FINAL 2026 Oscar Predictions: ANIMATED FEATURE, DOCUMENTARY FEATURE, INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM

The worldwide phenomenon that is KPop Demon Hunters and its dominance in the critics and precursor races–save BAFTA where it wasn’t eligible–makes for one of the easiest predictions of the season.

Documentary Feature seems a bit more tricky as The Perfect Neighbor finds itself as an incredibly weak frontrunner. While it’s the only nominee to BAFTA, DGA and PGA, it lost all of them. Its only major win is Critics Choice, the cursed Critics Choice doc win. But, its biggest hurdle as an all-archival footage film was always going to be getting to the nomination stage and with the entire Academy able to vote and no other film being loudly touted enough as a strong competitor, it should be able to eke out a win here.

This year’s International Feature Film race is one of the best lineups in years. Deeply Cannes-heavy, with the Palme winner, Grand Prize winner and Jury Prize winner–all distributed by NEON. Plus, the Best Director and Best Actor winner, also from NEON. Venice is represented with their default second placer. But how will this shake out? Brazil’s The Secret Agent has literally hundreds of millions of fans, the same group that lobbied for I’m Still Here to win last year, which it did. The only thing is, last year had the supervillain that was Emilia Pérez and that’s what truly pushed Brazil to its first ever win here. There’s no villain for that this year. So while The Secret Agent has great above the line nominations in Best Actor for Wagner Moura (who won the Globe, just like I’m Still Here‘s Fernanda Torres did) and Best Casting, Sentimental Value is the stronger film. With four acting nods, directing, editing and screenplay, and with the entire Academy able to vote, it should be the leader here.

Here are my final winner predictions in Animated Feature, Documentary Feature and International Feature Film for the 98th Academy Awards, which will take place on March 15, live at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood, California.

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE FILM

INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM

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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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