2026 Oscar Predictions: How To Build an Oscar Contender

In 2025, and for the past decade or two, building an Oscar contender requires only two things: money and status. Money to buy ads from the tinyist influencer’s blog on up to Penske Media Corp and even up to the New York Times and billboards through LA. FYC ads are everywhere. They have swallowed up the entire Oscar industry in ways they never did twenty years ago.

And status, because you are given access to celebrities, screenings, and parties as long as you behave like a hybrid of a publicist and an influencer. In other words, like that scene in Almost Famous, you can get close to them and dwell in that rarified air as long as you “make us look cool.” The entertainment press that would ever make Hollywood sweat is long gone. We don’t have journalists with teeth because those journalists want access too. Oh, for the days of William Goldman and Tom Wolfe. Gonzo. Dunzo. That ship has sailed.

Building an Oscar contender is, therefore, as easy as pie. Your publicist must be acquainted with the most influential bloggerati—I could name names, but I won’t. Then, they tease them with access. For instance, I was once invited to sit mere inches from Paul Thomas Anderson as he interviewed Martin Scorsese for Wolf of Wall Street. I didn’t have to be a whore that time because it was a great movie, one of the best ever.

But if someone presents you to Warren Beatty at a party for his latest film and he speaks to you from Mount Olympus, there is a good chance you will be favorable to his movie and push it as hard as you can. We’re friends, you believe. I know him. I want to please him. 

These access events are at every film festival. You can watch a low-level blogger climb the ladder of success – who gets in front of the line, who gets to screen the movie the earliest, who is most trustworthy to be the most reliable shill while maintaining some credibility. I knew them all when they were at the bottom and now I’ve seen them rise to the highest level of importance for an Oscar blogger, for whatever that’s worth. Access. That’s what that’s worth.

There is a screening facility in Hollywood called the Ross House, a fancy hilltop mansion rented out for screenings. If they invite you and you rattle up the hill in your beater car, running a lint roller to get the pet hair off your blazer, and you stumble into a house like that, maybe sit down next to Denzel Washington, I think it might have a wee bit of an impact on how you cover that movie.

Those screening parties help build an Oscar contender. But they probably can’t compare to the blogger hive minds that populate the big festivals. Take the Telluride Film Festival, for instance. I used to think that was the best festival in the circuit. I loved driving out there every year and staying in the beautiful mountains of Telluride. They were nice enough to give me Patron Passes to attend screenings without having to wait in line. Occasionally, a publicist would see me and pull me to the front of the line because they knew I had to get in to see the movie because my voice mattered.

I was also allowed to attend the Patron’s Brunch, a fancy affair atop a mountain near where the richest of the rich have mansions nestled into the hillside. Tom Cruz, Oprah, etc. The food was delicious. Champagne flowed into flutes topped off with freshly squeezed orange juice. The Patrons pay thousands of dollars to attend the festival every year, and the brunch is one of their perks. They get to hang with the movie people, flown in on private jets or helicopters, then driven up the windy mountain road in SUV limos before beng escorted out onto the lawn and into a crowd of people.

Last year, when the story about me hit the Hollywood Reporter, I couldn’t back out and not go to Telluride, even though I wanted to. So I went ahead with it and hoped for the best.  But the memo had gone out and I was disinvited to the party and to screenings. Hollywood turned a cold shoulder — you are not one of us anymore, they said.

That is how you control people in Hollywood. You giveth and you taketh away. At least this time, I was only punished for thought-crimes, not for trashing their movies or stepping out of line. Now, I am free to write whatever I want, so there’s that. But I’m not sure access will come my way anytime soon. I can still observe and be honest about what I see, where everyone else is getting paid to be a sycophant can’t.

Telluride used to be an important stop en route to the Oscars because the attendees — the Patrons — reflected the Oscar demo: wealthy white boomer Liberals who are socially conscious and still like the kinds of films Hollywood puts out. But that probably reflected the Academy circa 2015 more so than today, after the Academy invited 3,000 new members, many of whom were young, hip, international, and not white.

But Telluride is still a great place for access. Each blogger or influencer’s worth is measured by how much Lisa Taback likes them and what kind of access they will receive. Do they get a one-on-one? Do they get a Q&A? Are they invited to a dinner party at La Marmotte? The more you polish the knob, the greater access. You have to wake up with yourself in the morning, and if you can, you too can help build an Oscar contender.

Toronto is less easily controlled than Telluride. It’s like Cannes. Anyone can go if they can get a press pass and a place to stay, instead of coughing up the $800 for a press pass at Telluride and paying thousands to stay in a condo there. Toronto is more open to the public, which means the publicists can’t control the message as easily. A good movie will do well anywhere, however.

The Venice Film Festival, like Cannes, is open to anyone who wants to attend. You have to pay to get there. Venice has been one of the strongest launching pads for Oscar contenders of late, perhaps because of the shift toward international movies.

If the movie is good enough, it will launch no matter where it plays. If it is a film that bloggers and critics love enough to push all through the season, like Anatomy of a Fall or Drive My Car, getting a Best Picture nomination is the easy part. Publicists can only do so much to make influencers push their movies, especially if the movie isn’t great.

Sometimes, the movie is great, but it can’t find proper traction and flatlines after it hits the festivals. I’ll never shower off the shame of losing my mind about First Man in Telluride and then overwhelming Damien Chazelle and Justin Hurwitz afterward, calling it a masterpiece. Man, if anyone in Hollywood could still write great screenplays, they would capture that dynamic of some greasy basement dweller having that kind of access and how embarrassing it is for all involved.

Building an Oscar contender must start early. It is much harder to catch a wave if you wait until the last minute. If you want a film to win Best Picture, it has to be seen by roughly October. There is no such thing as a late-breaking Best Picture winner anymore, at least not for the last twenty years. It has to be seen so people are okay with it being the winner. If there is a controversy, it must bloom and then fade. But a late breaker doesn’t have time to overcome a controversy.

Now that you’ve made it through festival season and you’ve had your cringy meet and greets with the bloggers and influencers, your film starts showing up on their lists. Gold Derby, Next Best Picture, and now, Awards Expert — and this site. Once that happens, a consensus begins to form. That consensus becomes more or less locked at some point after festival season.

Then, the industry voters are dealing with a much smaller pile. Now they know what the movies are, who the frontrunners are, and who the winners might be, and they have to do an easier job of deciding between them. The idea that Academy voters should be forced to watch the hundreds of movies that arrive before voting is absurd. They don’t. They know that. The bloggers and influencers have done the weeding out, and that makes it easier to decide.

Once the industry votes, they more or less confirm the consensus, sometimes not. And the films march onward towards the final destination: the Oscars. The voters now know the titles of the films that have hit the guild nominations. They know the movies and the winners that keep showing up. A cautionary tale was last year, when the bloggers and influencers thought it would be The Brutalist or Emilia Perez. They were downplaying Anora as a major contender (I wasn’t; I had it predicted across the board to win).

After the Golden Globes, it was shocking to all of them that Anora would run away with the season and sweep. It turns out the game can only take you part of the way. It can’t take you all the way. If it could, Netflix would have won Best Picture five times over. As it is, the big prize still eludes them.

The much better way to find Oscar contenders was, simply, to nominate the films that are the best of the year by the standards of the ticket buyers. When it’s up to the tastes of an insulated group of people far removed from real life, it is less relevant. For a film to be nominated for the Oscar it should be a success, either because it was profitable or because it was so good it could not be ignored.

Nobody Knows Anything

I might have been onto Anora once the season started, but before I saw it in Telluride, I had absolutely no clue about this race. I was high on fumes from the bloggers who attended Cannes.

Here is what I had on June 21, 2024.

Best Picture

1. Joker: Folie a Deux
2. Sing Sing
3. Dune II
4. Anora
5. Gladiator II
6. Juror #2
7. Emilia Perez
8. Wicked
9. Inside Out 2
10. Blitz
11. Horizon II
12. Hard Truths
13. Queer
14. Here
15. The Nickel Boys
16. A Real Pain

Best Director

1. Todd Phillips, Joker: Folie A Deux
2. Greg Kwedar, Sing Sing
3. Sean Baker, Anora
4. Denis Villenueve, Dune II
5. Ridley Scott, Gladiator II
6. Jacques Audiard, Emilia Perez
7. Mike Leigh, Hard Truths
8. Steve McQueen, Blitz
9. Luca Guadagnino, Queer
10. Clint Eastwood, Juror #2
11. Kevin Costner, Horizon II
12. Marielle Heller, Nightbitch
13. Robert Zemeckis, Here

Best Actress

1. Karla Sofia Gascón, Emilia Pérez (or Supporting)
2. Lady Gaga, Joker: Folie a Deux
3. Jessica Lange, Long Day’s Journey into Night
4. Angelina Jolie, Maria
5. Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Hard Truths
6. Mikey Madison, Anora
7. Amy Adams, Nightbitch
8. Saoirse Ronan, The Outrun or Blitz
9. Tessa Thompson, Hedda
10. Cynthia Erivo, Wicked

Best Actor

1. Colman Domingo, Sing Sing
2. Joaquin Phoenix, Joker: Folie a Deux
3. Ralph Fiennes, Conclave
4.  Daniel Craig, Queer
5.  Pedro Pascal, Gladiator II (or Denzel Washington)
6.  Nicholas Hoult, Juror #2
7.  Jesse Eisenberg, A Real Pain
8.  Tom Hanks, Here
9. John David Washington, The Piano Lesson
10. Adam Driver, Megalopolis

I did slightly better the previous year, 2023,  because I already had Oppenheimer to win:

1. Oppenheimer (Universal Pictures)
2. Killers of the Flower Moon (Apple Original Films/Paramount Pictures)
3. The Holdovers (Focus Features)
4. The Killer (Netflix)
5. Poor Things (Searchlight)
6. The Color Purple (WB)
7. Maestro (Netflix)
8. Ferrari (STX)
9. Next Goal Wins (Searchlight)
10. Past Lives (A24)

Then I have a list of films that I think have a pretty good shot, sight unseen.

1. Dune Part Two (WB)
2. Barbie (WB)
3. Napoleon (Apple)
4. Priscilla (A24)
5. Asteroid City (Focus)
6. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Sony Pictures)
7. Saltburn (Amazon)
8. The Zone of Interest (A24)
9. Drive-Away Dolls (Focus Features)

Best Director

1. Christopher Nolan – Oppenheimer (Universal Pictures)
2. Martin Scorsese – Killers of the Flower Moon (Apple Original Films/Paramount Pictures)
3. David Fincher — The Killer (Netflix)
4. Alexander Payne – The Holdovers (Focus Features)
5. Celine Song – Past Lives (A24)

And then:

1. Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor Things
2. Michael Mann, Ferrari
3. Taika Waititi, Next Goal Wins
4. Blitz Bazawule – The Color Purple
5. Sofia Coppola – Priscilla
6. Wes Anderson – Asteroid City
7. Emerald Fennell – Saltburn
8. Greta Gerwig – Barbie
9. Jonathan Glazer – The Zone of Interest
10. Bradley Cooper – Maestro
11. Denis Villeneuve – Dune Part Two

Best Actor

1. Bradley Cooper – Maestro
2. Cillian Murphy – Oppenheimer
3. Leonardo DiCaprio – Killers of the Flower Moon
4. Joaquin Phoenix – Napoleon
5. Michael Fassbender – The Killer / or Next Goal Wins

And then:

1. Adam Driver, Ferrari
2. Paul Giamatti – The Holdovers
3. Colman Domingo – Rustin
4. Anthony Hopkins – Freud’s Last Session
5. Barry Keoghan – Saltburn

Best Actress

1. Fantasia Barrino – The Color Purple
2. Lily Gladstone – Killers of the Flower Moon (if lead)
3. Jessica Lange – Long Day’s Journey Into Night
4. Emma Stone — Poor Things
5. Kate Winslet — Lee

And then:

1. Helen Mirren, Golda
2. Greta Lee – Past Lives
3. Annette Bening – Nyad
4. Carey Mulligan – Maestro
5. Regina King – Shirley

Best Supporting Actor

1. Robert De Niro – Killers of the Flower Moon
2. Ryan Gosling – Barbie  (if supporting)
3. Robert Downey, Jr., -Oppenheimer
4. Matt Damon – Oppenheimer (Oppenheimer)
5. Colman Domingo – The Color Purple

And then:

1. Jesse Plemons – Killers of the Flower Moon
2. Willem Dafoe – Poor Things
3. Samuel L. Jackson – The Piano Lesson
4.   Ben Foster – Long Day’s Journey Into Night
5. Louis Gossett Jr. – The Color Purple

Best Supporting Actress

1. Kaimana – Next Goal Wins
2. Taraji P. Henson – The Color Purple
3. Da’Vine Joy Randolph – The Holdovers
4. Emily Blunt – Oppenheimer
5. Vanessa Kirby – Napoleon

And then:

1. Rosamund Pike – Saltburn
2. Danielle Brooks – The Color Purple (Warner Bros)
3. Shailene Woodley – Ferrari
4. Sarah Silverman – Maestro
5. Florence Pugh — Oppenheimer

That’s just to show how important the festivals are. On paper or in our imaginations, an Oscar contender can look solid. It can go down on our lists and then fall spectacularly flat. It isn’t all about money and access, but it has to start there. Or, to put it another way, it certainly doesn’t hurt.

Ultimately, by Telluride/Venice/Toronto, we have a pretty good idea of how things will go, which is why it’s hard to break in later in the year. It’s not impossible, but the movie has to be bigger and with bigger stars.

So when you see me jot down my predictions here every week, think of that list above and take it with a huge grain of salt. I will say that for the most part, at least in those two years, the winners in the top categories were present (all but Adrien Brody). So whatever that is worth.

Best Picture

(films that have been seen)

Sinners
Sentimental Value
The Life of Chuck
Warfare

(films that I think might do well)

Wicked for Good
Bugonia
After the Hunt
Frankenstein
A House of Dynamite
Hamnet
Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere

(Maybe Avatar: Fire and Ash, Marty Supreme, One Battle After Another, F1: The Movie )

Best Director
Ryan Coogler, Sinners
Joaquim Trier, Sentimental Value
Luca Guadagnino, After the Hunt
Kathryn Bigelow, House of Dynamite
(Maybe: Jon Chu, Wicked for Good, Guillermo Del Toro, Frankenstein, PTA, One Battle After Another, Alex Garland, Warfare)

Best Actor
Jeremy Allen White, Deliver Me From Nowhere
Michael B. Jordan, Sinners
Timothee Chalamet, Marty Supreme
Oscar Isaac, Frankenstein
Matthew McConaughey, The Lost Bus
(Maybe Stellan Skarsgard, Sentimental Value, Leonardo DiCaprio, One Battle After Another, George Clooney, Jay Kelly, Tom Hiddleston, The Life of Chuck)

Best Actress
Cynthia Erivo, Wicked for Good
Julia Roberts, After the Hunt
Emma Stone Bugonia
Jennifer Lawrence, Die My Love
Renate Reinsve, Sentimental Value
(Maybe Amanda Seyfried (Ann Lee or The Housemaid), Jessie Buckley, Hamnet, Rebecca Ferguson, House of Dynamite)

Supporting Actor
Delroy Lindo, Sinners
Shia LaBeouf, Henry Johnson
Miles Caton, Sinners
Jeremy Strong, Deliver Me From Nowhere
Andrew Garfield, After the Hunt
(Maybe Paul Mescal, Hamnet, Jonathan Bailey, Wicked for Good, Josh O’Connor, History of Sound, Sean Penn, One Battle After Another)

Supporting Actress
Ariana Grande, Wicked For Good
Jennifer Lopez, Kiss of the Spider Woman
Hailee Steinfeld, Sinners
Ayo Edebiri, After the Hunt
Sissy Spacek, Die My Love
(Maybe Wunmi Mosaku, Sinner, Regina Hall, One Battle After Another, Gwyneth Paltrow, Marty Supreme, America Ferrera, The Lost Bus)

And that’s it for now. Have a great weekend.