2026 Oscar Predictions: Will the Best Screenplays Drive the Best Picture Win?

There have been some brilliantly written screenplays this year that are likely to be nominated. Will Tracy’s script for Bugonia is one. Ari Aster’s for Eddington is another (although it’s not likely to get nominated, though it should be). The Best Picture nominees bring their screenplays with them as most are written by their directors, like One Battle After Another, Hamnet and Sinners.

The question is whether a film can win Best Picture with just a screenplay and not Best Director. We haven’t had a split where the director was also nominated since Moonlight in 2016. That could be down to a few factors – though we can’t know for sure why the trend has shifted away from split votes to awarding Best Picture/Best Director/Best Screenplay but it seems to have done just that.

In the era of the preferential ballot, when there were a solid 10 nominees, it happened five times compared to when there was a random number of Best Picture nominees, between 5 and 10.

Solid ten:
2009, 2010

A random number between 5 and 10
2014, 2019

Then back to ten:
2022, 2023, 2024

Only twice during the random phase did a film win both – Birdman, Parasite

It might be that the random method tended to award passion more, and that is what got a movie in. All of those movies were number one favorites, but with the new system, they have to add a solid ten, which means that they include movies that are just there and don’t necessarily have passionate support (which is why they should shrink back down to five, among other reasons).

But really, I don’t know the reason. What I do know is that it does seem as if Best Director, at least, is Paul Thomas Anderson’s to lose, and very likely all of the top awards. The question is whether it also wins Screenplay as it did at the Golden Globes. What might challenge OBAA in Adapted Screenplay? Well, Hamnet, obviously. It was adapted by Chloé Zhao and the original novel’s author, Maggie O’Farrell, and the screenplay is very different from the book.

True, it’s probably more of a director’s movie, but that’s really the only path for Hamnet to win Best Picture, if it also wins Adapted Screenplay. Complicating matters somewhat is that Sinners is in the Original Screenplay category, and it, too, could upset in Best Picture, with just the Screenplay win.

I’m not gonna lie that there is not a close race, or at least it doesn’t seem to be. However, we’re probably not looking at a Saving Private Ryan vs. Shakespeare in Love or Reds vs. Chariots of Fire situation because of the expanded ballot. If the Academy would shrink Best Picture down to five, which they should do, it would bring back the passionate, majority vote. Now, unless a film wins on the first round — which One Battle might — then it kicks in a recount and in that recount, strange unpredictable things can happen.

But basically, at least according to my experiments in the past, it’s usually the first two movies that come in at the top that compete for the prize. So let’s say One Battle, Sinners and Hamnet all come in as the top three vote getters (very likely). Once they start eliminating ballots from the other movies, we start looking at their second choice, third choice, etc.

Here is Steve Pond from 11 years ago explaining how it works:

So when you have a frontrunner like One Battle After Another, you have to ask who wouldn’t choose that movie as number one. Would it be their second choice? Maybe. Would it be their third? Probably not. I’m guessing it’s one or two, or then further down the ballot.

There are more complicating factors, including preferential ballots, but I’m not going to get into it. The point here is, what movie will be all over the place? Steve puts it really well: “All that matters is which film is higher on the most number of ballots.”

Here is my tried and true method – if a film wins Globes, PGA, DGA, SAG – it is winning the Oscar. It will win in the first round. That is the ultimate fate right now for One Battle After Another. If another movie wins anywhere else, the PGA or the SAG or the DGA, well, then we have a race. But I don’t expect it to go that way.

We’re not at the winning phase yet. We’re still at the nominations phase and right now, the big question is how will these films stack up with nominations? Will Sinners break the record and come in with 15 or 16? Does Miles Caton land in Best Supporting Actor as he did at SAG? If so, that shows more support for the movie.

We’re at the end of the road now. Voting has closed.

Did the Golden Golden Globes Have Influence?

The only thing that was sort of surprising was Hamnet winning Best Drama at the Golden Globes, which likely made headlines. It seems to be rising in terms of buzz right now, or at least that’s how it seems to me.

Sinners didn’t win Screenplay there, which only tells us that these voters probably didn’t get the movie — and maybe the Academy won’t either. By now, I’ve thrown up my hands when it comes to large consensus votes.

The big questions are about one, maybe two contenders in the acting and screenplay categories. And your guess is as good as mine. These aren’t my final predictions – I’ll post those on Wednesday probably, but here is how I think it might go.

Here are the big charts for Best Picture with BAFTA longlist included. Usually, 8 of those get into the Oscars but the three danglers on this one – Nuremberg, The Ballad of Wallis Island and I Swear probably aren’t. So that leaves us with seven and three slots open.

One Battle After Another
Sinners
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
Frankenstein
Sentimental Value
Bugonia

From PGA, we get:
Train Dreams

We also get Weapons and F1, neither of which have strength anywhere else though it’s interesting they turned up here. Tells me there could be forces at play to support Warner Bros. big year. Still makes it incredibly tricky.

Since 2020, only two films have landed in Best Picture without being on the long list or PGA:
Nickel Boys
Women Talking

Whatever is getting in will need a passionate push for number one votes. What could it be? It’s anyone’s guess. You can go with the current buzz that it will be The Secret Agent and/or It Was Just an Accident. Or you can go with Warner Bros. and Weapons, considering Amy Madigan is potentially the Best Supporting Actress winner. Maybe Weapons comes in with Picture, Screenplay, Supporting Actress. F1, probably not. That still leaves one more. Going by the charts, I will have to go with It Was Just An Accident on the off chance that the news out of Iran makes some bit of a difference but honestly, Wagner Moura could drag The Secret Agent in too.

So let’s do this.

Best Picture
One Battle After Another
Sinners
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
Frankenstein
Sentimental Value
Bugonia
Train Dreams
Weapons
It Was Just an Accident
Alt. The Secret Agent

Best Director

Missing the longlist for director is Guillermo Del Toro. Since 2020, that happened only once with Triangle of Sadness. So, believe it or not, Del Toro is your weak link here, only he isn’t really, because he has a DGA nomination. There is a pattern between showing up at the BAFTA longlist and the Globes and getting into Best Director at the Oscars. The Zone of Interest, Triangle of Sadness, and The Substance are some examples. To that end:

Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another
Ryan Coogler, Sinners
Chloé Zhao, Hamnet
Guillermo Del Toro, Frankenstein
Joachim Trier, Sentimental Value
Alt. Josh Safdie, Marty Supreme, Yorgos Lanthimos, Bugonia, Jafar Panahi, It Was Just An Accident

Best Actress
Jessie Buckley, Hamnet
Renate Reinsve, Sentimental Value
Emma Stone, Bugonia
Rose Byrne, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Chase Infiniti, One Battle After Another

Alt. Kate Hudson, Song Sung Blue, Cynthia Erivo, Wicked: For Good, Amanda Seyfried, The Testament of Ann Lee

Best Actor
Timothée Chalament, Marty Supreme
Leonardo DiCaprio, One Battle After Another
Michael B. Jordan, Sinners
Jesse Plemons, Bugonia
Wagner Moura, The Secret Agent
Alt. Ethan Hawke, Blue Moon

Supporting Actress
Teyana Taylor, One Battle After Another
Amy Madigan, Weapons
Wunmi Mosaku, Sinners
Ariana Grande, Wicked for Good
Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Sentimental Value
Alt. Odessa A’Zion, Marty Supreme, Gwyneth Paltrow, Marty Supreme

Supporting Actor
Benicio Del Toro, One Battle
Stellan Skarsgård, Sentimental Value
Jacob Elordi, Frankenstein
Paul Mescal, Hamnet
Sean Penn, One Battle After Another

Original Screenplay
Sinners
Marty Supreme
Sentimental Value
Weapons
It Was Just An Accident
Alt. Eddington

Adapted Screenplay
One Battle After Another
Hamnet
Train Dreams
Bugonia
Frankenstein
Alt. No Other Choice

Casting
Sinners
One Battle After Another
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
Frankenstein

Editing
One Battle After Another
Marty Supreme
Sinners
Frankenstein
Hamnet

Cinematography
Sinners
One Battle After Another
Frankenstein
Train Dreams
Hamnet
Alt. Marty Supreme

Production Design
Frankenstein
Sinners
Hamnet
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Wicked: For Good

Costume
Frankenstein
Sinners
Wicked: For Good
Hamnet
Marty Supreme

Score
Sinners
Hamnet
One Battle After Another
Frankenstein
F1

Song
“I Lied To You” from “Sinners”
“Golden” K-Pop Demon Hunters
“The Girl In The Bubble” from Wicked: For Good
“Train Dreams” from Train Dreams
“Dream As One” from Avatar: Fire and Ash
Alt. “Drive” from F1, “Dear Me” from Diane Warren: Relentless

Makeup and Hairstyling
Frankenstein
Marty Supreme
Nuremberg
Sinners
Wicked: For Good

Sound
Sinners
One Battle After Another
Avatar: Fire and Ash
F1
Wicked: For Good

Visual Effects
Avatar: Fire and Ash
F1
Frankenstein
Sinners
Wicked: For Good

International Feature
Norway, Sentimental Value
France, It Was Just an Accident
Spain, Sirât
Brazil, The Secret Agent
South Korea, No Other Choice

Documentary Feature
The Perfect Neighbor
The Alabama Solution
Cover-Up
My Undesirable Friends: Part 1 – Last Air in Moscow
Mr. Nobody against Putin