2026 Oscar Predictions: BEST PICTURE and BEST DIRECTOR (December)

The first week of December brought us a deluge of industry and critics winners and nominations, including the AFI Top 10 list, National Board of Review, Critics Choice, Golden Globes, Los Angeles and New York film critics, the Gotham winners, Spirit Awards nominations and more.

While I’m not sure it did a whole to shift several films’ likely nomination status (although it really helped secure Train Dreams as one of Netflix’s two main players), what it really did was show that One Battle After Another and Sinners are lockstep with each other. While One Battle has been the early overwhelming winner so far (Gotham, NY, LA and more), the Paul Thomas Anderson film and Ryan Coogler vampire epic have both secured double digit nominations across virtually every group so far. Hamnet has struggled a bit with some regional groups’ nominations but for the main precursors it’s still in top 3 shape.

One of the big questions that remains is how many international films will break through into Best Picture this year. Will it be three? Four? One thing we do know is that whichever it is, they’ll all be from NEON. With three Cannes winners in It Was Just an Accident, Sentimental Value and The Secret Agent, the reigning Best Picture studio is aiming for Oscar history this season. They also have No Other Choice, the Venice debut from Park Chan-wook that’s started to make some waves with a good showing at the Golden Globes, but hasn’t quite made the same impact as the other three.

One thing this group of three (or four) has also done is potentially wipe out the chances for two of this year’s biggest (potential) blockbuster sequels in Wicked: For Good and Avatar: Fire and Ash. While both films secured top 10 status from AFI and NBR, neither are making a strong case to be top tier players. Wicked: For Good missing the Globe nomination in a field of six was the biggest shocker but it’s the most likely to bounce back with a SAG cast nomination next month so I’m moving it back up slightly.

Very little change in Best Director where all Critics Choice and Golden Globe nominees were already in my top 7. Noah Baumbach (Jay Kelly) drops out of the top 10 and Yorgos Lanthimos (Bugonia) pops back up into it.

Here are my 2026 Oscar nomination predictions in Best Picture and Best Director for December.

BEST PICTURE

Next up: A House of Dynamite (Netflix), If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (A24), Is This Thing On? (Searchlight Pictures) ↓, Nuremberg (Sony Pictures Classics) ↓, Rental Family (Searchlight Pictures), The Smashing Machine (A24), Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere (20th Century Studios), Sound of Falling (MUBI), Song Sung Blue (Focus Features), The Testament of Ann Lee (Searchlight Pictures), The Voice of Hind Rajab (WILLA)

Other contenders: After the Hunt (Amazon MGM), Anemone (Focus Features), The Ballad of the Small Player (Netflix), A Bold, Beautiful Journey (Sony Pictures), Die My Love (MUBI), Ella McCay (20th Century Studios), Father, Mother, Sister, Brother (MUBI), Highest 2 Lowest (Apple/A24), The History of Sound (MUBI), The Life of Chuck (NEON), The Lost Bus (Apple Original Films), The Mastermind (MUBI), Materialists (A24), The Phoenician Scheme (Focus Features)

BEST DIRECTOR

Next up: Richard Linklater – Blue Moon (Sony Pictures Classics), Richard Linklater – Nouvelle Vague (Netflix), Hikari – Rental Family (Searchlight Pictures), Scott Cooper – Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere (20th Century Studios), Mona Fastvold – The Testament of Ann Lee (Searchlight Pictures), Kaouther Ben Hania – The Voice of Hind Rajab (WILLA)

Other contenders: Luca Guadagnino – After the Hunt (Amazon MGM), Ronan Day-Lewis – Anemone (Focus Features), Edward Berger – The Ballad of the Small Player (Netflix), Kogonada – A Bold, Beautiful Journey (Sony Pictures), Lynne Ramsay – Die My Love (MUBI), James L. Brooks – Ella McCay (20th Century Studios), Jim Jarmusch – Father Mother Sister Brother (MUBI), Oliver Hermanus – The History of Sound (MUBI), Mike Flanagan – The Life of Chuck (NEON), Paul Greengrass – The Lost Bus (Apple Original Films), Celine Song – Materialists (A24), Wes Anderson – The Phoenician Scheme (Focus Features), Song Sung Blue – Craig Brewer (Focus Features), Mascha Schilinski – Sound of Falling (MUBI)

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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.

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• 2026 Oscar Predictions: BEST PICTURE and BEST DIRECTOR (December) - December 10, 2025