The 2026 Academy Awards are just around the corner, and with that come many nominations for some seriously competitive films released in 2025. Given that, there are a lot of movies to see before the Oscars on March 15. Here are the nominations for the major categories, as well as who I believe is most likely to win the award.

Best Actor is a highly sought-after category for all performers, and this year has some very strong contenders. Following are the nominations for the category this year.

Michael B. Jordan – Sinners

Leonardo DiCaprio – One Battle After Another

Timothée Chalamet – Marty Supreme

Wagner Moura – The Secret Agent

Ethan Hawke – Blue Moon

Many of these actors received widespread praise for their performances on the internet following the release of these movies, and for good reason. I believe that the award will go to Timothée Chalamet for Marty Supreme. His performance in the film was a step up from any performance he’s given before, and could possibly be seen as the pinnacle of his career. His meticulous method-acting approach clearly paid off for this role, and I believe makes him most deserving of this nomination.

Best Actress is  just as prestigious an award as Best Actor and also brought in some major contenders. Following are the nominations for Best Actress.

Emma Stone – Bugonia

Jessie Buckley – Hamnet

Kate Hudson – Song Sung Blue

Rose Byrne – If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

Renate Reinsve – Sentimental Value

A category again filled with many strong frontrunners for the award, I believe the actress most likely to win is Jessie Buckley for her performance as Agnes Shakespeare in Hamnet. After sweeping the Golden Globes and Critics choice, she looks like she is the most popular candidate to win for her devastating performance in the tragic story of Hamnet.

Next up is the award for best director, the most prestigious award a director can get. This year is highly competitive, with many films being specifically praised for their cinematography and overall unique direction.

Chloé Zhao – Hamnet

Ryan Coogler – Sinners

Joachim Trier – Sentimental Value

Josh Safdie – Marty Supreme

Paul Thomas Anderson – One Battle After Another

I feel the likely winner will be Paul Thomas Anderson, as this was the biggest departure from his usual directorial style, and he hit every target there was to meet. One Battle After Another really is an adventure of a film, and a very unique one at that, and so I believe is very deserving of the Oscar.

Next up is the Oscar for the best original screenplay. This award is different from best picture (which is coming up) as it focuses more on the quality of a script and overall plot coherence. The catch for this is it has to be an original plot, so films based on some form of reference material will be included in the next section.

Jafar Panahi – It Was Just An Accident

Robert Kaplow – Blue Moon

Josh Safdie, Ronald Bronstein – Marty Supreme

Ryan Coogler – Sinners

Joachim Trier, Eskil Vogt – Sentimental Value

It’s hard to analyze a movie solely based on its script while ignoring the many other factors that go into making a movie good; however I believe this award will go to Ryan Coogler for the script of Sinners. The dialogue in the movie fits the era it takes place in, but also feels modern and fresh, and the plot is very coherent, sticking to the predominant narrative, and not straying too far from where it should be. All these factors make it the most likely candidate in my opinion for the award.

Now comes the award for the best adapted screenplay. As I said before, this category is for films that are based on some form of reference material, and aren’t a fully unique and new idea. Same as the last award, however, this does focus solely on script quality and plot coherence.

Will Tracy – Bugonia

Clint Bentley, Greg Kwedar – Train Dreams

Guillermo del Toro – Frankenstein

Chloé Zhao, Maggie O’Farrell – Hamnet

Paul Thomas Anderson – One Battle After Another

This category is one of the least competitive of the ones I’ll be talking about, but I don’t think it’s truly uncontested. The likely winner is Paul Thomas Anderson, however an argument could be made for Chloé Zhao, Maggie O’Farrell for Hamnet. It’s hard to say with this one, however I firmly believe it will be between those two.

The last category I’ll be going into detail about is generally considered the most important category of the Oscars. Best picture generally sets in stone what the “movie of the year” is, something that is remembered for years to come. With this year being a particularly good year for movies, there is a lot of competition in this category, so following are the nominees.

The Secret Agent – Emilie Lesclaux

Bugonia – Emma Stone, Yorgos Lanthimos, Ari Aster

Marty Supreme – Timothée Chalamet, Josh Safdie, Ronald Bronstein, Eli Bush, Anthony Katagas

Train Dreams – Teddy Schwarzman, Marissa Mazzola-McMahon, Ashley Schlaifer, Will Janowitz, Michael Heimler

F1 – Brad Pitt, Lewis Hamilton, Joseph Kosinski, Jerry Bruckheimer, Chad Oman, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner

Sinners – Ryan Coogler, Zinzi Coogler, Sev Ohanian

Frankenstein – Guillermo del Toro, Scott Stuber, J. Miles Dale

Hamnet – Sam Mendes, Steven Spielberg, Pippa Harris, Liza Marshall, Nicolas Gonda

One Battle After Another – Paul Thomas Anderson, A. Somner, Sara Murphy

Sentimental Value – Maria Ekerhovd, Andrea Berentsen Ottmar

Being the category with the most nominations, it’s insanely competitive. One filmed with many blockbusters and huge critical successes, it’s quite frankly impossible to predict with anything close to certainty what the winner of the award will be. 

If I had to narrow it down to two, I’d say it would be between Marty Supreme and Sinners, with my pick being the former. Going into the theater thinking it was going to be a movie about ping pong, and then getting sucked into the ride that the movie ended up being, it really stood out to me, and totally exceeded all expectations I had for the movie. The direction and story were great, and Timothée Chalamet gave the best performance of his career, and so I think it is highly deserving of the Oscar.

These categories are just scratching the surface of the many awards being decided this year, and so to give you a more straight forward list of what major movies release there were, here are the must see movies going into this year’s Oscars (In no particular order).

• Marty Supreme

• Sinners

• One Battle After Another

• Hamnet

• Bugonia

• Frankenstein

• Sentimental Value

• F1

• The Secret Agent

• Train Dreams

• Blue Moon

Less necessary, however still relevant movies:

• Song Sung Blue

• If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

• Jay Kelly

• The Smashing Machine

• It Was Just An Accident

• Superman

• Thunderbolts*

• The Fantastic Four: First Steps

• Avatar: Fire and Ash,

Already a pretty daunting list, you could even throw in Jurassic World: Rebirth, Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning, Tron; Ares or The Accountant 2, if you’re looking for something a little more fun, and not taken with too much seriousness this year.

Overall, this was a pretty great year for movies, and one that I think will be remembered as one of the best for years to come. Remember all predictions I’ve made in this article are just merely predictions, and the final decisions are still down to the Academy’s vote. We will just have to wait for March 15 to see who or what the winner of each category will be.