Every Nominee. Who Will Win, Who Should Win, and Who Got Robbed.

Ceremony: March 15, 2026  |  Dolby Theatre, Hollywood  |  Host: Conan O’Brien  |

The 98th Academy Awards is 2 days away and the race couldn’t feel more loaded. Sinners, Ryan Coogler’s horror epic set in 1930s Mississippi, arrives with a record-breaking 16 nominations — the most any film has ever received, surpassing Titanic, La La Land and All About Eve. One Battle After Another follows with 13. Frankenstein, Marty Supreme and Sentimental Value each earned 9. Warner Bros. alone pulled in 30 nominations, tying their own 2005 record.

Milestones are everywhere: Chloé Zhao becomes the first woman of colour nominated twice for Best Director. Timothée Chalamet, at 30, becomes the youngest actor since Marlon Brando with three acting nominations. Autumn Durald Arkapaw becomes the first woman of colour nominated for Best Cinematography. Amy Madigan’s nomination comes 40 years after her last — a record gap. Ruth E. Carter becomes the most-nominated Black woman in Oscar history with her fifth nomination.

The ceremony hasn’t happened yet. What follows is the full list of nominees in every category, plus our picks: who will win, who should win, and who the Academy left out entirely.

Key: 🎯 WILL WIN = our prediction  |  ❤️ SHOULD WIN = who deserves it  |  ❌ NOT NOMINATED = the real snubs

BEST PICTURE

• Bugonia — Ed Guiney, Andrew Lowe, Yorgos Lanthimos, Emma Stone, Lars Knudsen
• F1 — Chad Oman, Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Joseph Kosinski, Jerry Bruckheimer
• Frankenstein — Guillermo del Toro, J. Miles Dale, Scott Stuber
• Hamnet — Liza Marshall, Pippa Harris, Nicolas Gonda, Steven Spielberg, Sam Mendes
• Marty Supreme — Eli Bush, Ronald Bronstein, Josh Safdie, Anthony Katagas, Timothée Chalamet
• One Battle After Another — Adam Somner, Sara Murphy, Paul Thomas Anderson
• The Secret Agent — Emilie Lesclaux
• Sentimental Value — Maria Ekerhovd, Andrea Berentsen Ottmar
• Sinners — Zinzi Coogler, Sev Ohanian, Ryan Coogler
• Train Dreams — Marissa McMahon, Teddy Schwarzman, Will Janowitz, Ashley Schlaifer, Michael Heimler

🎯 WILL WIN:  One Battle After Another — PTA’s adaptation is the most complete, most formally ambitious film of the year. The Academy has been building to recognising Anderson for decades. This is the night.

❤️ SHOULD WIN:  One Battle After Another

❌ NOT NOMINATED:  No Other Choice — It’s criminal how this film wasn’t nominated for any awards this year.
The Last One for the Road (Le città di pianura) — one of the year’s finest films, nowhere to be seen.

BEST DIRECTING

• Chloé Zhao — Hamnet
• Josh Safdie — Marty Supreme
• Paul Thomas Anderson — One Battle After Another
• Joachim Trier — Sentimental Value
• Ryan Coogler — Sinners

🎯 WILL WIN:  Paul Thomas Anderson — One Battle After Another. If the film takes Best Picture this goes with it. Anderson has been one of the greatest directors alive for thirty years. This is his night.

❤️ SHOULD WIN:  Paul Thomas Anderson — One Battle After Another.

❌ NOT NOMINATED:  Park Chan-wook — No Other Choice. One of the greatest directors working anywhere in the world, absent from this list entirely. The category’s most glaring omission.

BEST ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

• Timothée Chalamet — Marty Supreme as Marty Mauser
• Leonardo DiCaprio — One Battle After Another as Bob Ferguson
• Ethan Hawke — Blue Moon as Lorenz Hart
• Michael B. Jordan — Sinners as Elijah ‘Smoke’ Moore / Elias ‘Stack’ Moore
• Wagner Moura — The Secret Agent as Armando Solimões / Marcelo Alves / Fernando Solimões

🎯 WILL WIN:  Michael B. Jordan — Sinners. Playing twins in a period horror film, making both completely real and completely different. His first nomination.

❤️ SHOULD WIN:  Ethan Hawke — Blue Moon. Playing Lorenz Hart with that level of vulnerability and wit. A career-best performance that should be at the centre of this conversation.

❌ NOT NOMINATED:  Robert Aramayo — I Swear. Milan Ondrik — Father. Ishaan Khatter — Homebound. And Sergio Romano — The Last One for the Road, a performance of lifetime warmth and quiet devastation that deserved to be here.

BEST ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

• Jessie Buckley — Hamnet as Agnes Shakespeare
• Rose Byrne — If I Had Legs I’d Kick You as Linda
• Kate Hudson — Song Sung Blue as Claire Sardina
• Renate Reinsve — Sentimental Value as Nora Borg
• Emma Stone — Bugonia as Michelle Fuller

🎯 WILL WIN:  Jessie Buckley — Hamnet. Playing Agnes Shakespeare — A performance that finds the female voice history deliberately buried and makes it impossible to look away.

❤️ SHOULD WIN:  Jessie Buckley — Hamnet.

❌ NOT NOMINATED:  Barbie Ferreira — Bob Trevino Likes It.  Susan Chardy — On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, a Zambian film that deserved far more recognition.

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

• Benicio del Toro — One Battle After Another as Sensei Sergio St. Carlos
• Jacob Elordi — Frankenstein as The Creature
• Delroy Lindo — Sinners as Delta Slim
• Sean Penn — One Battle After Another as Col. Steven J. Lockjaw
• Stellan Skarsgård — Sentimental Value as Gustav Borg

🎯 WILL WIN:  Sean Penn — One Battle After Another. A wild, fully committed performance from one of the greatest actors of his generation. If One Battle sweeps, Penn sweeps with it.

❤️ SHOULD WIN:  Sean Penn — One Battle After Another.

❌ NOT NOMINATED:  Lee Sung-min — No Other Choice. An absence that speaks volumes. Also: Michael Cera — The Phoenician Scheme. Cera has spent years being underestimated and this was reportedly the performance that should have changed that conversation entirely.

BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

• Elle Fanning — Sentimental Value as Rachel Kemp
• Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas — Sentimental Value as Agnes Borg Pettersen
• Amy Madigan — Weapons as Gladys
• Wunmi Mosaku — Sinners as Annie
• Teyana Taylor — One Battle After Another as Perfidia Beverly Hills

🎯 WILL WIN:  Amy Madigan — Weapons. Forty years between nominations — the longest gap in Oscar history for an actress. The Academy owes her this. The room will know it when her name is called.

❤️ SHOULD WIN:  Amy Madigan — Weapons.

❌ NOT NOMINATED:  Son Ye-jin — No Other Choice. Yeom Hye-ran — No Other Choice. One of the finest character actresses and somehow completely invisible to the Academy. And Mia Threapleton — The Phoenician Scheme, a performance that should have been on this list.

BEST WRITING — ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

• Blue Moon — Robert Kaplow
• It Was Just an Accident — Jafar Panahi, in collaboration with Nader Saïvar, Shadmehr Rastin, Mehdi Mahmoudian
• Marty Supreme — Ronald Bronstein and Josh Safdie
• Sentimental Value — Eskil Vogt and Joachim Trier
• Sinners — Ryan Coogler

🎯 WILL WIN:  Sinners — Ryan Coogler. Writing a period horror film that works simultaneously as a meditation on Black joy, grief, the blues, the Delta, and the cost of freedom. Every element serves every other.

❤️ SHOULD WIN:  Blue Moon — Robert Kaplow. A script about Lorenz Hart’s last night alive, writing in the shadow of death and irrelevance. Intimate, precise, heartbreaking. The kind of original screenplay the Academy rarely recognises and should always reward.

❌ NOT NOMINATED:  The Last One for the Road (Le città di pianura) — an original screenplay of complete warmth and wisdom, written with the specific texture of a place and a generation. Not nominated. Not even in the conversation. That is simply wrong.

BEST WRITING — ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

• Bugonia — Will Tracy; based on Save the Green Planet! by Jang Joon-hwan
• Frankenstein — Guillermo del Toro; based on the novel by Mary Shelley
• Hamnet — Chloé Zhao and Maggie O’Farrell; based on the novel by Maggie O’Farrell
• One Battle After Another — Paul Thomas Anderson; based on Vineland by Thomas Pynchon
• Train Dreams — Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar; based on the novella by Denis Johnson

🎯 WILL WIN:  One Battle After Another — Paul Thomas Anderson. Adapting Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland into something that lives and breathes on screen.

❤️ SHOULD WIN:  One Battle After Another — Paul Thomas Anderson.

❌ NOT NOMINATED:  No Other Choice. The best adapted screenplay absent from this list belongs to the films the Academy chose not to see — international cinema, smaller films, the kind of visual intelligence that never gets the conversation it deserves.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

• Dan Laustsen — Frankenstein
• Darius Khondji — Marty Supreme
• Michael Bauman — One Battle After Another
• Autumn Durald Arkapaw — Sinners
• Adolpho Veloso — Train Dreams

🎯 WILL WIN:  Dan Laustsen — Frankenstein. Del Toro’s regular cinematographer building a visual world from shadow and architecture. Every frame a painting, every shadow a decision.

❤️ SHOULD WIN:  Michael Bauman — One Battle After Another. Shooting a Pynchon adaptation means finding the visual language for something that resists image. The fact that the film looks the way it does is a cinematography achievement as much as a directorial one.

❌ NOT NOMINATED:  No Other Choice. The cinematography absent from this list belongs to the films the Academy chose not to see.

BEST FILM EDITING

• F1 — Stephen Mirrione
• Marty Supreme — Ronald Bronstein and Josh Safdie
• One Battle After Another — Andy Jurgensen
• Sentimental Value — Olivier Bugge Coutté
• Sinners — Michael P. Shawver

🎯 WILL WIN:  One Battle After Another — Andy Jurgensen. The way the film is assembled, the rhythm of its scenes, the control of its tonal shifts — editing is doing half the directing here.

❤️ SHOULD WIN: One Battle After Another — Andy Jurgensen.

❌ NOT NOMINATED:  No Other Choice.

BEST MUSIC — ORIGINAL SCORE

• Bugonia — Jerskin Fendrix
• Frankenstein — Alexandre Desplat
• Hamnet — Max Richter
• One Battle After Another — Jonny Greenwood
• Sinners — Ludwig Göransson

🎯 WILL WIN:  Sinners — Ludwig Göransson. The blues-rooted score is the film’s argument made musical. It does narrative work that dialogue alone couldn’t do.

❤️ SHOULD WIN:  Sinners — Ludwig Göransson.

BEST MUSIC — ORIGINAL SONG

• “Dear Me” — from Diane Warren: Relentless. Music and lyrics by Diane Warren
• “Golden” — from KPop Demon Hunters. Music and lyrics by Ejae, Mark Sonnenblick, 24, Ido, and Teddy Park
• “I Lied to You” — from Sinners. Music and lyrics by Raphael Saadiq and Ludwig Göransson
• “Sweet Dreams of Joy” — from Viva Verdi! Music and lyrics by Nicholas Pike
• “Train Dreams” — from Train Dreams. Music by Nick Cave and Bryce Dessner; lyrics by Nick Cave

🎯 WILL WIN:  “I Lied to You” from Sinners — Ludwig Göransson and Raphael Saadiq wrote a song that is the film’s emotional peak. It will be performed live with Miles Caton, Shaboozey and a full Sinners tribute. The momentum is total.

❤️ SHOULD WIN:  “I Lied to You” from Sinners.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

• Arco — Ugo Bienvenu, Félix de Givry, Sophie Mas, Natalie Portman
• Elio — Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina, Mary Alice Drumm
• KPop Demon Hunters — Maggie Kang, Chris Appelhans, Michelle L.M. Wong
• Little Amélie or the Character of Rain — Maïlys Vallade, Liane-Cho Han, Nidia Santiago, Henri Magalon
• Zootopia 2 — Jared Bush, Byron Howard, Yvett Merino

🎯 WILL WIN:  Zootopia 2 — Disney’s sequel has the box office, the brand recognition, and the Academy’s established love of returning to familiar worlds. Hard to beat when the votes are this wide.

❤️ SHOULD WIN:  Elio — one of the most imaginative and emotionally sincere animated films of the year, combining Pixar’s trademark heart with a deeply personal story about loneliness, belonging, and finding your place in the universe.

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM

• It Was Just an Accident (France) — directed by Jafar Panahi — in Persian and Azerbaijani
• The Secret Agent (Brazil) — directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho — in Portuguese and German
• Sentimental Value (Norway) — directed by Joachim Trier — in Norwegian, Swedish, and English
• Sirāt (Spain) — directed by Oliver Laxe — in Spanish, French, and Arabic
• The Voice of Hind Rajab (Tunisia) — directed by Kaouther Ben Hania — in Arabic

🎯 WILL WIN:  Sentimental Value — Norway. It has the most crossover recognition, the most nominations in other categories, and a director the Academy has been building toward for years.

❤️ SHOULD WIN:  Sentimental Value.

❌ NOT NOMINATED:  Father, Homebound, Left-Handed Girl and No Other Choice. Films that deserved to be in this conversation and weren’t. The submission process alone eliminates extraordinary work before the Academy even votes.

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE FILM

• The Alabama Solution — Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman
• Come See Me in the Good Light — Ryan White, Jessica Hargrave, Tig Notaro, Stef Willen
• Cutting Through Rocks — Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni
• Mr Nobody Against Putin — David Borenstein, Pavel Talankin, Helle Faber, Alžběta Karásková
• The Perfect Neighbor — Geeta Gandbhir, Alisa Payne, Nikon Kwantu, Sam Bisbee

🎯 WILL WIN:  The Perfect Neighbor. A documentary that cuts to the heart of how ordinary communities fracture. Precise, urgent, and the kind of film that Academy voters respond to when it feels immediately relevant.

❤️ SHOULD WIN:  The Alabama Solution — Andrew Jarecki returning to documentary after years away. A film about a criminal justice system failing in full view. The kind of documentary that should exist and rarely does this well.

❌ NOT NOMINATED:  Apocalypse in the Tropics — one of the most important political documentaries made this decade, about the collapse of Brazilian democracy, completely absent. An omission that is hard to forgive.

BEST SOUND

• F1 — Gareth John, Al Nelson, Gwendolyn Yates Whittle, Gary A. Rizzo, Juan Peralta
• Frankenstein — Greg Chapman, Nathan Robitaille, Nelson Ferreira, Christian Cooke, Brad Zoern
• One Battle After Another — José Antonio García, Christopher Scarabosio, Tony Villaflor
• Sinners — Chris Welcker, Benjamin A. Burtt, Felipe Pacheco, Brandon Proctor, Steve Boeddeker
• Sirāt — Amanda Villavieja, Laia Casanovas, Yasmina Praderas

🎯 WILL WIN:  Sinners. The blues, the period atmosphere, the supernatural horror sequences. Sound is doing the film’s heaviest emotional work alongside the score.

❤️ SHOULD WIN:  Sirāt — Oliver Laxe’s film set across North African landscapes uses sound as both atmosphere and narrative. The most interesting sound design in the category and the most deserving.

❌ NOT NOMINATED:  Bugonia — left out of the sound category entirely. Whatever the film’s merits elsewhere, the sound work reportedly deserved recognition here.

BEST CASTING

• Hamnet — Nina Gold
• Marty Supreme — Jennifer Venditti
• One Battle After Another — Cassandra Kulukundis
• The Secret Agent — Gabriel Domingues
• Sinners — Francine Maisler

🎯 WILL WIN:  Sinners. Assembling an ensemble of that size, cultural specificity and historical weight for Ryan Coogler’s record-nominated film. The right winner for the first ever casting Oscar.

❤️ SHOULD WIN:  Sinners.

❌ NOT NOMINATED:  No Other Choice. The casting that went unrecognised this year belongs to the films the Academy simply didn’t see.

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

• Frankenstein
• Hamnet
• Marty Supreme
• One Battle After Another
• Sinners

🎯 WILL WIN:  Frankenstein — Tamara Deverell. Del Toro’s monster world built from shadow, decay and architectural dread. Every set is a statement. Every corner of the frame is a decision.

❤️ SHOULD WIN:  Hamnet — The most quietly powerful design work of the year.

BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING

• Frankenstein — Mike Hill, Jordan Samuel, Cliona Furey
• Kokuho — Kyoko Toyokawa, Naomi Hibino, Tadashi Nishimatsu
• Sinners — Ken Diaz, Mike Fontaine, Shunika Terry
• The Smashing Machine — Kazu Hiro, Glen Griffin, Bjoern Rehbein
• The Ugly Stepsister — Thomas Foldberg and Anne Cathrine Sauerberg

🎯 WILL WIN:  Frankenstein. Jacob Elordi’s Creature transformation is the film’s most-discussed visual element. Del Toro’s monster designs always win this category when nominated.

❤️ SHOULD WIN:  Sinners. The period 1930s work, the supernatural transformation sequences, the physicality of the horror. A complete makeup achievement that serves every department of the film.

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

• Avatar: Fire and Ash — Deborah L. Scott
• Frankenstein — Kate Hawley
• Hamnet — Malgosia Turzanska
• Marty Supreme — Miyako Bellizzi
• Sinners — Ruth E. Carter

🎯 WILL WIN:  Frankenstein — Kate Hawley. Del Toro’s monster world demands costuming that is simultaneously period, grotesque and precise. Hawley delivers all three. A career-defining collaboration.

❤️ SHOULD WIN:  Hamnet — Malgosia Turzanska. Elizabethan period costuming with feminist subtext built into every garment. What women could and couldn’t wear was not a neutral question in Shakespeare’s England, and the film knows it.

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

• Avatar: Fire and Ash — Joe Letteri, Richard Baneham, Eric Saindon, Daniel Barrett
• F1 — Ryan Tudhope, Nicolas Chevallier, Robert Harrington, Keith Dawson
• Jurassic World Rebirth — David Vickery, Stephen Aplin, Charmaine Chan, Neil Corbould
• The Lost Bus — Charlie Noble, David Zaretti, Russell Bowen, Brandon K. McLaughlin
• Sinners — Michael Ralla, Espen Nordahl, Guido Wolter, Donnie Dean

🎯 WILL WIN:  Sinners — Michael Ralla, Espen Nordahl, Guido Wolter, Donnie Dean. The supernatural horror sequences use practical and digital restraint that is harder to achieve than spectacle. What you don’t see is doing the work.

❤️ SHOULD WIN:  Sinners — no other choice. The VFX serves the story rather than replacing it. That restraint is the rarest and most valuable thing in this category.

By the Numbers

• Sinners — 16 nominations (all-time record, breaking Titanic / La La Land / All About Eve)
• One Battle After Another — 13 nominations
• Frankenstein, Marty Supreme, Sentimental Value — 9 nominations each
• Hamnet — 8 nominations
• Bugonia, F1, The Secret Agent, Train Dreams — 4 nominations each
• Avatar: Fire and Ash, Blue Moon, It Was Just an Accident, KPop Demon Hunters, Sirāt — 2 nominations each
• Warner Bros. — 30 total nominations, tying their 2005 record
• Wicked: For Good — 0 nominations
• NEW: Best Casting debuts as first new Oscar category since Best Animated Feature in 2001
• HISTORY: Sinners breaks record for most Black individuals nominated for a single film — 10
• HISTORY: Autumn Durald Arkapaw — first woman of colour nominated for Best Cinematography
• HISTORY: Stellan Skarsgård — first actor nominated for Best Supporting Actor in a non-English language film
• HISTORY: Amy Madigan — 40-year gap between nominations, longest ever for an actress
• HISTORY: Ruth E. Carter — most-nominated Black woman in Oscar history, any category

The 98th Academy Awards takes place on March 15, 2026. Sinners has the record. One Battle After Another has the argument. Come back Sunday night to see if the Academy got it right!