2026 Oscar Predictions: Does Hollywood Even Want to Save Hollywood?

If anything should indicate that Hollywood has given up on itself, it was the arduous task by Kyle Buchanan at the New York Times to assemble the top ten best films of the 21st century from 500 “industry professionals” and to have the number one film be Bong Joon-Ho’s Parasite. If you spend any time in these insular spaces of Film Twitter, Hollywood parties, the Oscars, and screenings, you already know how this would turn out. Parasite is a great movie – is it better than every movie put out by American studios in the past 25 years? No. I don’t need 500 people to tell me that. I have been covering film and the awards race for exactly as long as the 21st century has existed, give or take.

No Country for Old Men, The Social Network, Sideways (which did not make the list at all), Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Oppenheimer, The Wolf of Wall Street, The Departed — all of them are worthy of the title of the Best Film of the 21st Century. But I know the tastes of the hive mind that now dominates American film and global film, so for that group of people, Parasite is a fitting winner.

It also resonates with people who see themselves as the oppressed family rather than the family that lives on the top level. I have some very bad news for them. If that’s how they see it, they missed the point. I love Parasite. I think it’s great. I did not think it should have won in 2019. That was the year, I think, Hollywood very nearly gave up on itself.

With Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Joker and 1917, not to mention The Irishman, to be cast aside to give their top prize to a film made in South Korea, no matter how good it is, means none of them who work in Hollywood or vote on these awards think any of their movies are better. And that is a problem.

Well, it’s not really a problem for the utopians who exist inside their tiny, rarified bubble. It’s a problem for everyone else, a whole country, and a whole world that hungers for stories and films that resonate with them. Parasite is good. But is it THAT good?

I still thought the prize should have gone to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (what does Tarantino have to do to win an Oscar?), 1917 (a brilliant WW1 epic), or even Joke. It is not to disparage Parasite. It’s just to ask the question: Does Hollywood even care about its own survival? It does not seem like it.

When I began my website, I wondered why Citizen Kane didn’t win Best Picture and how How Green Was My Valley did. I would figure it out eventually, after years of covering the Oscars. In that case, John Ford had won Best Director twice and had not yet won Best Picture. He was a beloved icon in Hollywood at the time and remains so. That was his most personal film, and it was time to pay him tribute finally. Also, Orson Welles was disliked and savaged in the press. Theaters were pressured not to show Citizen Kane, and it is likely that voters were also pressured not to vote for it.

It doesn’t matter anyway because the way things have changed, Citizen Kane’s worth seems to be sliding of late. Either way, what mattered back then and throughout all of Oscar history until 2020, was that the Oscars existed to fortify the studio system. They did not exist to fortify an isolated cabal of a certain kind of person, as they do now. The Oscars are the Gothams/The Spirit Awards/Cannes/Venice. They are the same people milling around in an ideological community, not a geographical one. And it suits them just fine. Let them eat Marvel.

Hollywood is dying. Movie theaters as we once knew them will die, it’s been predicted, within the next 20 years. The serenity of what Hollywood has become in theory is very much like the family that lives on the top floor in Parasite, cut off from the reality of everyday life. The rest of the public are abandoned and don’t even rate when it comes to storytelling, even though, as Parasite proves, these are the best stories — stories of the underclass. So why won’t they tell them? Because WAAAAAA Trump. That’s why.

To preserve the utopia they built for themselves, they must designate who the good people are (them) and who the bad people are (all who do not comply). However, it’s challenging to fight for an industry that no longer values its best asset: one that tells stories for all of us. Our country is so fractured, but we could theoretically still sit together under one roof and enjoy a universal story. Remember those? I know, they’re long lost in our past.

A universal story like It’s a Wonderful Life. Sideways (not on the list of 100, did I mention that?). Universal stories can be told if they are true. They can’t be told if they’re cast in such a way to make Hollywood look good and everyone not on board with their woketopian ideal feel guilty. Tell the truth, not the narrative, and you’ll have a universal story.

Parasite tells the truth, as does Citizen Kane. So why don’t the greatest American films tell the truth?

Most of the comments lavish praise upon the piece, as many of the New York Times readers share the same mindset as the monoculture that has choked the life out of Hollywood. But I thought this comment was funny:

Here is the list if you’d like to see it. Here are the top 20 — with the Best Picture next to it:

Parasite (Parasite)
Mulholland Drive (A Beautiful Mind)
There Will Be Blood (No Country for Old Men)
In the Mood for Love (Gladiator)
Moonlight (Moonlight)
No Country for Old Men (No Country for Old Men)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Million Dollar Baby)
Get Out (The Shape of Water)
Spirited Away (A Beautiful Mind)
The Social Network (The King’s Speech)
Mad Max Fury Road (Spotlight)
The Zone of Interest (Oppenheimer)
Children of Men (The Departed)
Inglourious Basterds (The Hurt Locker)
City of God (2002)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Gladiator)
Brokeback Mountain (Crash)
Y Tu Mama Tambien (A Beautiful Mind)
Zodiac (No Country for Old Men)
The Wolf of Wall Street (12 Years a Slave)
The Royal Tenenbaums (A Beautiful Mind)
The Grand Budapest Hotel (Birdman)
Boyhood (Birdman)
Her (12 Years a Slave)
Phantom Thread (The Shape of Water)
Anatomy of a Fall (Oppenheimer) — to have ranked this film over Oppenheimer is LOL to eternity.
Adaptation (Chicago)
The Dark Knight (Slumdog Millionaire)
Arrival (Moonlight)
Lost in Translation (Return of the King)
The Departed (The Departed) — these people are fools, sorry. OMG. At 31??!!
Bridesmaids (The Artist)
A Separation (The Artist)
Wall-E (Slumdog Millionaire)
A Prophet (The King’s Speech)
A Serious Man (The Hurt Locker)
Call Me By Your Name (The Shape of Water)
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Parasite)
Lady Bird (The Shape of Water)
Yi Yi (Gladiator)
Amelie (A Beautiful Mind)
The Master (Argo)
OldBoy (Crash)
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Parasite) — you lost me, 500 snobby critics, with this so low on your list.
Moneyball (The Artist)
Roma (Green Book) — considering it caused a massive cultural revolution in Hollywood that year, you’d think it would be higher.
Almost Famous (Gladiator)
The Lives of Others (No Country for Old Men) — should be way higher. Who are these people.
Before Sunset (Million Dollar Baby) — Before Sunrise is better.
Up (The Hurt Locker)
12 Years a Slave (12 Years a Slave) — they finally got around to it.
The Favourite (Green Book)
Borat (The Departed)
Pan’s Labyrinth (The Departed ) — should be way higher.
Inception (The King’s Speech) — should be way higher.
Punch-Drunk Love (Chicago)
Best in Show (Gladiator)
Uncut Gems (Parasite)
Toni Erdmann (Moonlight)
Whiplash (Birdman)
Kill Bill Vol. 1 (Return of the King)
Memento (A Beautiful Mind)
Little Miss Sunshine (The Departed)
Gone Girl (Birdman) — what an embarrassment to this list that this is so low.
Oppenheimer (Oppenheimer)— what an embarrassment to this list that this is so low.
Spotlight (Spotlight)
TAR (Everything Everywhere All At Once)
The Hurt Locker (The Hurt Locker) — lol at the placement. What more can be said.
Under the Skin (Birdman)
Let the Right One In (Slumdog Millionaire)
Ocean’s 11 (A Beautiful Mind)
Carol (Spotlight)
Ratatouille (No Country for Old Men) — my eyes water at the shame of this being so low.
The Florida Project (The Shape of Water)
Amour (Argo)
O Brother Where Art Thou (Gladiator)
Everything Everywhere All At Once (Everything Everywhere All At Once) – considering the hype around this film, I would expect it to be higher.
Aftersun (Everything Everywhere All At Once)
The Tree of Life (The Artist)
Volver (The Departed)
Black Swan (The King’s Speech)
The Act of Killing (12 Years a Slave)
Inside Llewyn Davis (12 Years a Slave)
Melancholia (The Artist)
Anchorman (Million Dollar Baby)
Past Lives (Oppenheimer)
Fellowship of the Ring (A Beautiful Mind)
The Gleaners & I (A Beautiful Mind)
Interstellar (Birdman)
Frances Ha (12 Years a Slave)
Fish Tank (The King’s Speech)
Gladiator (Gladiator)
Michael Clayton (No Country for Old Men)
Minority Report (Chicago)
The Worst Person in the World (CODA)
Black Panther (Green Book)
Gravity (12 Years a Slave)
Grizzly Man (Crash)
Memories of a Murder (Crash)
Superbad (No Country for Old Men)

“Best” is merely a consensus vote of a certain kind of person. When the public decides, as they did before, money was no longer a factor in winning Best Picture — which began, I’d say, when The Hurt Locker beat Avatar in 2009. That was proof that something significant had shifted, and success at the box office no longer mattered.

I would love for Kyle Buchanan to have broadened the list more, to include ideologically independent people who do not adhere to strident groupthink. Shake things up a bit. Represent more than a monoculture. I know it’s not possible, this sad dream of mine, but I’ll put it out there all the same.

So, even given that the Oscars have become too elite for most people, this list still managed to feature only 6 out of 25 Best Picture winners. That’s astonishing. And tells you all you need to know about the groupthink that drives Hollywood now.

They didn’t ask Jeffrey Wells of Hollywood Elsewhere (though they should have) and they most certainly didn’t ask me. You can read Jeff’s list here. He names 163.

My list would be mostly American/Hollywood-centric because I care about the industry more than I care about my status inside the hive mind — which doesn’t exist. I have been exiled from the hive mind, which is fine with me:

The Social Network
No Country for Old Men
The Departed
Sideways
Wall-E
Oppenheimer
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Gone Girl
The Wolf of Wall Street
Grizzly Man
Parasite
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Top Gun Maverick
Spirited Away
Fruitvale Station
The Dark Knight
Zodiac
Minority Report
Ratatouille
The Hurt Locker
Brokeback Mountain
War of the Worlds
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
TAR
Panic Room
Insomnia
Far From Heaven
Life of Pi
Burn After Reading
I’m Not There
Nebraska
Mean Girls
1917
Bridesmaids
Mank
Pan’s Labyrinth
La La Land
The Kids Are All Right
Green Book
The Big Short
Before Sunrise
Anora
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Baby Driver
Fruitvale Station
Zero Dark Thirty
Middle of Nowhere
Almost Famous
Gladiator
Contagion
Letters from Iwo Jima
12 Years a Slave
Moulin Rouge!
Up in the Air
Phantom Thread
Inglourious Basterds
Mad Max: Fury Road
Frost/Nixon
Frances Ha
Barbie
Get Out
Joker
West Side Story
No Direction Home (doc)
Inception
American Beauty
The Power of the Dog
First Man
Lost in Translation
Love Actually
The Passion of the Christ
Adaptation
Doubt
A History of Violence
Match Point
The Devil Wears Prada
Little Miss Sunshine
The Queen
For Your Consideration
The Holiday
Dreamgirls
Traffic
Tropic Thunder
Slumdog Millionaire
The Blind Side
The Hangover
A Serious Man
The Ghost Writer
True Grit
The Descendants
The Martian
Creed
Midnight Special
Wonder Woman
Okja
The Shape of Water
Mamma Mia
Open Water
Erin Brockovich
Her

Looking over the past 25 years in film, I noticed that things start to get really dire in 2009 and onward. The combination of the rise of a cult-like religious leader in Obama, who would shape all of American culture, including Hollywood and the Oscars, alongside a split in the industry with Big Hollywood making serious money with superhero movies and niche Hollywood — the “first class” section of the airplane. Those two Hollywoods destroyed Hollywood.

After 2009, the movies came out less, they weren’t as good, and the public mostly stopped showing up. Movies became amusement park rides, fan events, but storytelling vanished. The niche side was as bad as the franchise side because those stories were told to satisfy only the ruling class, and it all got boring.

There is so much vibrant life happening outside of this suffocating bubble Hollywood has become. Every time the general public is asked to peer into it, as they’ve now done with the New York Times list of 100 films, they’re reminded of what a distant world it’s become. It’s a problem.

If not even those 500 people chosen can’t celebrate any real success in Hollywood, and films can’t even deliver for the general public anymore, what are we even doing? I guess the better question to ask is What am I even doing? What is the point of writing about an industry that is dying on the vine?

I guess because hope is the thing with feathers. Scientists once experimented on mice. They threw a bunch of them in the water to see how long they could live. Then they took a group of mice and threw them in the water, and then rescued them after a minute or two. They threw that same group back in the water to see if they would hold on to hope, thinking they might be rescued, and they did. They held on. But those evil monsters let them die anyway. It proved that hope is real.

Somehow, I doubt this will be the year Hollywood saves itself, especially considering the Academy is doubling down on its Woketacular, Woketacular. But who knows? Maybe I’ll be proven wrong and we’ll have a great year of movies.

Ryan Coogler’s Sinners is still far and away the film of 2025. That might change, but nothing that came out of the Cannes Film Festival has changed it. Maybe Venice. Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt will premiere at Venice. We should not be looking at what those 500 people would think is the best — please god no — but what film drove the conversations, awakened the public, and most importantly, made money because people went out to see it.

F1: The Movie is not going to be an Oscar movie. There is no way, with or without the gossip about Brad Pitt. But I hope it makes money anyway.

Predictions

I would see the Oscars go big. They won’t. But I’d like to see it. I’d like to see Wicked: For Good, The Housemaid, maybe Avatar: Fire and Ash. I won’t get my hopes up because we can see already how it will go just by watching the hive mind. But like a mouse thrown back into the water, I hold on for just a little longer.

Last year, this is what my sad bad predictions looked like:

Best Picture