Oscars 2026 predictions: Who will win - and who should?

In the final few days before the Academy Awards, and with several key races tightening, here are the BBC film critics' final expert predictions.

Warner Bros

1. Best picture

The race for the best picture Oscar often has two frontrunners by the time the big night arrives. Will Moonlight or La La Land win? Coda or The Power of the Dog? When award season began this year, it looked as if those two frontrunners would be Hamnet and One Battle after Another, the winners of the Golden Globes for best drama and best musical or comedy, respectively. (Is One Battle After Another really a "musical or comedy"? That's another article.) Since then, though, Hamnet has dropped back and Sinners has had a burst of speed: Ryan Coogler's bravura vampire chiller picked up major prizes at the Baftas and the Actor Awards, and it seems to generate more and more goodwill every time it's discussed. One Battle After Another is still – just – the favourite. Paul Thomas Anderson has made a wildly distinctive masterpiece which has triumphed at one awards ceremony after another. Its focus on the clashes between undocumented immigrants and US law-enforcement officials is also staggeringly topical. But it hasn't been without controversy, with some commentators complaining about its sexualised depiction of black women. My hunch is that Sinners will overtake it, and One Battle After Another will fall at the final hurdle. (NB)

2. Best director

In a career full of brilliant films as different as Boogie Nights and Phantom Thread, Paul Thomas Anderson has not won a single Oscar – not even screenplay, often a consolation prize – despite 14 nominations so far. And while he definitely has the "It's his turn" narrative going for him, that's not why he should win. It takes a great director to do what he does in One Battle After Another, pulling together many strands into a single enthralling film. It's politically up-to-the-minute, the performances are comic gems, there is a touching father-daughter story along with car-chase action and comedy, and Anderson blends it all together without a single weak moment. Ryan Coogler is a great director too, and if One Battle didn't exist the Oscar might have been his, but Anderson has won every precursor award, including the Bafta and Directors Guild Award. He is also a likely winner as producer if One Battle wins best picture, and is a strong contender in adapted screenplay, so he could triple his Oscar haul in a single night. Whatever happens in those other categories, I don't see anyone else winning best director. It's not simply his time; the film is thoroughly his vision and one of his career bests. (CJ)

Universal Pictures

3. Best actress

Every so often, there's an Oscar category which is more or less a foregone conclusion. Last year, it was best supporting actor: Kieran Culkin kept on winning awards for his livewire turn in A Real Pain, and so absolutely no one was surprised when he added an Oscar to his pile of trophies. This year's equivalent is the best actress category. Ever since Hamnet premiered at the Telluride Film Festival in August, people have been predicting that Jessie Buckley would win the Oscar for her fierce embodiment of Shakespeare's wife. And in the months since then, no serious challengers have emerged. I didn't buy into Chloé Zhao's weepie as wholly as some critics, and I was sceptical about the big shouting and crying scenes that might as well have had "Oscar clip" written across the bottom of the screen. But Buckley is a dazzlingly charismatic and talented actress who has long been destined to win an Academy Award. If this is her year, then I can't complain, even if I thought that three of the other nominees – Rose Byrne, Renate Reinsve and Emma Stone – gave better, more nuanced performances. (NB)

Warner Bros

4. Best actor

Once up on a time, way back in December, this seemed to be Timothée Chalamet's Oscar to lose, and now it seems like he really will lose it. Michael B Jordan has come on strong lately for good reason: he is dynamic in Sinners and the soul of the film. And he has a degree-of-difficulty advantage, playing identical twins. It doesn't take anything away from his sharp performance to note a reality of Oscar voting: that kind of conspicuous acting is just the kind of thing they go for. Chalamet gives one of his fullest performances in Marty Supreme, and still has a chance, but he lost the Bafta to Robert Aramayo and most significantly lost the Actor (formerly SAG) award to Jordan. And in recent months, Marty Supreme's awards fortunes have kept shrinking while Sinners kept gaining ground. I'm guessing Jordan will win, but if I were voting I'd give it to Wagner Moura for his profound, natural performance in The Secret Agent. In fact, this category might have the year's single strongest group of nominees, and a five-way tie that included Leonardo DiCaprio and Ethan Hawke would be fine too. (CJ) 

5. Best supporting actor

I love Sean Penn's performance in One Battle After Another. Using everything from his clenched strut to his bleached-blond haircut to a battery of twitches and grimaces, Penn shapeshifts into a larger-than-life grotesque, the malevolent yet hapless Col Lockjaw. Penn has nabbed a Bafta and an Actor award so far, but he's up against Stellan Skarsgård, who is formidable as a different kind of villain, an egotistical film director, in Sentimental Value. The big difference between the two is that Penn already has two Oscars, for Mystic River and Milk, while the 74-year-old Skarsgård doesn't have any. Quite apart from delivering one of his deepest characterisations, he could win simply because the US film industry is so fond of him – and, for that matter, of his sons Alexander and Bill. (NB)

Warner Bros

6. Best supporting actress

This has been one of the toughest categories to predict all season, and it still is. First Amy Madigan was the front-runner for Weapons, then Teyana Taylor for One Battle After Another, and now Madigan might be ahead again after winning the Actor award – really, who knows? Madigan has a long, respected career behind her, which works in her favour, and Taylor exploded off the screen with the kind of presence that creates movie stars. It's a classic veteran v newcomer race, which could go either way, but I'll give the edge to Taylor based on the huge momentum of One Battle After Another. Of course, Sinners has momentum too, and Wunmi Mosaku won the Bafta, so she could pull a surprise upset. And Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas gives such a magnificent, although quieter performance in Sentimental Value that I'd say she should win. But let's be realistic about this two-way race. Oscar voting has already ended, so for Madigan and Taylor it's all over except for the nail-biting. (CJ)

7. Best original screenplay

With a record-breaking 16 Oscar nominations, Sinners is sure to win in several categories. The most likely of these is best original screenplay. In fact, considering that Sinners was the highest grossing film in the world in 2025 that wasn't based on existing IP, you could argue that Ryan Coogler's script qualifies as the year's most successful original screenplay already. And let's not forget that Coogler is also the writer-director of the hugely profitable Black Panther and Creed, so the Academy probably should have given him an Oscar years ago. But even if you ignore his films' box-office takings, his Sinners screenplay stands as a major achievement. Coogler has written an edge-of-your-seat horror film, but it's also a nifty period gangster thriller, and a raucous musical that presents African American music as a magical force that can bend time and space. It would be appropriate if the Oscar for best original screenplay went to a screenplay that's so original. (NB)

8. Best adapted screenplay

Bugonia? Frankenstein? Train Dreams? For all these films' merits, none of them has had people raving about their scripts, so that leaves Hamnet and One Battle After Another as the only real contenders for the best adapted screenplay Oscar. For me, Chloé Zhao and Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet script is simplistic and superficial compared to O'Farrell's novel, whacking us over the head with themes which float mistily up from its pages, whereas Paul Thomas Anderson's adaptation of Vineland by Thomas Pynchon is something else. Indeed, it's more accurate to say that One Battle After Another was inspired by the book rather than adapted from it. Over many years, Anderson has taken bits and pieces from Pynchon, but he has reassembled them in a cinematic new shape, revving the story up to breakneck speed, investing it with his own feelings about parenthood, tossing in bursts of dark comedy, and bringing in so much ripped-from-the-headlines contemporary material that you'd never guess that the novel was published in 1990. The screenplay has already won a Bafta and a Golden Globe. It would be a shock if it didn't win an Oscar, too. (NB)

Netflix

9. Best animated feature

The producers of the Oscar show are always trying to highlight the year's most popular films, often a futile struggle, but they'll get their wish with KPop Demon Hunters, which is sure to win. And why not? The idea of a girl group fighting monsters and saving the world is inspired. The film is fun, colourful and cheerful. It has a strong be-true-to-yourself message, catchy songs (Golden is certain to win best original song) and is a huge global hit. It has won almost every award in this category leading up to the Oscars, and the only reason it didn't win a Bafta is because it wasn't released in UK cinemas and wasn't eligible. Zootopia 2 did win that one, and it's also a major box office success, but feisty cartoon animals are no match for the originality of singing demon hunters. (CJ)

TIFF

10. Best international film

All five nominees are among the year's strongest films regardless of country. And in a sure sign that film is global, the category's two frontrunners – The Secret Agent and Sentimental Value – are also, deservingly, up for best picture. The Secret Agent, a timely, exhilarating political thriller about Brazil under a dictatorship, should win. Blending personal and political stories, it is built around a charismatic performance from Wagner Moura. And although Kleber Mendonça Filho missed out on a best director nod, he was in the conversation earlier on. Coming just a year after Brazil's first ever win, for I'm Still Here, another Oscar for the country seems exciting. But I think the award is a bit more likely to go to Norway's Sentimental Value, which has nine nominations, including three in acting as well as directing and original screenplay for Joachim Trier. Even more important than that show of strength, this eloquent, emotional family drama makes it easy to sink into its world. That might give it just enough of an edge over the more challenging Secret Agent. (CJ)

The 98th Academy Awards take place on Sunday 15 March.

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