FINAL 2026 Oscar Predictions: BEST PICTURE and BEST DIRECTOR

After a seemingly endless season where we have an abundance of riches in Best Picture, including a top two that have deep benches of passion and respect (and precursors), it’s time to make a choice.

Sinners began its outsider run even before it premiered. Being jockeyed around by Warner Bros, with dates moving to accommodate other films (including the Bong Joon-ho flop Mickey 17), Ryan Coogler’s southern, Jim Crow era vampire saga was underestimated out of the gate until its box office and reviews told a different story. Amassing $280M in the U.S. (and $370M total worldwide), it became the highest grossing live original film of the decade so far, and second highest of the century after Inception.

The very early Oscar predictor folks (I usually hold off until May) locked it in is a default frontrunner last spring as Sundance didn’t seem to provide a solid Best Picture through-line (it didn’t) and the Berlin Film Festival, while giving us one of this year’s Best Actress nominees in Rose Byrne after she won her prize there, also didn’t factor into the top Oscar race. But once the Cannes Film Festival rolled around and unveiled one of its most extraordinary lineups ever, there was finally some food eat. All of us who were there and saw It Was Just an Accident, Sentimental Value and The Secret Agent saw the potential in the ever-changing landscape of the film academy for another international film breakthrough at the Oscars. NEON agreed, as the two-time Best Picture-winning studio and now 6-year-in-a-row Palme d’Or agreed, picking up films left and right and dominating the festival’s awards. Cannes was the season’s hotbed of Oscar activity and it paid off handsomely.

But Sinners supporters remained steadfast and didn’t waver. Then Telluride came and Hamnet was anointed the tear-jerking frontrunner and two weeks later won the Toronto International Film Festival’s People’s Choice Award, not only making Chloé Zhao the first director to have two films wins (after 2020’s Nomadland) but cemented it as a top tier contender. Although it had a prime late November initial release, it took Focus Features a long time to eke it out to more theaters, not breaking the 1000-screen mark until the weekend of January 23, right after Oscar nominations. But as the season kicked off, it went from frontrunner to villain (of all films) and had already started to stumble in the guilds, missing key nominations in editing and cinematography and then star Paul Mescal in supporting actor after hitting every precursor. Once it was clear that Hamnet wasn’t in BP-winning territory, the daggers were pulled back and turned to the real two-hander race of the season.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another had made noise very early in the year with hopes of a festival run but instead opting for a direct theatrical release. Although it screened during the New York Film Festival just before its late September bow, it was not officially a part of NYFF. The film had screened earlier in the month on the Warner Bros lot in Los Angeles and the response was electric. WB knew they had something special, and they sunk a hefty chunk of change into it–to the tune of $130-150M–giving Anderson the widest berth of financial and creative freedom of his career and championed by producers Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy. In a year of record-setting box office success for the studio that included The Minecraft Movie, The Conjuring: Last Rites, Superman, Weapons and, of course, Sinners, they turned their eyes on spinning One Battle into Oscar gold for Anderson, an 11-time nominee at the time, without a win.

As we began to enter critics awards season, that investment began paying off immediately. The Gotham Award nominations were announced, where One Battle led and won Best Feature in early December. Days later, the National Board of Review awards gave five prizes to the film, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor. That was just the beginning as the film surged and kept surging then surged some more. Dominating critics season both the trifecta of LAFCA, NYFCC and NSFC as well as the regionals, both for the film and for Anderson in directing, became a daily notification of another win. Then another win. And another one.

January brought wins for One Battle at Critics Choice (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay) while Sinners, the most-nominated film at CCA managed wins for its score, casting and original screenplay (as well as the non-Oscar category for young actor). At the Golden Globes, One Battle continued its run with Best Picture – Comedy or Musical, Best Director, and Best Screenplay, while Sinners managed Best Score and lost Best Picture – Drama to Hamnet (where its villain placement was reinstated).

February brought continued success for One Battle After Another at the Directors Guild of America DGA awards, where Anderson won. The BAFTAs came a few weeks later, again to huge success for One Battle, Anderson and for Sean Penn. Sinners performed very well too, winning three (including supporting actress for Wunmi Mosaku) and putting the film in BAFTA history as the most-awarded film by a Black director. Sinners stars Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo were also hit with screams of the n-word while they were on stage from Tourette’s activist John Davidson and subject of the BAFTA-winning film I Swear, in a situation of profound sadness and grace.

As the month closed we got to the Producers Guild of America PGA awards where some thought if there was going to be a crack somewhere to give Sinners a chance to turn the race in its favor. It didn’t happen but the very next night were the SAG Awards, where Sinners won two major awards: Cast in a Motion Picture and Male Actor in a Leading Role for Michael B. Jordan. The last two awards of the night, the room was electric for these wins and they provided that glimmer of hope that, as this was all happening during this year’s extended Oscar voting period, maybe momentum would change course and favor Coogler’s megahit.

So here’s where we’re at:

One Battle After Another: PGA/DGA/WGA/ACE/ADG/ASC/BSC/SDSA/USC (plus AACTA/BAFTA/CCA/César/GG)

Sinners: SAG/WGA/ACE/MPSE/MUAH/VES/CSA/HMMA/SCL

Much can be said about what precursors each film has received this season and that each combination has historically provided a ‘locked’ status for a Best Picture win. But as both have, we’re at a precipice of something we’ve never seen before and that will be referenced for years if not decades to come. To date, the Oscars have still never awarded Best Director to a Black director and the stars don’t seem aligned to change that this year. 98 years is a long time for the group to reckon with that choice, even as Black-led films like 12 Years a Slave and Moonlight have won Best Picture. The struggle remains and the Academy’s most glaring omission should always demand its most fervent scrutiny. But when a tide shift happens to favor a person or a film it’s not a surprise (even Crash winning wasn’t the surprise its case is often afforded), the breadcrumbs, and yes, precursors, are there. Passion and respect will drive the winner of Best Director and no amount of anonymous ballots or ‘I’ve talked to voters’ supersedes that. It’s anecdotal and deserves a very small portion of the prediction pie. Many of this season’s races are very close from this perspective. We’ll be biting our nails at the opening of several envelopes on Sunday (and hopefully Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway are far from them). But we’ve lost sight of the enjoyable elements of awards watching in a big way.

It’s been truly depressing that this season, which could have seen the supporters for these two films find a way to embrace that these frontrunners both bring with them historical context and a place from which to root for your fave that doesn’t require demeaning the other film or its fanbase, devolved so acutely. Now, that sentiment could apply for virtually any awards season. Part of the ‘game’ from the awards watcher side is team and faction-based, which feels kind of inevitable. It’s a heated rivalry where only one can win and fans seemingly take it upon themselves to champion their choices less with their merits of their preferred film but by how nasty their attacks can be, including launching casual accusations of racism if you don’t fall in line with a singular choice. Ultimately, it’s pointing the gun at the wrong target. But if your love of one thing requires you to tear down another as your only way to amplify, then your faith and admiration is on shaky ground. Specious, at best.

When people complain about awards seasons being too long, I find that it’s not really about the actual length of time, it’s that the caustic discourse hits a zenith and then via boredom or sometimes just a desire to be cruel, new ‘what ifs?’ are created, new fights emerge, and the whole thing remains a cesspool of negative back and forth. Yes, the Oscars are supposed to be fun. Yes, professional journalists should be honest with their readers instead of baiting them with false hopes for clicks. But each year strays further and further away from what it ‘should’ be. Awards season doesn’t need to end sooner. It’s the discourse that needs to change course.

Here are my final winner predictions in Best Director and Best Picture for the 98th Academy Awards, which will take place on March 15, live at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood, California.

DIRECTING

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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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