The 2026 awards season is set to come to a spectacular close on Sunday with the Oscars, the glitzy climax of months of campaigning – and the final say on the best movies of the year.

With varied winners across the categories in industry ceremonies over the past few months, it’s an excitingly hard-to-predict culmination at the 98th Academy Awards.

Jessie Buckley’s best actress win for her gut-wrenchingly raw performance in Hamnet is considered the only sure bet, although Sinners goes into the evening as the most nominated film in history with a massive 16.

But there is robust competition from the likes of satirical thriller One Battle After Another, the gorgeously evocative Train Dreams, and the stunning cohort of international features, including Sentimental Value, It Was Just an Accident and The Secret Agent.

There’s also the high-octane Marty Supreme (if recent bad press for both director Josh Safdie and leading man Timothée Chalamet hasn’t damaged its chances) and the beautiful artistry of Frankenstein.

So as nominees, celebrities, and guests prepare to don their grandest gladrags, here are my predictions for who will walk away with the ultimate prizes.

Best director

A category that’s shown little variation so far, the Oscars have previous winner Chloé Zhao for Hamnet, Ryan Coogler for Sinners, Paul Thomas Anderson for One Battle After Another, Josh Safdie for Marty Supreme, and Joachim Trier for Sentimental Value in play.

They all helmed some of the most popular films of the past year and represent a great variety of genres, from drama to horror to sports biopic to thriller and period drama weepie.

However, it’s been widely predicted – since even before official nominations were announced – that it will finally be Anderson’s year to win. He has amassed a whopping 14 nods in the screenplay, picture, and director fields over the past nearly 30 years without a single win yet.

He’s so far picked up the Bafta, Golden Globe, and Critics’ Choice Award this year, too.

However, he faces stiff competition from Coogler for the win, another filmmaker who, while earlier in his career, has already had a major impact on cinema with Black Panther and Creed. And then came Sinners’ record-breaking run of nominations…

Prediction: Paul Thomas Anderson

Dark horse: Ryan Coogler

Best actress in a leading role

Let’s not beat about the bush; Jessie Buckley is the overwhelming favourite and has been for months.

Claiming every prize so far on the road to the Oscars, the Irish star is rightfully having her moment to shine after her astonishingly vulnerable turn as William Shakespeare’s grieving wife, Agnes.

She’d already convinced me she was Oscar-worthy when she was first nominated in 2022 for The Lost Daughter in the supporting actress category, more than holding her own opposite Olivia Colman in an intimate generational drama.

Her fellow nominees are Rose Byrne for her deliciously chaotic performance in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (the only other person I’d be happy to see triumph after the role of a lifetime), as well as Kate Hudson for Song Sung Blue (a sentimental but sweet nod, years after she was last nominated for Almost Famous).

Renate Reinsve (Sentimental Value) and Emma Stone (Bugonia) complete the category with effortlessly good performances too, ones that could easily win in another year – but this one is a comfortable bet.

Prediction: Jessie Buckley

Dark horse: Rose Byrne 

Best actor in a leading role

This is where we reach some of the most unpredictable territory, with a category that’s had fluctuating frontrunners and winners during this awards season.

Timothée Chalamet started the year as a favourite as audiences revelled in the pacing and audacity of Marty Supreme, picking up a Golden Globe for best actor in the comedy or musical category, while The Secret Agent’s Wagner Moura won in the drama category. Some fancied him as the eventual Oscar winner after he scooped the best actor prize at Cannes, too, where the film premiered.

DiCaprio was beaten by Chalamet already at the Globes in January, but for an established acting icon on his eighth Academy Award nomination, it seems foolish to ever truly rule him out.

Ethan Hawke hasn’t had enough fanfare for my liking, though, given his outstanding turn as the witty but petty lyricist Lorenz Hart in Blue Moon, watching the beginning of the end of his successful musical partnership with Richard Rodgers on the opening night of Oklahoma! on Broadway.

It’s a gorgeously theatrical performance in the best way, thanks to Hawke’s live-wire interpretation, and if Academy voters were in a sentimental mood, I could see them making him a surprise winner. It would also mark the 55-year-old’s first Oscar after five nominations (although it’s been lovely to witness his enjoyment over just being along for the ride).

But the odds are currently in Michael B. Jordan’s favour for his technically accomplished (and just genuinely impressive) performance as twins Smoke and Stack in boundary-pushing vampire horror Sinners. A first-time nominee at 39, he’s not too young to fall by the wayside in a category not often dominated by young men – and he also picked up the Actor Award for his performance just a couple of weeks ago.

Prediction: Michael B. Jordan

Dark horse: Ethan Hawke

Best actress in a supporting role

Another pretty open race, Amy Madigan has furthered her successful season after following up her surprise win at the Critics’ Choice Awards for Weapons with the Actor Award as well. There’s also some neat symmetry in a win for her, as 2026 marks 40 years since her first nomination for the very fittingly titled Twice in a Lifetime.

Meanwhile, Wunmi Mosaku was the hometown hero honoured at the Baftas for Sinners, and Teyana Taylor got the Golden Globe for One Battle After Another.

While Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas and Elle Fanning are both wonderful in the nuanced (and funny) family drama Sentimental Value – which their nominations attest to – they are perhaps the least likely winners of the Oscar in this category.

Taylor’s turn in One Battle is a force to be reckoned with in one of the most instantly iconic and provocative female roles written in a good while – that of fierce revolutionary leader Perfidia Beverly Hills. And Taylor only rose to the occasion of acting opposite Sean Penn and Leonardo DiCaprio. 

Prediction: Teyana Taylor

Dark horse: Amy Madigan

Best actor in a supporting role

My gut for this category is telling me Sean Penn; whether he turns up to the Oscars or not is another matter entirely.

He’s been well-recognised by the Academy in the past (he won his last two nominations), and has already scooped the Bafta and Actor Award for playing the repulsive and unhinged villain Colonel Lockjaw in One Battle After Another.

His popularity makes it unlikely co-star Benicio del Toro will break through as the supporting actor winner at this stage, although it’s been satisfying to see two such different performances from the same movie celebrated.

Jacob Elordi did win the Critics’ Choice Award in January after his transformative role in Frankenstein, but it feels more like an outside bet.

Penn’s main competition comes down to the two acting veterans in his category, both first-time Oscar nominees with storied careers – which Academy voters tend to like to recognise.

Sinners’ Delroy Lindo is widely considered to have been snubbed when he didn’t get nominated for Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods in 2021, meaning now could be his moment – especially with the love the Academy has shown for his film.

Meanwhile, Stellan Skarsgård was anointed an Oscar nominee by the public back in May after Sentimental Value’s Cannes premiere and, like Lindo, has really pulled a shift promoting the work. And without getting morbid, after a period of health challenges, this could be now or never for the Swedish thespian.

Prediction: Sean Penn

Dark horse: Stellan Skarsgård

Best picture

Finally, we come to the biggie, crowning the definitive best movie of the year (well, sometimes) from a crowded field of 10.

It’s the first time these specific 10 have gone up against each other, as previous awards do tend to work from shorter nominee lists or split categories.

January’s Critics’ Choice Awards was the last – and previously only – time 10 were in direct competition, from which One Battle After Another emerged victorious; however, Jay Kelly and Wicked: For Good were among those candidates, and we now have The Secret Agent (exceptional) and blockbuster F1 (a crowd-pleaser).

Seeing as One Battle also won the Bafta for best film, it’s in pole position to take the prize at the Oscars, unless Sinners converts some of its groundbreaking nomination recognition. It’s the top dog of the evening, whereas One Battle was at the Baftas.

Frankenstein and Bugonia, while admirable films, never truly hit the zeitgeist in the same way as those; Sentimental Value and Train Dreams are quieter nominees I wish more had made the effort to see.

Hamnet had its expected triumph at the Baftas as a British film, but all awards attention and expectation seems to have naturally gathered around Buckley, while Marty Supreme has drifted since it failed to break through from the pack with quite so many nominations as One Battle and Sinners.

This category will truly be the battle of those titans, and anything else clinching this prize will be a shock victory.

Prediction: Sinners (by a hair)

Dark horse (if you can call it that): One Battle After Another

The 98th Annual Academy Awards airs on Sunday from 10:15pm on ITV and ITVX in the UK.

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