‘Awards Magnet’: Our ridiculously early 2026 Oscar predictions
The 97th Academy Awards just ended, but it's never too early to start thinking about next year's Oscars. Awards Magnet hosts Christopher Rosen and Joyce Eng make their ridiculously early 2026 Oscar predictions.
The 2025 slate is more akin to the 2023 one than last year's with some big names and past Oscar players in the mix. James Cameron will unfurl Avatar: Fire and Ash in December. Leonardo DiCaprio leads Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another. The filmmaker has 11 Oscar nominations and zero wins. Will this be the one to break the duck? Chloé Zhao is back with an adaptation of Maggie O'Farrell's novel Hamnet starring Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal. Both actors have another film in play: Maggie Gyllenhaal's The Bride! for the former and Oliver Hermanus' The History of Sound for the latter. The Bride! is one of two Frankenstein films coming out this year, the other being Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein. Frankenstein is part of Netflix's stacked deck, which includes Noah Baumbach's Jay Kelly and its equally stacked cast: George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Laura Dern, Billy Crudup, Jim Broadbent, Riley Keough, Greta Gerwig, Patrick Wilson, Eve Hewson, Grace Edwards, Stacy Keach, Alba Rohrwacher, and Emily Mortimer, who wrote the script with Baumbach.
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Some of this past season's hopefuls could be back as well. Timothée Chalamet is looking to score back-to-back Best Actor nominations with Josh Safdie's Marty Supreme, which could also mark an Oscar comeback for Gwyneth Paltrow. The actress hasn't been nominated since she won Best Actress on her first nomination for Shakespeare in Love 26 years ago. Jeremy Strong could nab consecutive Best Supporting Actor bids with another mentor role, this time in Deliver Me From Nowhere as Jon Landau, the manager of Bruce Springsteen (Jeremy Allen White). After Best Director snubs for All Quiet on the Western Front and Conclave, perhaps the third time will be the charm for Edward Berger with Netflix's The Ballad of a Small Player, which stars Colin Farrell and Tilda Swinton. Neither of Luca Guadagnino's 2024 films earned Oscar nominations, but buzz is high on After the Hunt, starring Julia Roberts, Andrew Garfield, and Ayo Edebiri. We must also hold space for Wicked: For Good in Best Picture, but can Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande repeat their acting bids?
Plus: An Oscar breakthrough for Dwayne Johnson's transformative role in The Smashing Machine? And looking back at how wrong our 2024-25 predictions were.
Email your questions to [email protected].
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