FINAL 2026 Oscar Predictions: BEST ACTOR

I want to say Best Actor feels pretty locked in now but there are still little outliers in the 5-7 slots that make that lock tenuous.

Obviously, Critics Choice and Golden Globe winner Timothée Chalamet (Marty Supreme) and Leonardo DiCaprio (One Battle After Another) are at the top. I don’t think this is a Killers of the Flower Moon situation for DiCaprio, despite the similarities of a borderline lead/supporting female co-star getting a lot of spotlight to earn her spot. Killers wasn’t the Best Picture frontrunner like OBAA is.

I’ve seen some snub talk for Michael B. Jordan but at this stage, unless Sinners shockingly underperforms that’s not happening. It’s closer to hitting or breaking the all-time nomination record than failing on Oscar morning.

Despite missing SAG, where no non-English language performances made the cut, Wagner Moura (The Secret Agent) comes in with his Best Actor award from Cannes, in a film that’s on the rise and, more importantly, the Golden Globe for drama actor. You’d have to go back to 1998 when Jim Carrey missed for The Truman Show and then all the way back to 1965, when Omar Shariff won for Dr. Zhivago, to find an winner here that has missed an Oscar nomination. That said, the SAG miss and the BAFTA longlist misses are concerning, but we quite literally just saw this exact scenario happen last year in the Best Actress category with Fernanda Torres. This would put Brazil 2-2 and I’m not counting that out for a second.

This is where it gets a bit tricky. Ethan Hawke (Blue Moon), Joel Edgerton (Train Dreams) and Jesse Plemons (Bugonia) are all fighting for that last spot and each has a decent path to claim it. Hawke’s is obviously the strongest, with all of the main precursors. Edgerton missed SAG but Train Dreams got that PGA nomination. Jesse Plemons did get SAG and his film got PGA. All three made the BAFTA longlist. While this may sound like a weird stat to invoke, it’s worth noting that, if Hawke were to miss, it would be the first time since 2016 we had an acting lineup that didn’t feature an LGBTQ character, real or fictional, across all categories.

While history does favor Plemons, he’ll be in a Best Picture nominee whereas Hawke feels far less likely for that to happen, even less than Edgerton. With BAFTA nominations coming after Oscar nominations, even that field of six isn’t likely to give us the ‘answer’ we’re looking for, as someone like Robert Aramayo in I Swear will be a likely nominee. Obviously, hindsight will tell us more, and what combination of Hawke, Plemons and Edgerton make it.

Over at the awardsworthy forums, member CIN did a swift breakdown of these seven contenders (similar to how I present my tables) with some added stats since 2010 that heavily favor Plemons and Hawke, spell bad news for Edgerton, and present Moura with a fascinating “clash of stats.”

Timothée Chalamet – GG / SAG / BAFTA (longlist) / SAG (Ensemble) / DGA / PGA
Leonardo DiCaprio – GG / SAG / BAFTA (longlist) / SAG (Ensemble) / DGA / PGA
Michael B. Jordan – GG / SAG / BAFTA (longlist) / SAG (Ensemble) / DGA / PGA
*Since 2010, 17 actors hit all 6 of these precursors. All 17 were nominated for Oscars (100.00%).

Jesse Plemons – GG / SAG / BAFTA (longlist) / PGA
*Since 2010, 12 actors hit these 4 precursors. Of those 12, 11 were nominated for Oscars (91.67%).

Ethan Hawke – GG / SAG / BAFTA (longlist)
*Since 2010, 8 actors hit these 3 precursors. Of those 8, 7 were nominated for Oscars (87.50%).

Wagner Moura – GG
*Since 2010, 57 actors hit only this precursor. Of those 57, 2 were nominated for Oscars (3.51%). Now, it’s worth noting that since 2010 the GG (Drama) winner always got nominated for an Oscar. GG (Drama) winners are almost always nominated for SAG and/or BAFTA, and Moura missed both. So this one presents a very interesting clash of stats.

Joel Edgerton – GG / BAFTA (longlist) / PGA
*Since 2010, 0 actors hit these 3 precursors. Therefore, 0 were nominated for Oscars (0.00%).

Here are my final 2026 Oscar nomination predictions in Best Actor.

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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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