On Sunday, March 15, the 98th Academy Awards will be underway. As astute internet analysts say every year, this race is particularly contentious. Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners” broke the record for most Oscar nominations ever with 16, with nominations in every category for which it was eligible. 2026 also marks the first year with an award recognizing the Best Casting in a Motion Picture. Here’s a brief overview of some of the nominations in four of the most contentious categories.
Best Picture:
This is the only category with 10 nominations. In accordance with old Hollywood tradition, the award for best picture is given to the producer(s) of the film, rather than the director. The nominees include “One Battle After Another,” “Sinners,” “Hamnet,” “Train Dreams,” “The Secret Agent,” “Sentimental Value,” “Marty Supreme,” “Frankenstein,” “Bugonia” and “F1.” Award predictions website Gold Derby polled industry professionals and experts to determine that “One Battle After Another” is the favorite to win the top prize.
“One Battle” is directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, who is the favorite in all three of his categories and has a clear shot at being only the tenth ever filmmaker to win the “trifecta” of awards for producer, director and writer. Ryan Coogler is also nominated for three categories: Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.
Last year, Sean Baker became the ninth member of this group after winning all three awards for his film “Anora” as well as a fourth for editing. This phenomenon occurred almost exclusively in the 21st century and recently with Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite”.
The guild awards are also indicators of possible winners because many of the guild award voters are also Academy voters who participate in the Oscars. Since 2021, every film that has taken the top prize at the Producers Guild Awards ceremony has also won the Oscar for best picture. This year, “One Battle After Another” won the award. It also won the top award at the Directors Guild of America awards. Interestingly, the Writers Guild of America canceled its awards show, scheduled for March 8, due to strikes within the union.
Gold Derby predicts that “Sinners” is the second-most likely to win Best Picture this year. This film won big at Sunday’s Screen Actors Guild Actor Awards.
Best Director:
The nominees for Best Director are: Paul Thomas Anderson for One Battle After Another, Ryan Coogler for “Sinners,” Chloé Zhao for “Hamnet,” Josh Safdie for “Marty Supreme” and Joachim Trier for “Sentimental Value.”
As stated above, Paul Thomas Anderson is the favorite to win this category. He was nominated an astonishing 11 times for six of his other films, but has yet to win an Oscar.
Zhao is the only director nominated who has already won this award previously. In 2020, she won the Oscar for Best Director for her film “Nomadland.”
Ryan Coogler is up for two other films before “Sinners,” but never for Best Director. He was nominated in 2021 for producing the Best Picture-nominated “Judas and the Black Messiah” and for a writing credit on the Best Original Song-nominated “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.”
Best Actress in a Lead Role:
The nominees in this category include Jesse Buckley for “Hamnet,” Rose Byrne for “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You,” Emma Stone for “Bugonia,” Renate Reinsve for “Sentimental Value” and Kate Hudson for “Song Sung Blue.”
Gold Derby lists Jessie Buckley as the favorite for this category. This year she swept the awards circuit, winning Best Lead Actress at the Golden Globes, BAFTAs and SAG Awards.
The acting categories typically have a more diverse selection than the “executive” awards, such as Best Picture and Best Director. This year, “Song Sung Blue” and “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” are the only nominees in this category.
Best Actor in a Lead Role:
The nominees are: Timothée Chalamet for “Marty Supreme,” Michael B. Jordan for “Sinners,” Wagner Moura for “The Secret Agent,” Ethan Hawke for “Blue Moon” and Leonardo DiCaprio for “One Battle After Another.”
This is perhaps the closest race of the evening. Experts are split between Chalamet, who currently has a slim favorability on Gold Derby, and Jordan trailing right behind. For most of the awards season coverage, Chalamet was considered a shoo-in. On Sunday, Michael B. Jordan won Best Lead Actor at the SAG Awards. Both are equally likely. The other big shake-up from the SAG Awards is in the Best Supporting Actress category, where Amy Madigan of “Weapons” upset Teyana Taylor of “One Battle After Another.”
There are 24 total categories at the Oscars this year, guaranteeing a long night. Conan O’Brien is returning to host the ceremony. He also hosted last year’s ceremony, the 97th Academy Awards. Conan actually played a supporting role in a film nominated for an Oscar this year: “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.” The Oscars, of course, are ultimately arbitrary and don’t dictate what the real “best” movie of the year is, but they’re interesting in their own right as a spectacle and to see which ones will join the “Oscar Winners” category on Netflix in three to six months.