2026 Oscar Predictions: BEST ACTOR (November)

Erik Anderson November 18, 2025

Let’s here for the boys (who went to the Governors Ball): Leonardo DiCaprio, Joel Edgerton, Colin Farrell, Brendan Fraser, Oscar Isaac, Hugh Jackman, Michael B. Jordan, Lee Byung-hun, Rami Malek, Wagner Moura, Tonatiuh and Jeremy Allen White.

Who skipped: Will Arnett, Timothée Chalamet, George Clooney, Russell Crowe, Daniel Day-Lewis, Ethan Hawke, Josh O’Connor and Jesse Plemons.

Three Best Actor contenders scored Gotham nominations: Wagner Moura, Ethan Hawke and Lee Byung-hun.

Here are my 2026 Oscar nomination predictions in Best Actor for November.

1. Leonardo DiCaprio – One Battle After Another (Warner Bros)
2. Timothée Chalamet – Marty Supreme (A24)
3. Wagner Moura – The Secret Agent (NEON)	Cannes Best Actor, Gotham
4. Joel Edgerton – Train Dreams (Netflix) ↑
5. George Clooney – Jay Kelly (Netflix) ↓
6. Ethan Hawke – Blue Moon (Sony Pictures Classics) ↑	Gotham
7. Michael B. Jordan – Sinners (Warner Bros)
8. Jesse Plemons – Bugonia (Focus Features)
9. Jeremy Allen White – Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere (20th Century Studios) ↓
10. Will Arnett – Is This Thing On? (Searchlight Pictures)

11. Dwayne Johnson – The Smashing Machine (A24) ↓
12. Russell Crowe – Nuremberg (Sony Pictures Classics)
13. Hugh Jackman – Song Song Blue (Focus Features)
14. Daniel Day-Lewis – Anemone (Focus Features)
15. Brendan Fraser – Rental Family (Searchlight Pictures)
16. Lee Byung-hun – No Other Choice (NEON) ↑	Gotham
17. Oscar Isaac – Frankenstein (Netflix) ↓
18. Josh O’Connor – The Mastermind (MUBI) ↑	Gotham
19. Denzel Washington – Highest 2 Lowest (Apple Original Films/A24)
20. Colin Farrell – The Ballad of a Small Player (Netflix)

Other contenders: Austin Butler – Caught Stealing (A24), Benicio Del Toro – The Phoenician Scheme (Focus Features), Ralph Fiennes – The Choral (Sony Pictures Classics), Rami Malek – Nuremberg (Sony Pictures Classics), Guillaume Marbeck – Nouvelle Vague (Netflix), Matthew McConaughey – The Lost Bus (Apple Original Films) ↓, Harry Melling – Pillion (A24), Paul Mescal – The History of Sound (MUBI), Dylan O’Brien* – Twinless (Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions) – Sundance winner, Brad Pitt – F1: The Movie (Apple Original Films/Warner Bros), Toni Servillo – La Grazia (MUBI) – Venice Best Actor, Channing Tatum – Roofman (Paramount Pictures), Tonatiuh – Kiss of the Spider Woman (Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions)

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.