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

With the trifecta of major fall festivals behind us, the time for play is over. Wistful predictions are no more and there’s nothing to hide behind now.

Alexander Payne’s Venice jury awarded Jim Jarmusch’s Father Mother Sister Brother the Golden Lion but I’m not sure the MUBI title is going to make a lot of waves outside of what felt like a very Payne-driven choice (the rumors of alleged division of the jury are still fresh) but it might be the best shot the studio that pushed The Substance all the way to Best Picture and Best Director nominations has. The next test for it will be as the Centerpiece of the New York Film Festival in a few weeks. Benny Safdie was the surprise winner of the Silver Lion for Best Director and that has to make A24 happy for the prospects of The Smashing Machine but if that film was going to receive a festival boost it feels like it should have been for Dwayne Johnson. Him snagging a Volpi Cup win for Best Actor is what he needed for what is a very competitive race.

Smack in the middle of Venice came the Telluride Film Festival, with world premieres of Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet, Scott Cooper’s Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, Edward Berger’s Ballad of a Small Player and more. As usual, Cannes winners made the jump to here where the NEON-heavy slate of Sentimental Value, The Secret Agent and It Was Just an Accident played well. After a slightly mixed response at Venice to Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, the mountain festival made the monster movie a surprise late screening late Sunday night (swooping it from Toronto as the actual North American premiere of the film) to better reactions. Could it have been the excitement of screening it before TIFF? Or the zaddiness of star Oscar Isaac flying in for less than 24 hours to present the film? Considering how well it played at TIFF just a week later, it seems the film just needed a broader audience. But without a doubt the film of Telluride was Hamnet. From Zhao’s audience meditation opening to the film’s emotionally rich ending, audiences at Telluride overwhelmingly chose it as their favorite when I asked them in line, at lunch between screenings, parties or sitting next to me in a theater. While we still await Michael’s Telluride Blog’s results of critics and the public for their favorites of the fest, I expect it to be at the top.

And the Shakespeare story continued to ride the wave to Canada, where yesterday it won the TIFF People’s Choice, making Zhao the only director to ever have two films receive the audience honor. 2020’s Nomadland won, after its Venice debut, on its way to Best Picture and Best Director Oscars. The aforementioned Frankenstein played so well at TIFF it was the first runner-up for audience goers and Rian Johnson’s newest Knives Out mystery Wake Up Dead Man placed as well, second runner-up, exactly where 2022’s Glass Onion showed up. For reference, last year’s trio were The Life of Chuck, Emilia Pérez and Anora. While the latter two went on to multiple Oscar wins earlier this year, NEON held Chuck to late spring 2025 where it performed dismally at the box office and at this point is not a factor in the Best Picture race, or any for that matter, making it likely the first winner there to miss a Best Picture Oscar nomination since 2011’s Where Do We Go Now? NEON’s hearty pick up of Cannes titles also shows where their interest and attention will be focused.

Sidestepping all festivals, and in fact making a debut during them, was Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, which screened in Los Angeles for press, actors, directors and industry folk to thunderous acclaim. At my screening, Christopher Nolan came by to see and support PTA, Rian Johnson flew in directly from Toronto for the screening. The film played again the next night, where AW Associate Editor Sophia Ciminello was in attendance, largely for actors, SAG and the local SAG nom-comm voters, which also included the film’s casting director Cassandra Kulukundis (whose end credit at my screening got the most applause any any non-actor or director name). More screenings have followed, in both LA and New York, to equal response, making the film, in my estimation, a formidable frontrunner alongside Hamnet, Sinners, and Sentimental Value. With a release date in just 10 days, One Battle After Another will have an advantage of being seen outside of a festival environment and while its $140M price tag will be a part of the conversation and narrative surrounding its success, this will be the first PTA film to screen in China. With Leonardo DiCaprio as the film’s exasperated and hilarious dad trying to do right by his distant daughter in a film packed full of action and humor, the international appeal that DiCaprio brings to any film could be its greatest asset.

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

BEST PICTURE

Next up: After the Hunt (Amazon MGM) ↓, The Ballad of the Small Player (Netflix), Father, Mother, Sister, Brother (MUBI) ↑, Materialists (A24), The Lost Bus (Apple Original Films) ↓, Nouvelle Vague (Netflix), Rental Family (Searchlight Pictures) ↓, Sound of Falling (MUBI), The Testament of Ann Lee (TBD), Train Dreams (Netflix) 

Other contenders: Anemone (Focus Features), A Bold, Beautiful Journey (Sony Pictures), Blue Moon (Sony Pictures Classics), Die My Love (MUBI), Eleanor the Great (Sony Pictures Classics), Ella McCay (20th Century Studios), Highest 2 Lowest (Apple/A24), The History of Sound (MUBI), If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (A24), The Life of Chuck (NEON), The Mastermind (MUBI), The Phoenician Scheme (Focus Features)

BEST DIRECTOR

Next up: Luca Guadagnino – After the Hunt (Amazon MGM), James Cameron – Avatar: Fire and Ash (20th Century Studios), Edward Berger – The Ballad of the Small Player (Netflix), Jim Jarmusch – Father Mother Sister Brother (MUBI) NEW, Celine Song – Materialists (A24), Hikari – Rental Family (Searchlight Pictures) ↓, Mona Fastvold – The Testament of Ann Lee (TBD), Clint Bentley – Train Dreams (Netflix)

Other contenders: Ronan Day-Lewis – Anemone (Focus Features), Kogonada – A Bold, Beautiful Journey (Sony Pictures), Richard Linklater – Blue Moon (Sony Pictures Classics), Lynne Ramsay – Die My Love (MUBI), James L. Brooks – Ella McCay (20th Century Studios), Oliver Hermanus – The History of Sound (MUBI), Mike Flanagan – The Life of Chuck (NEON), Wes Anderson – The Phoenician Scheme (Focus Features), Mascha Schilinski – Sound of Falling (MUBI)

• Author
• Recent Posts

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.

Latest posts by Erik Anderson (see all)

• Robert Yeoman to be Honored with American Society of Cinematographers’ Lifetime Achievement Award - December 3, 2025
• National Board of Review: ‘One Battle After Another’ Tops in Film, Director, Actor, Supporting Actor; Netflix Lands Four in Top 10 - December 3, 2025
• 41st Spirit Awards Nominations: ‘Peter Hujar’s Day,’ ‘Lurker,’ ‘Train Dreams’ Lead - December 3, 2025