2026 Oscar Predictions: How the Oscar Game Destroys Movies

It took me a while to really understand the damage done to movies and the Oscars by people like me. The game I helped invent oh so long ago, back in 1999, was never meant to be like the scene in The Devil Wears Prada where Meryl Streep explains how fashion works:

As Miranda speechifies and humiliates Ann Hathaway, we understand how good she is at the fashion game and why she is where she is. We see Hathaway realizing she put her foot in it. We see Stanley Tucci’s character in awe of Miranda, and finally, we see hilarious Emily Blunt roll her eyes as if to say, “You idiot.” Acting doesn’t get better than that.

This scene has always reminded me of what the Oscars have become, which is a shame. It works for fashion, but movies must be experienced with real audiences in real-time.

But you already know this because I’ve already told you. So why am I blathering about it now? A movie like Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another should not necessarily be stuffed into the Oscar groove, and everyone’s perceptions of it should be, “This movie is finally going to win PTA, his long-awaited Oscar.” Maybe it will. Maybe it will be good enough to do that, but from where I sit, with the very rare exception of movies like Oppenheimer, where all the stars align and its green lights all the way, it doesn’t work out that way.

There is no putting the toothpaste back in the tube. I know it. You know it. When I think about movies from the past I know should have been in the Oscar race I feel some frustration that I wasn’t around then to stuff them into it, movies like Fight Club and Se7en, for instance.

But I also know that those movies are good because David Fincher wanted to make them to make them, not to make them so they’d be put into the Oscar race and laid out on a platter like greasy meat for Academy voters to accept or reject. It’s just degrading, ultimately. And yes, I understand that I helped build this monster. I also understand that because of how everything has turned out, there is no turning it around.

So let’s dive in, shall we?

Mark Johnson, in his first awards column of the year (I think?) at AwardsWatch ran a poll on Twitter:

Only two Best Picture winners make the top ten. Lots of Christopher Nolan fans on that poll, obviously. Not to be mean, but does anyone really think Interstellar is better than Once Upon a Time in Hollywood? I can’t argue with the number one film, The Social Network.

But The Social Network is good because it ISN’T a Best Picture winner. It was not a movie that could win on the preferential ballot back then — maybe today, with younger voters it could, but not back then. But that is what has allowed it to stand the test of time. Se7en is better than almost any movie up for Best Picture ever since. Gone Girl, same thing. So why would the measure be what Academy voters, or gasp — bloggers — think? It shouldn’t be.

The films that have won Best Picture since they added the new members aren’t movies that were expected to win, or movies that were grown in the hothouse to win Oscars.

Anora
Everything Everywhere All At Once
CODA
Nomadland
Parasite

It seems that most of these, with the exception of Nomadland maybe, or CODA, were organic Oscar contenders. They found their audience before they landed in the race.

So now we go back to Mark’s Oscar column, just for the fun of it. 

It is very dense and wonky, so it’s worth reading all of it. You should comment too. He doesn’t have a single comment. Show him some love.

He also shows how many new members were added and why it has utterly and completely transformed how the Oscars are voted on.

Here is how his Best Picture is laid out:

Now, because they did me a solid last year, I will never say a bad thing ever about Focus Features. I will praise their films and push them as much as I can. It’s the least I can do, considering. The same goes for Paramount, who bought a small mailer last year. But having

said that, Yorgos is on a weird tear right now so I’m not sure that would be my first choice for Best Picture. Agree with him on:

Wicked for Good (I think wins the whole thing)
The Ballad of a Small Player (directed by Edward Berger)
Hamnet (Chloe Zhao)
After the Hunt (gonna sizzle, can’t wait)
Frankenstein – Guillermo Del Toro is an artist and this will be beautiful.
Marty Supreme – eh, why not.
Deliver Me from Nowhere — sure, I suppose—Bruce Springsteen biopic by Scott Cooper.
Sentimental Value — I guess so.

So, my ideas about the Best Picture race are very different. I see what Mark is doing, and I get it. He’s factoring in the newer, younger, bouncier voters.

I went ahead and checked out The Oscar Expert’s predictions on his APP (if you use it, find me @awardsdaily and friend me – I only have 13 followers).

Anyway It looks like this:

Last year, Sing Sing hit the top of everyone’s lists and that movie was used up and thrown away before it ever even got into the hands of Oscar voters. Any movie being listed now is lucky on the one hand. People will pay attention to it. And by “people,” I mean the people in the room choosing what will become the Oscar race from a bag of stuff. On the other hand, just putting it on the list sets it up for too-high of expectations that almost no movie can meet.

Consider yourself lucky if you are not in the number one spot right now. There is a 90% chance if you are that you will not win.

One of the bigger jobs of Oscar strategists is managing expectations. If they can fly their movie under the radar, that movie won’t ever become THE FRONTRUNNER, which means it won’t ever be punctured and attacked, as the frontrunner always is.

As I did last year and the year before, I would ask my Oscar peeps to think bigger, not smaller. Try to help broaden this mess from this tiny little niche it has become. It’s not Fashion Week. It’s supposed to be much bigger than that. Best Picture should mean movies that made a mark. Not with just critics. Not with Oscar voters. But with all of us out here in the dark.

The movie that should be considered for Best Picture right now is Alex Garland’s Warfare, at least if the positive reactions by the junket whores are to be believed. 

Why wouldn’t it be considered for Best Picture? I will be putting it on my contender tracker, since the idea is to see movies first and then predict them. I haven’t seen it, of course. I was not invited, of course. But still.

I would also add Sinners to the list. Yes, it’s a horror film but it’s Ryan Coogler directing and Michael B. Jordan starring. Looks crackling good.

Now that the Academy nominated The Substance, horror has wedged its way in. There is no reason not to consider Sinners. Just saying!

I also think it’s insanity not to consider Joseph Kosinski’s F1 in the Best Picture race. It will likely be among the highest grossing films of the year. It looks like a character drama on top of that. So why not? It would be on my list for sure.

Just imagine a Best Picture lineup with Warfare, Sinners and F1. Now you are talking. Now, it looks like Big Hollywood is back, baby. You see where I’m going with this?

Beyond that, the only other potential blockbuster not being mentioned anywhere is Paul Fieg’s The Housemaid. It’s a Gone Girl type of thriller and if you’ve read the book you know what that means. Hard to talk about without giving away spoilers but it is potentially a showcase performance for Amanda Seyfried. With Fieg directing it, it might not be as serious as Gone Girl, but still, it’s worth holding a place for.

So my Best Picture list would look like this:

1. Wicked for Good
2. After the Hunt
3. Warfare
4. F1
5. The Battle of a Small Player
6. Hamnet
7. One Battle After Another
8. Marty Supreme
9. Michael
10. Some international feature that plays at Cannes

Should also be:

Deliver Me from Nowhere
Sinners
The Housemaid
Avatar: Fire and Ash

Best Actor

1. Timothee Chalamet, Marty Sumpreme
2. Leonardo DiCaprio, One Battle After Another
3. Jaafar Jackson, Michael
4. Colin Farrell, The Ballad of a Small Player
5. Jeremy Allen White, Deliver Me from Nowhere

Best Actress

1. Cynthia Erivo, Wicked
2. Julia Roberts, After the Hunt
3. Amanda Seyfried, The Housemaid
4. Jessie Buckley, Hamnet
5. Emma Stone, Bugonia

Obviously, this is just for fun and spitballing. We know that we won’t be only dealing with American films. There will be films from other countries too that will drop around festival season. That’s all I got for you today. Enjoy your weekend.