2026 Oscar Predictions: After the Hunt, The Housemaid Hit Cinemacon

If I could sum up what looks like the Oscar race in 2026, I might describe it this way: Strong Women and Haphazard Men 

That seems to be the theme of Hollywood, too. I guess haphazard is a slight upgrade from rapist or incel. So there’s that. But really, men have to be diminished now for a film to be greenlit. They have to be either confused, lost, or useless. And in a way, those CAN make for great roles, like Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo. It is a PLAGUE of late in Hollywood, however. I hope the pendulum swing brings back some much-needed strong males in Hollywood films.

None of these movies written about here are what I would call “woke,” though they all deal with social justice themes because they do. Misogyny, feminism, etc. After the Hunt plays around with cancel culture and the Me Too movement, we’ll have to see where Guadagnino takes it. He has an open and daring mind and isn’t likely to back off something because it is controversial, so we’ll have to see.

Strong Women

Both films, After the Hunt and The Housemaid, are Best-Actress/Supporting-Actress-led. Both are kind of thrillers in a way, and both have surprising twists at the end. Both are female-driven movies with strong, professional, adept, can-do broads.

They’re aiming for big box office, that’s for sure, and honestly, I hope they are successful. I imagine The Housemaid will be the more profitable of the two as it’s modeled after those great women-led psycho bitch thrillers of the 1980s, which have gone to pasture as Lifetime movies now.  The Housemaid may or not be a psycho bitch movie — to explain that, though, would be a spoiler. It’s not Gone Girl, that’s for sure, but it’s structurally (as a book) in the tradition of Gone Girl, if that makes sense. To say anything else is a huge spoiler.

The Handmaid stars Amanda Seyfried and Sydney Sweeney is based on the bestseller (which I have read). After the Hunt, which stars Julia Roberts and Ayo Edepiri and is a crisply written screenplay, which I have also read.

Here is a montage of the actors talking about their roles and the film at Cinemacon:

Both of these films showed trailers at Cinemacon. Here is a reaction to The Housemaid by two dudebros:

Here is Luca Guadagnino, Ayo Edepiri and Andrew Garfield talking up After the Hunt on the red carpet:

There is a good chance that both Julia Roberts and Amanda Seyfried are Best Actress contenders, with Roberts supposedly performing one of the best roles of her career.  Seyfried will have this performance in The Housemaid and another in Ann Lee up for the Oscar. At first glance, Ann Lee seems more Oscar-ish, but don’t count out the Housemaid. She will be doing one of those performances that could showcase her range. But again, talking about it at all is a spoiler. If you want to know what happens, you can read the book.

Speaking of Sydney Sweeney, it looks like Ron Howard’s Eden is coming out in August of this year, with Sweeney in the starring role. I know a lot about this story because it falls into one of my favorite subjects: utopias gone wrong. The problem is that today’s hive mind that covers movies is in no way prepared to understand what this story is really about. Maybe that’s why it did not do so well in Toronto and will likely be dumped to streaming, but I’ll still be looking forward to seeing it.

And if that weren’t enough, Sweeney also potentially has a female boxing movie coming out based on Christy Martin. But no release date has yet been given. But she potentially has three movies released this year.

Wicked for Good was also in Cinemacon. Here is the trailer breakdown from Cinemablend:

It is a no-brainer that Cynthia Erivo will be among the nominated five and could win, although it will be an extremely competitive year.

Other female-driven movies that are swirling around the Oscar race:

June Squibb in Eleanor the Great
Renate Reinsve in Sentimental Value
Jessie Buckley in Hamnet (if released this year)
Olivia Colman in The Roses
Emma Stone in Bugonia
Jessica Lange in A Long Day’s Journey Into Night

These are just the ones we know about. There will be more coming out of Cannes and Venice, no doubt.

Haphazard Men

Where male leads are concerned, we’ve seen the trailer now for One Battle After Another with a chaotic, haphazard protagonist in Leonardo DiCaprio. The same kind of hero in Marty Supreme with Timothee Chalamet.

David Mamet’s movie, Henry Johnson, starring Shia LaBoeuf, is coming out, produced outside the system. I will have my eye on it even if no one else does. Mamet is still one of the greatest American writers, living or dead, so I can’t wait to see it.

There is Darren Aronofsky’s Caught Stealing, which sounds fantastic – at least the book does. While there aren’t many reviews for it on Audible, these two quotes caught my eye:

Idris Elba is starring in Kathryn Bigelow’s movie, though not a lot is known about it, but it doesn’t sound like a haphazard male – probably more like a hero, or at least a strong leading character.

We’ll start with this, for now.

Best Picture – top 20
Wicked for Good
After the Hunt
Avatar Fire and Ice
F1
The Ballad of a Small Player
Caught Stealing
The Roses
Caught Stealing
The Lost Bus
Frankenstein
Untitled Kathryn Bigelow movie
Marty Supreme
Bugonia
Hamnet
Deliver Me from Nowhere
Highest 2 Lowest
One Battle After Another
The Housemaid
A Big Bold Beautiful Journey

And that’s all I got for today. Have a great weekend.