Welcome to the wildest Academy Awards race in years. The 2026 Oscars are just days away, and a majority of the most hotly contested battles seem to be hanging on a knife’s edge. Here’s the Vogue verdict on who will win, who should win, and who should’ve been a contender in 13 key categories.
Best picture
Will win: Sinners
Should win: Sinners
Should’ve been a contender: The Voice of Hind Rajab
I don’t want to jinx it, but I think it could actually be happening: after Ryan Coogler’s vampire saga triumphed at the Actor Awards—slap bang in the middle of the Oscars voting period, no less—it seems to have gained momentum and is now exactly neck and neck with One Battle After Another. Paul Thomas Anderson’s revolutionary epic has taken the top prizes at the Critics’ Choice Awards, Golden Globes, BAFTAs, and the Producers Guild of America Awards—the latter, like the Oscars, uses a preferential ballot, meaning it’s usually the best indicator of what will ultimately take best picture. Still, the Sinners surge here feels reminiscent of the Parasite wave back in 2020, when Bong Joon-ho’s pitch-black satire pipped Sam Mendes’s 1917, the more traditional, establishment contender, to the post at the very last minute.
Both films are deserving, but I, for one, would love to see Sinners take it—One Battle’s dominance was slowly turning this awards season into a predictable slog, but Sinners has revived it. Viola Davis’s overjoyed response to handing the Actor Awards’ best actor prize to Michael B. Jordan? Samuel L. Jackson’s glee at naming the Sinners cast as the year’s best ensemble? This is the stuff that makes (awards season) life worth living. And Oscar night is in desperate need of exactly this type of shock, awe, and delight.
As for the release that’s glaringly absent from this 10-strong lineup? Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice of Hind Rajab, of course, which has the heft, importance, resonance, urgency, and tear-jerking power that would have made it, in my eyes, a very worthy best picture winner.
Best director
Will win: Paul Thomas Anderson for One Battle After Another
Should win: Paul Thomas Anderson for One Battle After Another
Should’ve been a contender: Jafar Panahi for It Was Just an Accident
One Battle is far from my favorite Paul Thomas Anderson film, but it is, frankly, criminal that the visionary who made Boogie Nights, Punch-Drunk Love, There Will Be Blood, The Master, and Phantom Thread doesn’t have a single Oscar, let alone this one. As was the case for Christopher Nolan the year he finally won for Oppenheimer, this is a long-overdue acknowledgment of an unparalleled Hollywood career. In the run-up, Anderson’s taken every directing prize going (the Critics’ Choice Award, Golden Globe, BAFTA, and the Directors Guild of America Award), and, in an unpredictable year, this feels like the only totally safe bet.
Ryan Coogler, Sentimental Value’s Joachim Trier, Hamnet’s Chloé Zhao, and Marty Supreme’s Josh Safdie complete the lineup, but It Was Just an Accident’s Jafar Panahi deserved a spot, too. In his hilarious and then heartbreaking Iranian farce, the dissident auteur distills his own traumatic experience of imprisonment for “propaganda against the system” into an endlessly surprising, surreal, razor-sharp, and rip-roaringly entertaining caper. It seems that many Oscar voters—who, I suspect, may have assumed the film is far heavier and more serious than it actually is—just didn’t get around to seeing it, which is a real shame. Given that Panahi has now been sentenced to yet another year in prison, not to mention everything currently taking place in his home nation, it would certainly have been heartening to see him here.
Best actress
Will win: Jessie Buckley for Hamnet
Should win: Jessie Buckley for Hamnet
Should’ve been a contender: Chase Infiniti for One Battle After Another
The Irish actor’s leave-it-all-on-the-table turn in Chloé Zhao’s period piece left me, personally, cold—in my humble opinion, she’s been better in everything from Beast and Wild Rose to The Lost Daughter and Women Talking. But she’s had a brilliant career and you can’t deny that she’s put all her heart and soul into Hamnet. Her acting awards sweep has been this year’s most convincing steamroll—she’s won at the Critics’ Choice Awards, Golden Globes, BAFTAs, and Actor Awards—and she seems unassailable.
The only possible reason she might not win? All the kerfuffle around her latest film, The Bride!, deemed by some to be divisive enough to harm her Oscar chances. (Also, those comments about cats.) In reality, these developments probably came too late to actually sway votes, but if they do, I’d watch out for If I Had Legs I’d Kick You’s Golden Globe-winning Rose Byrne and Song Sung Blue’s beloved industry fixture Kate Hudson. Justice for Chase Infiniti, too, who should have been on this shortlist for her mesmerizing work in One Battle. Yes, at 25, she is young and will have other opportunities, but, lest we forget, that’s the same age that Anora’s Mikey Madison was when she won last year’s best actress prize.
Best actor
Will win: Wagner Moura for The Secret Agent
Should win: Ethan Hawke for Blue Moon
Should’ve been a contender: Joel Edgerton for Train Dreams
This is a race for the ages. Rewind just over two weeks, and this award looked to be Timothée Chalamet’s for the taking for Marty Supreme. (He’s secured the Critics’ Choice Award, Golden Globe, and a string of other critics’ prizes.) But then he lost both the BAFTA (to I Swear’s Robert Aramayo) and Actor Award (to Sinners’s Michael B. Jordan, another possible spoiler in this contest). This doesn’t take Chalamet out of the running by any means, but it suggests that it’s a closer race than we previously assumed.
One Battle After Another’s Leonardo DiCaprio doesn’t seem to be soaring ahead, nor does Blue Moon’s Ethan Hawke—though the latter gives what is easily my favorite performance in this category, a true transformation from a veteran who’s had one hell of a career and never before won an Oscar. But look out for The Secret Agent’s Wagner Moura—the 49-year-old is a well-respected actor who gives a magnetic, old-school, heroic leading man turn in Kleber Mendonça Filho’s ’70s thriller and has already taken home a Golden Globe for his efforts. I could see international voters, in particular, rallying behind him, while the American consensus is split between Chalamet, Jordan, DiCaprio, and Hawke, handing Moura the win. Or maybe it’s still Chalamet—but just imagine if it’s not?
As for those who were left behind, Joel Edgerton is magnificent in Train Dreams—gentle, nuanced, and quietly brimming with emotion—and his work deserved more attention.
Best supporting actress
Will win: Amy Madigan for Weapons
Should win: Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas for Sentimental Value
Should’ve been a contender: Tânia Maria for The Secret Agent
Another contest in which almost anyone can win—perhaps barring Sentimental Value’s wonderful Elle Fanning, who fully deserves her nomination but seems to be in fifth place here. One Battle’s Teyana Taylor was the early frontrunner following her Golden Globes victory, but then Sinners’s Wunmi Mosaku took the BAFTA, and Amy Madigan, the Critics’ Choice winner, returned to pole position after her triumph at the Actor Awards. As the skin-crawlingly terrifying Aunt Gladys, the Weapons star knocks it out of the park and, at 75, is finally getting her due (and giving delightful speeches while doing it). It’s a powerful narrative that’s difficult to compete with, though Taylor and Mosaku remain very much in contention, too.
However, the revelation in this category, for me, is Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, a startling discovery who broke my heart cleanly in two in Joachim Trier’s delicate family drama. She’s unlikely to win, but given the sizable international support behind her, it’s not totally impossible. And there’s another international performer I would’ve loved to have seen fighting it out here: Tânia Maria, the 79-year-old Brazilian who steals every scene she’s in in The Secret Agent. Here’s hoping Kleber Mendonça Filho has another plum part lined up for her soon.
Best supporting actor
Will win: Stellan Skarsgård for Sentimental Value
Should win: Stellan Skarsgård for Sentimental Value
Should’ve been a contender: William H. Macy for Train Dreams
Yet another race that could swing in any direction, the field leader of late has been One Battle’s Sean Penn, who clinched the BAFTA and Actor Award back-to-back. However, the double Oscar winner doesn’t seem to want a third statuette—he’s been MIA for much of awards season (though I did enjoy him smoking indoors at the Golden Globes) and was absent from those last two ceremonies, the most recent of which took place during the final Oscars voting period. I’m hopeful that this has created an opening for the recent Golden Globe winner, Stellan Skarsgård, who is genuinely masterful in Sentimental Value—a prickly and complex turn from a 74-year-old who’s worked tirelessly for over half a century. If it isn’t Oscar-worthy, I don’t know what is—and Skarsgård has been happy to play the game and campaign diligently.
Having said that, there’s no bad outcome here: yes, One Battle’s Benicio Del Toro already has an Oscar, but he’s as charming as ever as the sensei with a heart of gold; Sinners’s Delroy Lindo, at 73, is another too-often-overlooked legend (after the reception to his closing speech at the Actor Awards, it’s clear the room would be jubilant if he won); and Jacob Elordi is astoundingly good in Frankenstein. I wouldn’t squeeze any of them out, but if there were a sixth spot, I’d award it to William H. Macy for his grizzled, wistful, underrated turn in Train Dreams—a goosebump-inducing achievement that warranted more praise.
Best original screenplay
Will win: Sinners
Should win: Sentimental Value
Should’ve been a contender: Sorry, Baby
Ryan Coogler is basically guaranteed to take this prize, having scooped the Critics’ Choice Award, BAFTA, and Writers Guild of America Awards’ accolade for best original screenplay, and it’s easy to see why—the world-building of Sinners is exceptional, and Coogler has been such an engaging, dynamic, galvanizing breath of fresh air this awards season. With this ingenious, original, non-IP-driven concept, he’s done the impossible—won over both critics and audiences, raking in over $370 million from a budget of less than $100 million. Given that PTA has the best director statuette in the bag, it’s only right that this award be set aside for Coogler.
This is a tough category, also featuring the rat-a-tat relentlessness of Marty Supreme, the colorful extended monologues of Blue Moon, and the delightfully dark humor of It Was Just an Accident, but my favorite screenplay of the year was Joachim Trier and Eskil Vogt’s meticulous dissection of intergenerational trauma in Sentimental Value. It won’t win, but it’s a sublime script that’s sure to be remembered. A close second for me was Eva Victor’s Sorry, Baby—brilliantly written and also acted and directed by the debut filmmaker. Victor was always unlikely to squeeze into best director or best actress, but a spot here seemed feasible—likely, even, after Julia Roberts’s shout-out to the film at the Golden Globes. But, alas, it was not to be.
Best adapted screenplay
Will win: One Battle After Another
Should win: Train Dreams
Should’ve been a contender: No Other Choice
As with Coogler, PTA’s adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland has taken all of the best adapted screenplay awards so far, including the BAFTA, Critics’ Choice Award, Writers Guild of America Award, and the Golden Globe (the latter ceremony has a single best screenplay prize). It’s slick, funny, fast-paced, and definitely superior to three of its opponents—Bugonia, Frankenstein, and Hamnet—but I prefer the lyricism of Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar’s take on Denis Johnson’s 2011 novella Train Dreams. Tender, melodic, and moving, it’s a film built on a gruff, meditative voiceover and wouldn’t work quite as well without it.
Another film with a killer script that should have made it in here is Park Chan-wook, Lee Kyoung-mi, Don McKellar, and Lee Ja-hye’s No Other Choice, a wild retelling of Donald Westlake’s The Ax. It’s a stranger film than the ones on this lineup, but I’d hoped the now-much-more-international Academy would have given it some love.
Best international feature
Will win: Sentimental Value
Should win: Sentimental Value
Should’ve been a contender: No Other Choice
In another truly excellent category, Sirât, It Was Just an Accident, and The Voice of Hind Rajab seem to be on the back foot here, with Sentimental Value and The Secret Agent sprinting to the finish line. (These two are best picture nominees, after all, while the other three are not.) A month or so ago, The Secret Agent seemed to be surging, but Sentimental Value now seems just slightly ahead and more than deserves the win. If it clinches it, it’ll be the very first Norwegian film to do so. But if there could be six nominees, I would have liked to see Park Chan-wook’s aforementioned twisty satire in the mix, too. It’s galling that the Academy has never nominated any of the maestro’s movies, from Oldboy and The Handmaiden to Decision to Leave.
Best costume design
Will win: Frankenstein
Should win: Frankenstein
Should’ve been a contender: The Testament of Ann Lee
Sinners’s double Oscar–winning costume designer Ruth E. Carter would be a highly deserving victor here, as would Marty Supreme’s Miyako Bellizzi, but in my book, 2025’s most astounding costuming came courtesy of Kate Hawley in Frankenstein. Her sumptuous gowns, as worn by Mia Goth, have secured her a BAFTA, Critics’ Choice Award, and the Costume Designers Guild Awards’ Excellence in Period Film prize and are exactly the kinds of costumes the Academy loves to reward—namely, those in lavish period pieces (recent winners include Poor Things, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Little Women, Phantom Thread, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Great Gatsby, and Anna Karenina). But they also have a surreal, otherworldly futurism that sets them apart. Plus, Hawley, who’s produced extraordinary wardrobes for everything from Crimson Peak to The Rings of Power, has never even been nominated before.
Alongside her, I’d have also liked to see Małgorzata Karpiuk for her exquisite work in The Testament of Ann Lee, another period piece that’s visually stunning—though in this case, it was totally ignored by the Academy.
Best production design
Will win: Frankenstein
Should win: Frankenstein
Should’ve been a contender: The Testament of Ann Lee
In a roster of films with jaw-dropping sets, the most awe-inspiring were those dreamt up by Frankenstein’s Tamara Deverell and Shane Vieau, previous Oscar nominees for Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley, and Vieau a winner for The Shape of Water—that cavernous lab, the 19th-century palaces, the candlelit cabins of the ship. They took the BAFTA, Critics’ Choice Award, the Art Directors Guild Awards’ best period film prize, and the Set Decorators Society of America Awards’ best fantasy feature prize, making them a shoo-in here.
But again, Ann Lee is conspicuous in its absence, especially considering the level of care and detailed research Sam Bader put into constructing the wood-beamed halls and minimalist furniture that occupies Mona Fastvold’s 18th-century musical.
Best makeup and hairstyling
Will win: Frankenstein
Should win: Frankenstein
Should’ve been a contender: Marty Supreme
Frankenstein’s streak should also continue here, with Mike Hill, Jordan Samuel, and Cliona Furey being rewarded for bringing Jacob Elordi’s fragile monster to life over the course of 10 to 11 hours each day. The trio rightly took the BAFTA, Critics’ Choice Award, and the Makeup Artists & Hair Stylists Guild Awards’ best special makeup effects prize, too. Wicked was the big snub in this category, but I’m disappointed that Kyra Panchenko, Kay Georgiou, and Mike Fontaine’s painstaking work in Marty Supreme wasn’t recognized—particularly their transformation of Timothée Chalamet’s face. They were BAFTA-nominated, but this more subtle work has largely been overlooked otherwise, despite the fact that it adds incredible texture and believability to Josh Safdie’s Ping-Pong romp.
Best casting
Will win: Sinners
Should win: The Secret Agent
Should’ve been a contender: Sirât
The first Oscar for best casting will almost certainly go to the Critics’ Choice casting prize winner, Francine Maisler, who not only assembled a knockout ensemble for Sinners, but is also one of Hollywood’s most respected casting directors, having worked on almost 200 projects, including Succession, Denis Villeneuve’s Dune franchise, Birdman, 12 Years a Slave, and The Usual Suspects. If this category had existed before, she’d surely have a truckload of statuettes by now.
Based on this year’s shortlist alone, though, it would be fun to see The Secret Agent’s Gabriel Domingues swoop in—he’s filled the political thriller with a wondrous cast of characters who make Kleber Mendonça Filho’s eye-popping world feel totally real and lived-in. The same is true of Nadia Acimi’s casting work on Sirât—Óliver Laxe’s hallucinatory nightmare works because his mainly street-cast, non-professional ensemble occupies his dystopia so organically. It would have been a thrill to have it in this lineup—but regardless, it’s wonderful to see the breadth of talent in this category (also nominated are Jennifer Venditti for Marty Supreme, Cassandra Kulukundis for One Battle After Another, and Nina Gold for Hamnet). It’s an Oscars addition that has been long overdue.
