it some love.

Best International Feature

Will win: Sentimental Value
Should win: Sentimental Value
Should’ve been a contender: No Other Choice

Another truly excellent category, Sirât, It Was Just an Accident and The Voice of Hind Rajab seem to be more on the back foot here, with Sentimental Value and The Secret Agent sprinting to the finish line. (These two are Best Picture nominees, while the other three are not.) A month or so ago, The Secret Agent seemed to be surging, but Sentimental Value now seems just slightly ahead, and more than deserves the win. If it clinches it, it’ll be the very first Norwegian film to do so. And if there could be six nominees, I would also have liked to see Park Chan-wook’s aforementioned twisty satire in the mix, too. It’s galling that the Academy has never nominated any of the maestro’s movies, from Oldboy and The Handmaiden to Decision to Leave.

Best Costume Design

Will win: Frankenstein
Should win: Frankenstein
Should’ve been a contender: The Testament of Ann Lee

Sinners’s double Oscar-winning costume designer Ruth E Carter would be a highly deserving victor here, as would Marty Supreme’s Miyako Bellizzi, but, in my book, 2025’s most astounding costuming came courtesy of Kate Hawley in Frankenstein. Her sumptuous gowns, as worn by Mia Goth, have secured her a BAFTA, Critics’ Choice Award and the Costume Designers’ Guild Awards’ Excellence in Period Film prize, and are exactly the kinds of costumes the Academy loves to reward—namely, those in lavish period pieces (recent winners include Poor Things, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Little Women, Phantom Thread, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Great Gatsby and Anna Karenina). But, they also have a surreal, otherworldly futurism which sets them apart. Plus, Hawley, who’s produced extraordinary wardrobes for everything from Crimson Peak to The Rings of Power, has never even been nominated before.

Alongside her, I’d have also liked to see Małgorzata Karpiuk for her exquisite work in The Testament of Ann Lee, another period piece which is visually stunning—though, in this case, it was totally ignored by the Academy.

Best Production Design

Will win: Frankenstein
Should win: Frankenstein
Should’ve been a contender: The Testament of Ann Lee

In a roster of films with jaw-dropping sets, the most awe-inspiring were those dreamt up by Frankenstein’s Tamara Deverell and Shane Vieau, previous Oscar nominees for Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley, and Vieau a winner for The Shape of Water—that cavernous lab, the 19th-century palaces, the candle-lit cabins of the ship. They took the BAFTA, Critics’ Choice Award, the Art Directors’ Guild Awards’ Best Period Film prize, and the Set Decorators’ Society of America Awards’ Best Fantasy Feature prize, making them a shoo-in here. And again, Ann Lee is conspicuous in its absence, especially considering the level of care and detailed research Sam Bader put into constructing the wood-beamed halls and minimalist furniture which occupies Mona Fastvold’s 18th-century musical.

Best Make-up and Hairstyling

Will win: Frankenstein
Should win: Frankenstein
Should’ve been a contender: Marty Supreme

Frankenstein’s streak should also continue here, with Mike Hill, Jordan Samuel and Cliona Furey being rewarded for bringing Jacob Elordi’s fragile monster to life over the course of 10 to 11 hours each day. The trio rightly took the BAFTA, Critics’ Choice Award, and the Make-up Artists & Hair Stylists’ Guild Awards’ Best Special Make-up Effects prize, too. Wicked was the big snub in this category, but I’m disappointed that Kyra Panchenko, Kay Georgiou and Mike Fontaine’s painstaking work in Marty Supreme wasn’t recognised – particularly, their transformation of Timothée Chalamet’s face. They were BAFTA nominated, but otherwise, this more subtle work has largely been overlooked, despite the fact that it adds incredible texture and believability to Josh Safdie’s ping pong romp.

Best Casting

Will win: Sinners
Should win: The Secret Agent
Should’ve been a contender: Sirât

The first Oscar for Best Casting will almost certainly go to the Critics’ Choice casting prize winner, Francine Maisler, who not only assembled a knock-out ensemble for Sinners—she’s also one of Hollywood’s most respected casting directors, having worked on almost 200 projects, including Succession, Denis Villeneuve’s Dune franchise, Birdman, 12 Years a Slave and The Usual Suspects. If this category had existed before, she’d surely have a truckload of statuettes by now.

Based on this year’s shortlist alone, though, it would be fun to see The Secret Agent’s Gabriel Domingues swoop in—he’s filled the political thriller with a wondrous cast of characters who make Kleber Mendonça Filho’s eye-popping world feel totally real and lived-in. The same is true of Nadia Acimi’s casting work on Sirât—Óliver Laxe’s hallucinatory nightmare works because his mainly street-cast, non-professional ensemble occupy his dystopia so organically. It would have been a thrill to have it in this line-up—but, regardless, it’s wonderful to see the breadth of talent in this category (also nominated are Jennifer Venditti for Marty Supreme, Cassandra Kulukundis for One Battle after Another, and Nina Gold for Hamnet). It’s an Oscars addition which has been long overdue.

This article was originally published on Vogue.com.