2026 Oscar Predictions: The Awards Alchemist Predicts the Nominees in All 24 Categories

With the Golden Globes handed out and most of the major guild nominations now complete, the 2026 Oscar race has fully taken shape. This is not a season driven by chaos or late-stage volatility, but one defined by momentum, alignment, and an unusually clear hierarchy. It has been the strongest year for cinema of the 2020s so far. From Sundance discoveries to studio releases worthy of their IMAX screens, 2025 delivered films that both entertained and challenged us. This is the kind of year that reminds us why the Oscars still matter, and why predictions, when done properly, are less about guessing and more about interpretation.

For those new to The Awards Alchemist, or for anyone who needs a refresher, my forecasting method is rooted in data rather than instinct alone. These predictions are not built on social media narratives or last-minute buzz cycles. They come from tracking measurable indicators across the season: festival performance, guild alignment, critics’ tallies, international strength, historical trends, and box office where it matters. The goal is to distill a 317-film qualifying slate into something readable across 24 categories, leaving the picture only slightly hazy at the edges, about as fuzzy as a sun-ripened, Timothée Chalamet-soiled peach.

That approach has consistently delivered results. Last year, I correctly identified 41 of 45 above-the-line nominations, a 91.1% success rate, including 19 of the 20 acting nominees and a perfect 10-for-10 in the Screenplay categories. In the technical races, my method landed on 35 of 45 nominations (77.8%), and went four for five in Animated, International, and Documentary Feature. The short films are another story. Despite watching all 45 shortlisted contenders (an experience I will not be repeating this season), I went 6 of 15, a reminder that the short film categories remain largely immune to meaningful data analysis.

So no, this is not a perfect science. But it is a reliable little machine, consistently keeping my predictions near the top of Gold Derby’s heap. My hope is that even if you might fancy a disagreement with your humble narrator’s individual calls, you can still feel the sharp spine of the argument holding it all together.

Before getting into the category-by-category breakdown, though, we have to address the mammoth-sized presence hovering over this entire race: Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another (OBAA). This is the film everyone else is chasing. PTA’s latest does not enter awards season as merely a frontrunner, but as the benchmark the rest of the field must clear, a commanding presence that turns the question from will it win to how much it will take. In a moment when the country feels increasingly fractured, Anderson confronts ideological division without speeches or signposting, favoring accumulation and consequence instead. It is a film of authority, patience, and confidence, and it positions the Academy to finally deliver a long-anticipated coronation for one of the defining auteurs of the 21st century. Much like Oppenheimer a few seasons ago, its victory seems rather inevitable.

The nominees will be announced on January 22. Until then, let’s get into the predictions.

As I’ve outlined before, my approach to forecasting the Oscars rests on three core pillars. The first is data analysis, using historical trends and statistical patterns to identify connections that are not always obvious on the surface. The second is the cultural zeitgeist, understanding how nominations and wins often reflect the broader moment the industry and its voters are responding to. The third is gut instinct, not as a replacement for data, but as a refinement of it, sharpened by years of tracking this race closely through ever-changing membership in different awards bodies. For a deeper dive into how these pillars work together, I would point readers to last year’s final predictions.

Throughout this forecast, I will frequently reference industry guilds. These groups matter because many Academy voters are members of their respective guilds, meaning guild nominations and wins often reflect branch-specific preferences that heavily influence Oscar ballots. When it comes to Oscar voting, each branch nominates within its own category (actors vote for the acting fields, editors vote for Editing, etc), while all branches vote on Best Picture, creating a strong correlation between guild recognition and Academy support. The tricky part is figuring out how the international voters–many of whom are not guild members–will impact each specific category.

For reference, here is a key to the major guilds referenced throughout this article:

Producers Guild of America (PGA)
Directors Guild of America (DGA)
Screen Actors Guild (SAG)
American Cinema Editors (ACE)
Writers Guild of America (WGA)
Art Directors Guild (ADG)
Set Decorators Society of America (SDSA)
American Society of Cinematographers (ASC)
Cinema Audio Society (CAS)
Motion Picture Sound Editors (MPSE)
Association of Motion Picture Sound (AMPS)
Visual Effects Society (VES)
Costume Designers Guild (CDG)
Society of Composers and Lyricists (SC&L)
Casting Society (CSA)
Make-Up Artists and Hair Stylists Guild (MUAH)

Before diving into the predictions, it is also important to understand how Academy voting works and what changes have taken place in membership over the last few years.

Preferential balloting, also known as ranked-choice voting, is used at the nominations phase for all categories. According to the official Academy voting rules, Rule 5.5 states, “in the nominations voting, the marking and tabulation of all ballots shall be according to the preferential or reweighted range voting system,” meaning voters rank their choices and those preferences are used to determine the final slate of nominees. This method is believed to foster consensus and a more complete view of the Academy’s overall opinion. 

When it comes time to select the winners, the process changes. Every category other than Best Picture is decided by a simple plurality vote, with voters selecting a single nominee and the nominee receiving the most votes winning. Best Picture alone continues to use the preferential balloting system at the winner stage. Since its introduction in 2009, this method has often favored broadly liked films over more polarizing ones, making consensus the key to victory. It is the system in place, and it shapes how this race ultimately plays out.

What is equally important to understand is how clearly this decade tracks the growing influence of international Academy members, defined here as members from outside the U.S. and its territories, especially as we get into the Best Director race.

In 2020, on the heels of the first international film winning Best Picture (Parasite), Thomas Vinterberg (Another Round) earned a Best Director nomination despite his film missing Best Picture altogether. It was an outlier and, in retrospect, a transitional moment.

By 2021 and 2022, that shift became more pronounced. Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car) and Ruben Östlund (Triangle of Sadness) were each nominated for Director in their respective years, with their films also landing Best Picture and Screenplay nominations. International filmmakers were no longer isolated to the International Feature category. Their films were competing broadly across the ballot.

The trend accelerated in 2023, when two international directors, Justine Triet (Anatomy of a Fall) and Jonathan Glazer (The Zone of Interest), made the Director lineup. Both films secured Best Picture and Screenplay nominations. Triet also accomplished something none of the previous international Director nominees in this decade had achieved: landing an acting nomination with Sandra Hüller recognized in Lead Actress.That progression continued in 2024 with Jacques Audiard (Emilia Perez). His film did not just make Director, Picture, and Screenplay. It led the field with 13 nominations, including two acting nods, Zoë Saldaña in Supporting Actress and Karla Sofía Gascón in Lead Actress. Saldaña’s win marked the first acting Oscar awarded to a performance in an international film in this modern era of expanded Academy membership.

Nominations outside of International Feature (from international films nominated for Director):

• Another Round: one
• Drive My Car: three
• Triangle of Sadness: three
• The Zone of Interest: four
• Anatomy of a Fall: five
• Emilia Perez: twelve

One could reasonably credit Alfonso Cuarón (Roma, 2018) and Bong Joon Ho (Parasite, 2019) with opening the door, but the structural shift truly began in 2020, when the Academy’s membership expanded dramatically on an international level.

According to various reports from AMPAS, Variety, The New York Times, and USA Today, international membership grew from roughly 724 members, about 12.5 percent of the Academy, in 2015 to 2,107 members, around 21 percent, by 2020. That near tripling was fueled by 819 new invites in 2020 alone, nearly half of which went to international voters. Over the next five years (2021-2025), the Academy added 2,211 members, with an estimated 1,218, approximately 55 percent, coming from outside the U.S. The New York Times has noted that each incoming class since 2020 has been 49 to 56 percent international, steadily pushing overall international representation past 21 percent by 2025.

To argue that the international branch is not growing rapidly or that it will not continue shaping the Oscar race would be a serious miscalculation.

Let’s get to it.

PICTURE

How I did last year: 8/10 (missed I’m Still Here and Nickel Boys; had A Real Pain and September 5)

Over the past 15 years, 126 of the 145 Oscar Best Picture nominees (86.9 percent), were preceded by a PGA nomination. It remains the most reliable precursor we have, though it is far from the only one that matters. Consensus often reveals itself across multiple groups.

One such group is BAFTA, the British Academy. While their nominations will be announced after the Oscar nominations this year, limiting their usefulness, their longlists still provide valuable insight into which films remain in serious contention.

Tier One: The absolute locks

1. One Battle After Another (Warner Bros.)
2. Hamnet (Focus Features)
3. Sinners (Warner Bros.)
4. Marty Supreme (A24)
5. Frankenstein (Netflix)

These films all received top recognition from PGA, DGA, SAG, BAFTA (longlist), CCA, Globes, and AFI. OBAA won Critics Choice and the Golden Globe Picture (Comedy/Musical), while Hamnet won Globe (Drama). You would separate those two (along with maybe Sinners) into their own tier if looking at potential winners.

Tier Two: I’d bet on it

6. Sentimental Value (Neon)
7. Bugonia (Focus Features)

Among the major precursors listed in the group above, Sentimental Value missed only SAG Ensemble and DGA. Given the historical struggles international films face with those two guilds, that omission is more a speed bump than a red flag. I fully expect the Academy’s international membership to push Joachim Trier’s film, the only international player to make the PGA ten, into the lineup.

Bugonia similarly missed SAG Ensemble and DGA, but earned nominations from the rest of the key groups. It is slightly weaker than Sentimental Value, lacking the international cushion that helps explain those misses, but it remains a strong bet. Yorgos Lanthimos has a devoted base within the Academy, and that support should be enough to secure the number-one votes needed to carry it into the final lineup.

Tier Three: Last ones in

8. The Secret Agent (Neon)
   
9. Train Dreams (Netflix)
   
10. F1 (Apple Original Films/Warner Bros.)

Of this group, Train Dreams landed nominations from PGA, CCA (Picture), and AFI (with The Secret Agent ineligible there), though it missed the Globes. The Secret Agent, by contrast, performed well with the Globes, a body that skews more international. F1 showed up at PGA and no fewer than nine additional guilds. That breadth of support ultimately pushed it into the final slot for me.

All three films missed DGA and SAG Ensemble, though as with Sentimental Value, those omissions are easier to contextualize in the case of The Secret Agent.

Interestingly, six of the films I predicted back in March 2025 are still in my final list. Not bad for a Wookie.

Tier Four: Just a bit outside

11. It Was Just an Accident (Neon)
    12. Weapons (Warner Bros.)
    13. Wicked: For Good (Universal Pictures)

These are the potential spoilers. 

It Was Just an Accident appears to have lost steam in the days leading up to Oscar nominations, sliding from International frontrunner to third in my current ranking, behind Sentimental Value and The Secret Agent. If there is room for three international films in Best Picture, It Was Just an Accident would most likely take F1’s place.

Weapons secured a PGA nomination and posted solid guild support, with MUAH and CDG both responding. Still, outside of 2023, the lone year PGA and the Oscars matched ten-for-ten, history suggests that one or two PGA nominees are usually displaced by stronger international contenders. On that basis alone, it is easy to envision both Weapons and F1 falling short.

Wicked: For Good missed nearly every major precursor, aside from CCA and AFI, but its strength across the crafts is undeniable. It earned recognition from six individual guilds, including CSA, ADG, SDSA, MUAH, CDG, and SC&L, suggesting broad below-the-line support that could translate into Best Picture votes.

Other films just outside the conversation carry multiple vulnerabilities. Jay Kelly, No Other Choice, Avatar: Fire and Ash, Nuremberg, Sorry Baby, and Blue Moon all face more than one structural hurdle, though surprises are never entirely off the table.

It’s essential to start with Best Picture, because the nominees in every other category help shape the narrative around the top prize. From here, I’ll move through each category in order of difficulty, starting with the ones that are easiest to read and working toward the tougher calls. Along the way, I’ll weigh the safest bets against the real pressure points. You’ll also see frequent references to the preferential ballot era (2009 to present) and the growing international era (2020-2025). Given how much the Academy has changed since then, those are the most useful windows for identifying modern trends.

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

How I did last year: 5/5

1. Paul Thomas Anderson (OBAA)
2. Chloé Zhao and Maggie O’Farrell (Hamnet)
3. Will Tracy (Bugonia)
4. Guillermo del Toro (Frankenstein)
5. Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar (Train Dreams)

Since the Academy moved to a fixed ten Best Picture nominees in 2021, an average of eight Screenplay nominees have overlapped with Picture each year. The real challenge is identifying the one or two screenplay slots that land without a corresponding Best Picture nomination. I don’t see that happening in Adapted this year unless Train Dreams somehow misses Best Picture. Flag this now, though, because it matters more when we get to Original Screenplay.

Potential spoilers: Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, No Other Choice, Nuremberg

SUPPORTING ACTOR

How I did last year: 5/5

1. Stellan Skarsgård (Sentimental Value)
2. Benecio del Toro (OBAA)
3. Jacob Elordi (Frankenstein)
4. Sean Penn (OBAA)
5. Paul Mescal (Hamnet)

The most reliable acting precursors are SAG, BAFTA, the Globes, and CCA, and all five contenders showed up nearly across the board or, in BAFTA’s case, landed on the longlist. The lone exception is Skarsgård, who missed only SAG. Given SAG’s absent international turnout, that’s just a minor blemish. He also won the Globe, which puts him comfortably in the race and arguably in the lead. Locking in the nominees here feels relatively easy. Picking the winner is going to be another story entirely.

Potential spoilers: Adam Sandler (Jay Kelly), Delroy Lindo (Sinners)

LEAD ACTOR

How I did last year: 5/5

1. Timothée Chalamet (Marty Supreme)
2. Leonardo DiCaprio (OBAA)
3. Wagner Moura (The Secret Agent)
4. Ethan Hawke (Blue Moon)
5. Michael B. Jordan (Sinners)

This is not an easy category to predict, and frankly, none of the remaining ones are either, so this is where the real guesswork begins. Four actors here showed up with SAG, CCA, the Globes, and the BAFTA longlist. The fifth is Wagner Moura, who missed SAG along with the other international contenders and also missed BAFTA, tracing a remarkably similar path to his Brazilian counterpart Fernanda Torres (I’m Still Here) last year.

Lurking just outside the lineup are two very real threats: Joel Edgerton (Train Dreams) and Jesse Plemons (Bugonia). Edgerton missed only SAG, while Plemons missed only CCA, making both credible spoilers. Still, after winning the Globe for Lead Actor (Drama) and taking Best Actor at Cannes, I’m betting Moura benefits from a strong international push and makes it in for his standout turn as a journalist in the Portuguese-language political thriller.

Potential spoilers: Edgerton and Plemons

LEAD ACTRESS

1. Jessie Buckley (Hamnet)
2. Rose Byrne (If I Had Legs I’d Kick You)
3. Emma Stone (Bugonia)
4. Chase Infiniti (OBAA)
5. Renate Reinsve (Sentimental Value)

How I did last year: 5/5

Everyone here except Reinsve landed the full quartet of key acting precursors. Reinsve missed SAG, presumably due to the same fate all international performers had in all four acting categories. She still faces real pressure from Kate Hudson (Song Sung Blue), who missed only CCA and remains a serious threat.

In 2021, none of the five Best Actress nominees starred in Best Picture contenders. That outcome clearly didn’t sit well with the branch, because the overlap has increased every year since: three actresses tied to Best Picture nominees in 2022, four in 2023, and all five in 2025. That last result marked only the second time in Academy history that five actresses were nominated from five different Best Picture–nominated films, the first being 1977. For context, Lead Actor has managed this only four times: 1942 and 1943, when there were ten Picture nominees, 1966, when there were five, and 2013, when there were nine.

The broader point matters more than the trivia. For a good part of the Academy’s history, Best Picture was capped at five nominees, making this kind of overlap statistically unlikely, despite the narrative you may have heard last year. Bottom line: when choosing between two contenders, bet on the one tied to a Best Picture nominee.

Potential spoilers: Hudson, Cynthia Erivo (Wicked: For Good), Jennifer Lawrence (Die My Love)

ANIMATED FEATURE

1. KPop Demon Hunters (Netflix)
2. Zootopia 2 (Disney)
3. Elio (Disney)
4. Arco (Neon)
5. Little Amélie or the Character of Rain (GKIDS)

How I did last year: 4/5 (missed Memoir of a Snail, had Moana 2)

You might wonder how I missed the seemingly obvious Memoir of a Snail last year. I was skeptical that animators would rally around a film that wasn’t fully, or even mostly, animated. That hunch was wrong.

This year, I’m playing it safer. These five titles have settled into a clear consensus across the season. All five landed nominations from the Annies, the Globes, and CCA, and all but KPop (ruled ineligible) appeared on the BAFTA longlist. The Producers Guild went with the top three listed here, then pivoted to Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Infinity Castle (Crunchyroll) and The Bad Guys 2 (Universal) over Arco and Amélie.

What keeps this category tricky is that even with a relatively stable top five, there are still as many as five other credible contenders hanging out just outside the lineup, any of which could muscle their way into one of those slots.

Potential spoilers: The Bad Guys 2, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Infinity Castle, Ne Zha 2 (A24), In Your Dreams (Netflix), Scarlet (Sony)

CINEMATOGRAPHY

1. Autumn Durald Arkapaw (Sinners)
2. Michael Bauman (OBAA)
3. Dan Laustsen (Frankenstein)
4. Adolpho Veloso (Train Dreams)
5. Darius Khondji (Marty Supreme)

How I did last year: 4/5 (missed Emilia Perez, had Conclave)

I’m still salty about Conclave getting snubbed last year, and I fully expect to feel the same if Hamnet misses this time.

This brings us to the first category with an official shortlist ahead of nominations. Oscar shortlists narrow an enormous eligibility pool to a smaller group that advances to the next voting phase. They’re determined by the relevant Academy branch or a designated committee and signal visibility and industry buy-in. Depending on the category, a shortlist usually cuts hundreds of submissions down to 10–20 finalists, which makes forecasting marginally more manageable. Not every category uses a shortlist, and I’ll flag it when one does.

In Cinematography, we have a shortlist of 16 contenders to work with. The key precursors here are the Cinematographers Guild (ASC) and their British counterparts (BSC), BAFTA longlist, and CCA. Only Sinners, OBAA, and Frankenstein swept all four. I’m rounding out my five with two films that each missed one: Train Dreams was snubbed by BSC, and Marty Supreme missed CCA. Surprisingly, neither ASC nor BSC nominated Łukasz Żal for Hamnet, though the film’s overall acclaim could still push it past a technically impressive but less remarkable contender like Marty Supreme.

Potential spoilers: Hamnet, Claudio Miranda (F1)

INTERNATIONAL FEATURE

How I did last year: 4/5 (missed The Girl with the Needle, had Kneecap)

1. Sentimental Value (Norway)
2. The Secret Agent (Brazil)
3. It Was Just an Accident (France)
4. Sirāt (Spain)
5. No Other Choice (South Korea)

As with Supporting Actor, the nominee lineup here looks clean and straightforward, but the winner is anything but. There’s no clear frontrunner, despite The Secret Agent (Brazil) winning both CCA and the Globe for the category. International Feature could become even murkier if three of these films also break into the Best Picture race. All five I’m predicting to be nominated showed up with CCA, Globe, and BAFTA longlist citations. The hesitation comes from recent history: this category has a habit of throwing a genuine curveball, as EO (Poland) did in 2023 or Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom (Bhutan) did in 2022.

Potential spoilers: The Voice of Hind Rajab (Tunisia), Left-Handed Girl (Taiwan), Belén (Argentina), Sound of Falling (Germany), (Japan)

MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING

• Frankenstein

• Sinners

• Wicked: For Good

• The Smashing Machine

• One Battle After Another

How I did last year: 4/5 (missed Emilia Perez, had Beetlejuice Beetlejuice)

This is one of the few categories with historically minimal overlap with Best Picture. Since the field expanded from three nominees to five in 2019, an average of only two Picture nominees per year have crossed over into Makeup. That said, the trend might be shifting: each of the last two years featured three Best Picture nominees in the Makeup and Hairstyling lineup.

This year’s shortlist includes ten films, four of which I fully expect to land Best Picture nominations. Following the recent trend, I’m predicting three Picture contenders to appear among my five here.

Aside from OBAA (who missed only CCA) all of my predicted nominees received recognition from MUAH, CCA, and the BAFTA longlist. 

Potential spoilers: Any of the rest of the shortlisted films (Marty Supreme, Nuremberg, The Alto Knights, Kokohu, The Ugly Stepsister)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

1. Teyana Taylor (OBAA)
2. Amy Madigan (Weapons)
3. Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas (Sentimental Value)
4. Wunmi Mosaku (Sinners)
5. Odessa A’Zion (Marty Supreme)

How I did last year: 4/5 (had Jamie Lee Curtis, missed Monica Barbaro)

How did I miss the actor I named my Breakthrough Performer of the Year? A mix of emotional hedging and overestimating the power and influence of Jamie Lee Curtis.

This is the toughest acting category to predict. Taylor, Madigan, and Grande all hit the full quartet of precursors: SAG, Globe, CCA, and the BAFTA longlist. Mosaku missed the Globe, A’Zion missed Globe and CCA, and Lilleaas missed SAG along with the rest of the international contenders.

The real toss-up comes down to Odessa A’zion (Marty Supreme), whose co-star is the frontrunner in Lead Actor, versus Ariana Grande (Wicked: For Good). The “Actor coattail” theory is well established. Since the preferential ballot was introduced, 13 of the last 16 Lead Actor winners were accompanied by at least one co-star nomination. The lone break in the pattern came during a strange three-year stretch from 2017 to 2019, when Gary Oldman (The Darkest Hour), Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody), and Joaquin Phoenix (Joker) won Lead Actor as their films’ sole acting nominees.

If you believe Chalamet will win, which is where I currently land, A’zion is difficult to leave out. Marty Supreme is a stronger Best Picture contender than Wicked: For Good, and that level of support rarely stops with a single acting citation. The same coattail logic could theoretically extend to Gwyneth Paltrow, but her only traction came via the BAFTA longlist. That makes A’zion the far more credible beneficiary of any spillover.

Potential spoilers: Grande, Paltrow, Regina Hall (OBAA), Emily Blunt (The Smashing Machine)

COSTUME DESIGN

1. Kate Hawley (Frankenstein)
2. Paul Tazewell (Wicked: For Good)
3. Ruth E. Carter (Sinners)
4. Malgosia Turzanska (Hamnet)
5. Lindsay Pugh (Hedda)

How I did last year: 4/5 (missed A Complete Unknown, had Dune: Part Two)

With no shortlist to guide us, Costume Design remains one of the tougher craft categories to predict. The Costume Designers Guild splits its awards into three genres: Period, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, and Contemporary. In four of the last five years, the eventual Oscar winner has come from one of the first two. Historically, the crossover pattern is fairly reliable, with roughly three Period nominees and two Sci-Fi/Fantasy contenders making the Oscar lineup.

Last year was an anomaly on multiple fronts. I missed A Complete Unknown, which became the only Costume Design nominee in the past five years to bypass CDG entirely. It was also the first time since La La Land in 2016, that a Contemporary CDG nominee translated into an Oscar nomination (Conclave). The question is whether that signals a real shift or simply a statistical blip.

I am betting on the latter and leaning into a Period-heavy year, similar to 2021 and 2023, when Period films claimed four of the five Oscar slots. Frankenstein, Sinners, Hamnet, and Hedda are all competing in CDG’s Period category, while Wicked: For Good represents the Sci-Fi/Fantasy lane.

Potential spoilers: It’s one thing to bet against four-time Oscar winner Colleen Atwood once; doing it twice is another matter entirely. She’s in play with two contenders here: One Battle After Another, a Contemporary CDG nominee, and Kiss of the Spider Woman.

ACHIEVEMENT IN CASTING

1. Francine Maisler (Sinners)
2. Cassandra Kulukundis (OBAA)
3. Nina Gold (Hamnet)
4. Jennifer Venditti (Marty Supreme)
5. Yngvill Kolset Haga and Avy Kaufman (Sentimental Value)

How I did last year: New category!

There is not much historical data to lean on for a brand-new category, though the Academy has at least given us some structure by narrowing the field to a ten-film shortlist. A fair amount of hand-wringing has followed, with some pundits wondering whether voters will treat Achievement in Casting as a de facto ensemble award. That is not what the category is designed to reward.

Per Oscars.org, “The Achievement in Casting award recognizes the casting director’s collaboration with a film’s director and producers in the creative consideration and selection of actors for the film’s acting ensemble. The Oscar is awarded to no more than two casting directors primarily responsible for the casting and credited on-screen, with one additional credited individual possible under exceptional circumstances as determined by the Casting Directors Branch Executive Committee.”

The most important detail is that nominations are determined exclusively by the roughly 170 members of the Casting Directors Branch. This is their lane. They know exactly what they are evaluating. Once the nominees are set, the winner shifts to the full Academy, but that is a later conversation.

As for what the branch may prioritize, there are several viable pathways: ensemble cohesion, inspired discoveries, thoughtful representation, or sheer logistical ambition. The safest bets are films that check more than one of those boxes. At this stage, I would expect a lineup that closely tracks SAG Ensemble. The five films that appeared there—One Battle After Another, Hamnet, Sinners, Marty Supreme, and Frankenstein—also showed up at DGA and all landed in the PGA ten. Until this category reveals its own tendencies, trusting that overlap is the sensible play.

But sensible only gets you so far.

One of the most impressive behind-the-scenes feats of Weapons is that the film had to be largely recast after delays caused by the Hollywood strikes. Reassembling such a strong lineup on a second pass is precisely the kind of invisible labor this category exists to spotlight, and it is difficult to imagine the branch overlooking that achievement entirely.

And then there is the international angle. If a non-English-language contender is going to break through, Sentimental Value makes a compelling case, blending Scandinavian authenticity with recognizable global star power in a way that feels tailor-made for casting professionals. Its recent domination at the 38th European Film Awards only strengthens that case. And with the international contingent of the Academy continuing to grow, it is hardly a stretch to imagine that influence making itself felt in a brand-new category.

Potential spoilers: Frankenstein, Weapons

ORIGINAL SCORE

1. Ludwig Göransson (Sinners)
2. Jonny Greenwood (OBAA)
3. Max Richter (Hamnet)
4. Alexandre Desplat (Frankenstein)
5. Daniel Lopatin (Marty Supreme)

How I did last year: 4/5 (missed Wicked, had Challengers)

It’s those same bloody five films that keep showing up. Yes, I know. A little dull on the surface, but the logic holds. The top four cleared the BAFTA longlist, Globes, CCA, and SCL, while Marty showed up at BAFTA and CCA. Its biggest threat is Hans Zimmer’s F1: The Movie, a serious contender in its own right that landed citations from both the Globes and CCA.

The alchemy backs the safe approach. Over the last four years, 12 of the 20 Score nominees also landed Editing nominations, an average of three per year. In that same stretch, 15 of those Score contenders were also Best Picture nominees. Following the strongest Picture players here might be boring, but it’s also smart.

The shortlist narrowing the field to 20 does little to clarify the picture.

Potential spoilers: F1, Sirāt , Train Dreams, Bugonia

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

1. Ryan Coogler (Sinners)
2. Joachim Trier and Eskil Vogt (Sentimental Value)
3. Ronald Bronstein and Josh Safdie (Marty Supreme)
4. Jafar Panahi (It Was Just an Accident)
5. Eva Victor (Sorry, Baby)

How I did last year: 5/5

Statistically, the first four are the strongest contenders, and I feel particularly confident in the top three, all of which landed nominations from both CCA and the Globes and appeared on the BAFTA longlist for Screenplay. It Was Just an Accident, which missed only CCA, plays well with the international voting bloc and gives the Academy a way to recognize Panahi if he ultimately falls short in Director.

The fifth slot is where things get messy. I have been leaning toward Cregger’s Weapons, largely because Amy Madigan looks like a legitimate threat to win Supporting Actress, and it’s difficult to imagine that happening if the film leaves nomination morning with only a single citation. Weapons missed the Makeup and Hairstyling shortlist, a category where many expected it to show up, narrowing Madigan’s realistic pathway without above-the-line recognition in Screenplay or Casting, unless it breaks into Best Picture.

As I noted in Adapted Screenplay, the challenge is identifying the screenplay nominees that do not come packaged with a Best Picture nod. I expect at least one such outlier here, and Weapons, bolstered by a PGA nomination, fits the profile of a fringe contender that can slip into that final slot.

The other film that fits the non-Picture outlier profile is Eva Victor’s Sorry, Baby. Julia Roberts’ onstage endorsement at the Globes only adds fuel to the fire, making it even harder to ignore a CCA-nominated screenplay with fresh momentum. This is one of the most volatile categories on the board, and I am ultimately leaning on Sorry, Baby’s late-breaking Globes boost to push it into the race.

Potential spoilers: Zach Cregger (Weapons), Emily Mortimer and Noah Baumbach (Jay Kelly), Kleber Mendonça Filho (The Secret Agent), Robert Kaplow (Blue Moon)

VISUAL EFFECTS

1. Avatar: Fire and Ash
2. F1
3. Superman
4. The Lost Bus
5. Sinners

How I did last year: 3/5 (missed Alien: Romulus and Wicked, had Gladiator II and Deadpool & Wolverine)

The key precursors here are BAFTA and the Visual Effects Society. When it comes time to predict winners, overlap with Sound and Production Design often matters, but that’s a conversation for later.

In 2021, Avatar: The Way of Water dominated the VES Awards with a record 14 nominations en route to its Oscar win. While Avatar: Fire and Ash didn’t reach those heights, it still led this year’s field with ten VES nominations, including the most important one: Outstanding Visual Effects in an Effects-Driven Motion Picture/Photoreal Feature. That makes it the one true lock in this race.

The only other film to appear on the Oscar shortlist, land in that top VES category, and show up on the BAFTA longlist is F1. The remaining eligible titles to score nominations in that VES category are Jurassic World: Rebirth and The Lost Bus, both of which also appear on the BAFTA longlist.

Then things get strange. Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein was completely shut out by VES. Wicked: For Good managed just a single VES nomination, and a minor one at that: Outstanding Model in a Photoreal or Animated Project. Superman, despite missing the marquee VES category, still picked up four VES nominations. All three films were BAFTA longlisted and widely considered strong Oscar contenders here. That confidence now feels far less justified. 

And then there’s Sinners. BAFTA longlisted, a frontline contender across multiple Oscar categories, yet represented at VES only once: Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature. It’s arguably the second-most prestigious VES category, defined by the guild as honoring invisible or near-invisible effects that support storytelling rather than drive spectacle. Given the kind of film Sinners is, especially when stacked against Avatar or Jurassic World, that outcome actually tracks.

Potential spoilers: Any of the rest of the shortlisted films (Jurassic World: Rebirth, Frankenstein, Wicked: For Good, TRON: Ares, The Electric State)

FILM EDITING

• One Battle After Another

• Sinners

• F1

• Marty Supreme

• Hamnet

How I did last year: 3/5 (missed The Brutalist and Wicked, had Dune: Part 2 and September 5)

As was the case last year, we won’t get the ACE Eddie nominations until after Oscar noms. Combine that with BAFTA announcing after the Academy again, and the lack of a shortlist here leaves us flying mostly blind. What we have to work with is the BAFTA longlist, CCA, and a fair amount of gut instinct.

One of the most cited Oscar stats since the preferential ballot was introduced is the relationship between Sound and Film Editing. Over that span, the Film Editing winner has also been nominated for Sound in 14 of the last 16 years. But that number is doing a lot of work it probably shouldn’t. For most of that period, AMPAS had two Sound categories (Mixing and Editing), which inflated the overlap. Since the categories were merged in 2020, we’ve already seen the two misses: Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022) and Anora (2024).

The connection weakens even further at the nomination stage. Since 2020, only eight of the 25 Film Editing nominees have shown up in Sound, which is less than two per year. At this point, I’m not convinced the stat carries much predictive value anymore. In fact, the Editing–Score overlap I discussed earlier has been more reliable since 2020.

Narrow the focus to the last five years and a different pattern emerges: 24 of the 25 Film Editing nominees were also Best Picture nominees. The lone exception was tick, tick… BOOM! in 2021. That leaves a clear choice. Either predict F1 to show up in Picture, or accept that you are bucking the data by placing it here. This is alchemy, baby, so I follow the science, especially after F1 won both Sound and Editing at CCA.

Potential spoilers: Frankenstein, Weapons, A House of Dynamite

Now we get to the exceptionally challenging races.

SOUND

• Sinners

• F1

• One Battle After Another

• Frankenstein

• Sirāt 

How I did last year:  4/5 (missed The Wild Robot, had Gladiator II)

The films to receive sound recognition from MPSE, the BAFTA longlist, CCA, and CAS (announced after voting closed) are Sinners, F1, OBAA, and Frankenstein.

As noted earlier, Sound was consolidated from two categories into one in 2020, so it makes more sense to limit the dataset to the last five years when identifying trends. Over that span, 17 of the 25 Sound nominees also received Picture nominations. Of the eight that did not, three were Score nominees and four landed in Visual Effects. Take that however you like, but the connection is hard to ignore.

Sound typically averages about 3.4 Best Picture crossovers per year in that span, and I am already a bit above that line with Sinners, Frankenstein, F1, and OBAA. Those are also the only films in my Picture predictions that appear on the ten-film Sound shortlist, so there is no room left to extend the overlap.

One of the strongest Sound contenders outside my Picture ten is Avatar, which I already have positioned in Visual Effects, making it difficult to leave out here. At the same time, the support for Sirāt is undeniable, with appearances on no fewer than five shortlists. I have to place it somewhere outside of International, and Sound is the most logical landing spot. To fully square the data, committing to Sirāt in Sound would argue for pairing it with a Score nomination as well, though I am not taking that step.

Potential spoilers: Avatar: Fire and Ash, Wicked: For Good

ORIGINAL SONG

1. “Golden” (KPop Demon Hunters)
2. “I Lied to You” (Sinners)
3. “Dear Me” (Diane Warren: Relentless)
4. “The Girl in the Bubble” (Wicked: For Good)
5. “Train Dreams” (Train Dreams)

How I did last year: 4/5 (missed “Like a Bird” – Sing Sing, had “Kiss the Sky” – The Wild Robot)

We don’t have a truly reliable precursor for Original Song, but the shortlist at least narrows the field to 15 contenders, with the top two feeling exceptionally safe. After that, the race quickly turns foggy.

Diane Warren remains the great constant. Omitting her is almost always a mistake. She now has 16 career nominations, including eight consecutive years from 2017 through present, and while she still lacks a competitive win, her presence in the lineup is close to automatic when she is eligible.

Looking at the precursors that do exist, the Golden Globes have paired 27 of their last 50 nominees with Oscar nominations over the past decade. Critics Choice has been stronger, matching 33 of 50 in that same span. Though it is a newer group, the SCL has correctly identified four of the five eventual Oscar nominees in each of the last two years. HMMA has been even more aggressive: over the last five years, 19 of the 25 Oscar-nominated songs were cited there first.

This year, only three songs were nominated by all four groups: “Golden,” “I Lied to You,” and “The Girl in the Bubble,” with “Golden” already winning at the Globes, CCA, and HMMA. SCL and HMMA cast wide nets, so their overlap matters less on its own, but when a song clears both the Globes and CCA, that’s usually the clearest signal we get in a category defined by uncertainty.

Potential spoilers: “Dream As One” (Avatar: Fire and Ash), “Last Time (I Seen the Sun)” (Sinners), “No Place Like Home” (Wicked: For Good), “Drive” (F1), “Highest 2 Lowest” (Highest 2 Lowest)

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

• The Perfect Neighbor

• Cover-Up

• Apocalypse in the Tropics

• 2000 Meters to Andriivka

• My Undesirable Friends: Part 1 – Last Air in Moscow

How I did last year: 4/5 (missed Black Box Diaries, had Daughters)

Documentary Feature is one of the hardest races to predict because the branch routinely ignores obvious frontrunners, shrugging off critics’ prizes, festival success, and precursor achievement in favor of its own insular and often contrarian preferences. We have seen this play out again and again: Jane, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, Apollo 11, Dick Johnson Is Dead, Good Night Oppy, Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, and Will & Harper all entered Oscar nomination morning as perceived favorites, all won CCA, and all failed to even secure a nom. In fact, over the past seven years, Summer of Soul is the only CCA-winning documentary to land an Oscar nod.

When the branch does coalesce around a winner, it has increasingly favored politically urgent work, with the three most recent victors being Navalny, 20 Days in Mariupol, and No Other Land.

The shortlist narrows the field to 15, but it hardly clarifies the picture. There are at least eight films that would not be surprising nominees. Historically, the last five winners all had BAFTA and ACE support, data points we will not have until after Oscar nominations are announced. Guild backing (PGA, DGA, and the like) can also help, but none of it provides real insulation from a branch that delights in zigging when everyone expects a zag.

The Perfect Neighbor checks every conventional precursor box, but as Erik has noted, its reliance on archival footage may be a turnoff for some members of the Documentary branch. Even so, passing on it requires more courage than I could muster.

Potential spoilers: The Alabama Solution, Mr. Nobody Against Putin, Come See Me in the Good Light

PRODUCTION DESIGN

• Frankenstein

• Sinners

• Hamnet

• Wicked: For Good

• Avatar: Fire and Ash

How I did last year: 5/5

There appear to be four clear frontrunners in Production Design, a craft category with no shortlist to provide guardrails. Frankenstein, Sinners, Hamnet, and Wicked: For Good all hit the same markers: nominations from the relevant guilds (ADG and SDSA), CCA recognition, and placement on the BAFTA longlist. Marty Supreme and The Fantastic Four: First Steps also checked those boxes, but neither made my final lineup. OBAA missed only CCA, while The Phoenician Scheme and Avatar: Fire and Ash landed with both guilds but failed to show up at either CCA or BAFTA.

What makes this category especially treacherous is the depth of congestion. There are five plausible candidates competing for one remaining slot, and history tells us that when the math gets this tight, something major usually gets left out. Of the top four, Wicked looks the most vulnerable, largely because it is the only one I am not predicting for Best Picture.

So how did I break the tie for that fifth slot? I looked sideways to Visual Effects, where Avatar: Fire and Ash feels like a near-lock to win on Oscar night. If that happens, a Production Design nomination would be entirely in character. Over the past 25 years, the Visual Effects winner has also been nominated for Art Direction or Production Design 21 times. The four exceptions—Spider-Man 2 (2004), Ex Machina (2015), The Jungle Book (2016), and Godzilla: Minus One (2023)—are just that: exceptions, with Godzilla being the biggest statistical anomaly in Oscar’s Visual Effects history.

This Production Design/Visual Effects overlap is a stat I discovered back around 2010 and one I have leaned on ever since. It has missed on occasion, but over time it has proven to be a far more reliable compass than most of the noise that surrounds this category.

Potential spoilers: Marty Supreme, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, OBAA, The Phoenician Scheme

DIRECTOR

1. Paul Thomas Anderson (One Battle After Another)
2. Ryan Coogler (Sinners)
3. Chloé Zhao (Hamnet)
4. Joachim Trier (Sentimental Value)
5. Guillermo del Toro (Frankenstein)

How I did last year: 4/5 (Missed Mangold, had Berger)

With no less than eight strong contenders, the safest bet would be to go with the DGA five (PTA, Coogler, Zhao, del Toro, and Josh Safdie for Marty Supreme). However, I mentioned earlier the international impact, especially as it relates to the race for Best Director: There have been ten directors of international films (non-English) nominated for Best Director in the last seven years, three more than were nominated in the first 40 years of the Academy Awards. I want to play it safe, but I just can’t see this being a five-for-five crossover. The trouble lies in figuring out not only who to pull out (when PTA is the only guarantee) but also who to put in, when you can make a strong case for any of Joachim Trier (Sentimental Value), Jafar Panahi (It Was Just an Accident), and Kleber Mendonça Filho (The Secret Agent).

Of the DGA five, PTA, Zhao, and Coogler were all nominated for CCA, Globes, and made the BAFTA longlist. They also helm the three strongest contenders to win Picture. Safdie missed only with Globes (in favor of Trier) and del Toro surprisingly missed with the BAFTA longlist. 

In the end, I bet on the love the industry seems to have for del Toro, and bumped Safdie from the DGA five to make room for Trier as the international pick. Which, of course, probably means it will be del Toro who misses, and Panahi who swoops in to claim the international slot instead. 

Potential spoilers: Safdie, Panahi, Filho

And that leaves the short films. Three categories that seem to exist for the sole purpose of sabotaging my pursuit of perfection. I mentioned last year that I went 6-for-15 across them, which is pretty bleak when you remember that each category is narrowed to a 15-film shortlist, and even more maddening when you factor in that I actually sat through all 45 films. It didn’t improve on Oscar night either, where I went a clean 0-for-3 on the winners.

There is virtually no way to game these races. Voters rarely follow the script everyone assumes they will, and the idea of “expert analysis” here is mostly a comforting illusion. What usually takes over is consensus by exhaustion. Nobody really knows, so everyone clings to the same handful of titles until they start to look inevitable. If you’re predicting these categories, my honest advice is simple: trust your gut, or save yourself the trouble and let a randomizer do the work (I know people who do such ridiculous things on much more important decisions). Do I sound disgruntled? You bet.

ANIMATED SHORT

• The Girl Who Cried Pearls

• Snow Bear

• Butterfly

• Retirement Plan

• I Died in Irpin

How I did last year: 3/5 (missed Magic Candies and In the Shadow of the Cypress, had A Bear Named Wojtek and Maybe Elephants)

Potential spoilers: Go with God.

DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT

• All the Empty Rooms

• Armed Only with a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud

• The Devil is Busy

• All the Walls Came Down

• Cashing Out

How I did last year: 1/5 (missed Death By Numbers, Incident, Instruments of a Beating Heart, and The Only Girl in the Orchestra, had A Swim Lesson, The Quilters, Makayla’s Voice: A Letter to the World, and Once Upon a Time in Ukraine)

Potential spoilers: May the odds be ever in your favor.

LIVE ACTION SHORT

• Two People Exchanging Saliva

• Rock, Paper, Scissors

• The Boy with White Skin

• The Pearl Comb

• Beyond Silence

How I did last year: 2/5 (missed A Lien, I’m Not a Robot, and The Last Ranger, had An Orange From Jaffa, Dovecote, and The Masterpiece)

Potential spoilers: Thoughts and prayers. 

And that’s a wrap. 

In total, I have Sinners leading the field with 15 nominations, which would break the current 75-year old record held by All About Eve (1950), Titanic (1997), and La La Land (2016). I have OBAA right behind it with 14 nominations. It feels far too heavy, so I’m curious where those predictions will miss.

In the end, this exercise is about choosing where to follow the signals and where to challenge them. I have leaned into the categories where the indicators are loud and consistent, and taken measured risks where the Academy has shown a tendency to resist consensus. Some of these calls will hold; a few will not. But each is grounded in how this body actually behaves, not how we expect it to. That is the wager.

That is the alchemy.

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Mark Johnson

Mark Johnson has been a prominent voice in film coverage and the Oscar race since 2009. He launched his career with his own website, Award Contenders, before joining forces with Clayton Davis at Awards Circuit from 2011 to 2020. After continuing his insightful work at Awards Daily from 2020 to 2024, Mark now contributes to both The Contending and AwardsWatch. His renowned Oscar predictions column, The Awards Alchemist (formerly Good As Gold), has solidified his reputation in the industry. A member of the Critics Choice Association, Mark regularly attends major film festivals, including Telluride, Nantucket, and Middleburg, offering in-depth analysis and predictions throughout awards season.

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