By Marcus Jones

Copyright indiewire

Editor’s note: Throughout the Oscar season, IndieWire will update this page with in-depth Oscar predictions from Awards Editor Marcus Jones, Craft Editor Sarah Shachat, and Curation Editor Wilson Chapman. In addition to predictions for each category, listing the ever-changing contenders, we will be reporting on what films have captivated voters, rules changes made by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, interviews with potential nominees, and much more.

The State of the Race

We know, we know: “Why did IndieWire take so long to publish your 2026 Oscars predictions?” Please keep in mind that we have a policy to not label any film a frontrunner until we have actually seen them.

With that in mind, we turn it over to you: Can you really name another film that premiered before September, besides “Sinners,” that has a viable shot at winning Best Picture?

Even after the dust has settled, and with a new crop of contenders coming out of the fall festivals, not much has changed on that front. This category is Warner Bros. Pictures’ to lose. The studio, which started the year running on empty, is now basking in the glow of a record-setting success streak at the box office, and universal acclaim for its next release “One Battle After Another,” a Paul Thomas Anderson film that may now have even more potential than “Sinners” to sweep the Oscars.With those two films in mind, let’s point out three elements that make for a Best Picture frontrunner: great reviews, an overdue filmmaker, and an impressive box office haul.

Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners” checks all three of those boxes, as the 39-year-old filmmaker whose work has made over $2 billion total at the global box office, has never received an Oscar nomination for Best Director nor Best Screenplay. Meanwhile, what Anderson lacks in box office haul, he makes up for in acclaim and overdue-ness. “One Battle After Another” debuted to a score of 96 on Metacritic, the highest score for any 2025 release so far, plus the 55-year-old auteur has racked up 11 Oscar nominations across the nine previous feature films he’s directed.

What more does a guy have to do to finally prove himself to the Academy?

But it would be foolish to imply that Focus Features’ release “Hamnet,” which just won the coveted People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival, does not have a fighting chance at Best Picture. Its director, Chloé Zhao, has already won the Oscar for Best Picture and Best Director before, and its lead Jessie Buckley is the clearest frontrunner in any of the acting categories.

Reigning Best Picture-winning studio Neon did actually make a splash in the first half of the year, with its films earning most of the awards at Cannes, including the Palme d’Or for Jafar Panahi’s “It Was Just an Accident.” But the young studio is suffering from success on the awards front. Its film “Sentimental Value” seems like Neon’s best bet at Best Picture, as the Joachim Trier film about a film director father trying to reconnect with his theater actress daughter has the least amount of subtitles, but it only being a Grand Prix winner means a jury of industry peers have already favored another film over it for a prize before.

The studio is also releasing the latest from South Korean icon Park Chan-wook, “No Other Choice,” which received much critical acclaim after its Venice Film Festival world premiere, but did not earn any awards. That puts it in a tough spot against even more Neon films, including “Sirāt” and “The Secret Agent,” which also will be Best International Feature submissions, and also both won awards at Cannes.

If there is an exciting category to keep an eye outside of Best Picture, it is Best Actor, which is so overcrowded with former Oscar winners, and charisma machine contenders, that even recent winner Brendan Fraser is far from guaranteed a nomination slot for his latest film “Rental Family,” which was not as successful at the Toronto Film Festival as expected.

Animation Analysis

The big story of the Animated Feature race is whether or not Netflix can keep it “Golden.” The breakout film hit of the summer, the streamer’s jubilant “KPOP Demon Hunters” isn’t just the company’s biggest animated movie ever: it’s their biggest film, period, and a bonafide phenomenon. Between record numbers on streaming, a soundtrack album that has blown up the Billboard charts, and sold out sing-along shows, “KPOP Demon Hunters” is one of those rare movies in the heavily fractured media landscape to feel like a legitimate monoculture moment.

But will that translate to Oscars glory?

In recent years, the Animated Feature race has gone from one of the most predictable and milquetoast races — where you could pencil in a Pixar of Disney film to win — to one of the most exciting. However, thanks to the expansion of Academy ranks to improve on diversity and bring in international voters, which has had an impact on many races but is most starkly seen in the last three Animated Feature winners. In 2022, Netflix’s own stop-motion “Pinocchio” from Guillermo del Toro won; 2023 and 2024, meanwhile, went to international efforts “The Boy and the Heron” and “Flow,” the latter of which made history as the first independent feature to win the trophy.

All that being said: the category no longer defaults to the most widely seen film anymore, as it did in years’ past. There’s plenty still in “Demon Hunters” favor, from genuine audience enthusiasm to its global appeal that can certainly play well with international voters. But it will have genuine competition against other contenders, both big and small. —Wilson Chapman

Craft Analysis

It is still the middle of September, and there are yet more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in our awards season philosophy here at IndieWire. But, with the conclusion of Venice, Telluride, and TIFF, the poor players who strut and fret their hour upon the (Oscar) stage are mostly identifiable. OK, that second Shakespeare reference is from “Macbeth,” but “Hamnet,” does seem to be in as strong a position for the craft categories as it is for the above-the-line awards. This is the second time that a Chloe Zhao film has received the TIFF People’s Choice — and the first time was with “Nomadland.”

Our craft category predictions are playing a little fast and loose with some movies still to be released, in terms of whether we are waiting for time to tell or just going ahead and giving them contender status — most especially “Frankenstein,” which should be competitive in a lot of categories even if the Guillermo Del Toro movie receives a more muted response; but there is also “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” which almost certainly will demand visual effects and camera consideration, given James Cameron keeps inventing new technology in order to make these films; we are still giving “Wicked: For Good” an incumbency advantage; the positive reception of Rian Johnson’s “Wake Up Dead Man” could be good for multiple craft categories, too.

Looking ahead, the New York Film Festival will likely be a further proving ground for Benny Safdie’s “The Smashing Machine,” Noah Baumbach’s “Jay Kelly,” and Park Chan-wook’s “No Other Choice.” If they pick up stronger awards momentum, their crafts will come under more (for your) consideration. —Sarah Shachat

The 98th Oscars telecast will be broadcast on Sunday, March 15 and air live on ABC at 7:00 p.m. ET/ 4:00 p.m. PT. See the full list of predictions below, which will be refreshed throughout the race, and follow IndieWire on X, Instagram, and Facebook for all the latest Oscars news.

Potential nominees are listed in alphabetical order; no film will be deemed a frontrunner until we have seen it. “Time Will Tell” refers to films that have not yet screened for critics and/or are without distribution.

Additional category predictions to be announced.