Oscars Nominations: My Predictions, Wishlist, and Downballot Storylines

A wonky analysis of the Oscars race.

Jan 21, 2026

We’re at the point of awards season where only three movies have a serious possibility of being anointed Best Picture in two months’ time, and there’s one clear frontrunner.

That’s why the real excitement is in speculating about nominations. They’re more chaotic, since predictions aren’t limited to a field of five. And taken as a whole, the nomination slate speaks to the ever-shifting preferences of the filmmaking industry, as represented by the 10,000+ members of the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences.

For those whose zone of interest lies on the wonkier side of things, the Oscars are politics. As Walt Hickey puts it, “this thing is just an election.” (Or a conclave.) Who is almost as important as what. Campaigning happens in the open and behind closed doors. Exclusive receptions are the equivalent of donor events. Social media plays a small role but it’s not everything. And I’m pretty sure someone at Disney has the job of whipping votes for Best Animated Feature. Despite the increasingly international membership, at its core the Academy is an elite Hollywood club.

Will Marty reign supreme? Was Jafar Panahi winning the Palme d’Or just an accident? Will the girl in the bubble find herself outside of it?

In the wee hours of Thursday morning, the nominees for this year’s Academy Awards will be unveiled, and those questions will be answered. (The stream will go live at 5:30 a.m. PST / 8:30 a.m. EST / 1:30 p.m. GMT.)

If you’re coming to this post late (i.e. the noms have been announced already), this might still be a useful read for some of the broader analyses! And you can see how wrong I was.

Oscar Nominees: My Predictions

Every prognosticator has their own theory of the Oscars. Some start with an overarching narrative. Others build mathematical models. Well-connected journalists talk to voters. I don’t really know anyone in the Academy, but I’m one of the few nerds who has actually read the entire rulebook1.

For guessing who gets nominated, I look at correlations and statistics and betting odds, but I also watch the major contenders. I ignore the clickbait guy at Variety2.

I do decently with predicting the nominees. Last year I got 71% of the nominees correct3, which is a better track record than I have with win predictions 4.

Included with my predictions is my personal ballot and, for some categories, analysis. My focus is on the downballot storylines that I don’t really see discussed outside the nerdiest of circles. It’s more interesting than re-hashing the Leo vs Timmy debate.

My predicted winner is noted with a gold square, and my nomination projections have confidence ratings inspired by the Cook Political Report:

Solid: absolutely certain. Would be a monumental shock if this doesn’t happen
Likely: very confident. Big surprise if it doesn’t get nominated
Lean: pretty sure this gets nominated, would be a bit surprised if I miss the mark
Toss-Up: not at all sure, going off my gut

I’ll check back in on Thursday after the nominations announcement, with a quick update on how I did and how they affect my Oscars narratives!

Best Picture

Personal ballot: To be revealed later this month, when I publish my list of the year’s best films 🙂

Storyline: Will No One Mourn the Wicked?

A couple months ago I would have had Wicked and Avatar pretty firmly in the mix, but it looks like neither blockbuster will garner anywhere near the same level of support of their predecessors. Before Wicked: For Good opened in theaters, Joe Reid at Vulture surmised that it would need to do three things to overcome the Academy’s aversion to sequels: “be seen as a creative improvement on its predecessor, make it rain money, and have undeniable performances.”

When it comes to the latter, Ariana Grande was undeniable and she has a fighting chance to be nominated in Supporting Actress (though she ought to be a Lead.) It’s the first two criteria that have failed. The Metacritic average for For Good collapsed from 73 to 585 and box office was only 70% of the first movie. A similar downshift on both metrics also apply to Avatar: Fire and Ash.

Personal ballot: Jafar Panahi, It Was Just an Accident / Nia DaCosta, Hedda / Benny Safdie, The Smashing Machine / Sarah Friedland, Familiar Touch / James Sweeney, Twinless

Storyline: Who Benefits From the International Swap?

For several years the nominees go 4 for 5 in alignment with the Directors Guild of America, with an American/populist film being swapped with an arty international title. It’s usually pretty obvious but this year is trickier. Which one of Guillermo Del Toro and Josh Safdie will be replaced with the director of a non-American movie? Perhaps both get subbed out?

My gut says the beloved Del Toro lands a nom due to cross-appeal with the Hollywood bloc, and Jafar Panahi will edge out the International vote, but it’ll be a close one.

Casting

Personal ballot: Marty Supreme, One Battle After Another, Sinners, Freaky Tales, The Voice of Hind Rajab

Storyline: Best Casting or Best Cast?

We have a brand new award! This is the most interesting category to me, because we have no precedents or guild precursors. The Casting Branch, with 176 members, is the smallest one in the Academy. Per Steve Pond’s invaluable number crunching in The Wrap, it takes just 30 first place votes to snag a nomination here.

What keeps this inaugural category from being totally impossible to predict is that the branch created a ten-film shortlist. (Most of the crafts employ this whittling down of contenders.) The shortlisted films represent different aspects of the casting process: extensive searches, introducing new talent to the world, nabbing non-actors, and last-minute recasting.

If the branch emphasizes that latter element, that would be good for Frankenstein and Weapons. Both films had to replace key cast members as a result of post-strike scheduling conflicts. Andrew Garfield was supposed to be Frankenstein’s creature; the nine months spent designing his look had to be re-configured for Jacob Elordi just nine weeks before production commenced. All but one original cast member of Weapons had to drop out.

The presence of Sentimental Value, The Secret Agent, and Sirât on the shortlist are intriguing, as this branch strikes me as being fairly Hollywood oriented.

I thought the branch might act as a gatekeeper here, knowing that when the entire Academy votes for the winner they’ll think this is Best Cast instead of Best Casting. But the top Best Picture nominees do have great casting. Marty Supreme may be the Timothée show, but he’s surrounded by a sprawling collection of non-actors. The child actors in Hamnet are genuinely terrific. And the ensembles of One Battle After Another and Sinners seamlessly mix established Hollywood headliners, beloved day players, and newly minted stars.

At the end of the day this might just become a Best Picture-lite category, similar to Directing and Film Editing, but until Thursday this is all speculation.

Leading Actress

Personal ballot: Rose Byrne, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You / Ariana Grande, Wicked: For Good / Chase Infiniti, One Battle After Another / Zhao Tao, Caught By The Tides / Kathleen Chalfant, Familiar Touch

Storyline: Will Senti V Overcome the SAG Snub?

The reliable heuristic for acting categories is that the Actors Branch overlaps with 4 of the 5 SAG nominees. Similar to Directing, the “basic Hollywood” role swaps with someone in an artsier movie. The big revelation this year was the SAG nominating committee’s complete unwillingness to read subtitles, with every non-English language performance being shut out. But that’s not too surprising if you’ve spent any time overhearing the audience at their screenings.

If my predictions in these categories are borne out and the Scandi trio from Sentimental Value are nominated, it might be the first time that three of the SAG-Oscar swaps are from the same movie. But I don’t have the dataset to check this.

Leading Actor

Personal ballot: Ethan Hawke, Blue Moon / Josh O’Connor, Wake Up Dead Man / Leonardo DiCaprio, One Battle After Another / Dylan O’Brien, Twinless / Tim Key, The Ballad of Wallis Island

Supporting Actress

Personal ballot: Teyana Taylor, One Battle After Another / Son Ye-jin, No Other Choice / Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Sentimental Value / Kirsten Dunst, Roofman / Amanda Seyfried, The Housemaid

Supporting Actor

Personal ballot: Benicio Del Toro, One Battle After Another / Miles Caton, Sinners / Ralph Fiennes, 28 Years Later / Kevin O’Leary, Marty Supreme / Guy Pearce, The Shrouds

Adapted Screenplay

Personal ballot: Hedda / One Battle After Another / Train Dreams / The Naked Gun / The Ballad of Wallis Island

Original Screenplay

Personal ballot: It Was Just an Accident / Blue Moon / Happyend / Splitsville / Lurker

Personal ballot: Arco / Boys Go to Jupiter / KPop Demon Hunters / Endless Cookie

Storyline: Will Anime Ever Ascend?

Not this year. Though Demon Slayer and Chainsaw Man did big numbers at the domestic box office, their appeal is limited to existing fans of those anime series. Asian animation is frequently excluded here, unless it’s from Studio Ghibli. The only non-Ghibli Asian film to ever be nominated was Mamoru Hosoda’s Mirai. His newest film, Scarlet, was seen as a contender until people actually saw the movie. Chinese title Ne Zha 2, the highest grossing title worldwide last year, wasn’t even submitted. (Bizarrely, A24 picked up rights to the English dub and proceeded to barely market it, but that was always going to be a hard sell.)

On the other side of the globe we may be seeing the beginning of a renaissance in French independent animation, with Arco and Little Amélie tipped to be nominated. The former counts Natalie Portman as a producer, and she features on the English dub alongside some of her Marvel co-stars. Expect her to continue campaigning for it in the coming weeks, but we all know that KPop is taking this one.

Documentary Feature

Personal ballot: BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions / Pavements / Predators / Mistress Dispeller / Natchez

Storyline: Will Netflix Break Their Nomination Curse?

The word “snub” is way overused by Oscars talkers, but when it comes to the Documentary Branch, they really do have their preferences. Vérité docs about geopolitical and social issues are in. Anything heavily archival, hybrid narrative, or celebrity driven are always shut out. The most popular acclaimed docs are even shut out at the shortlist stage. I sincerely appreciate the gatekeeping.

There’s also a demonstrated anti-American slant. Since 2020, only 6 of the 25 nominated documentaries were U.S. productions.

Another stat: In 2021, The Octopus Teacher won the Oscar for Best Documentary. Perhaps having learned a lesson, the branch has never nominated a Netflix movie since then. So it’s actually quite bold for me to predict two Netflix docs to get in this time around, but given Laura Poitras and Petra Costa’s prior nominations, I think they can break the curse and would even win if given the chance.

I was thinking another Israel/Gaza doc would get in this year too, but the two shortlisted titles don’t seem to have any heat. Which probably improves their position.

International Film

Personal ballot: Sirât / It Was Just An Accident / No Other Choice / Sentimental Value / Happy Birthday

Storyline: Will the Oscars Olympiad Ever Be Reformed?

This category has always been both fascinating and frustrating. The contenders, on average, are better than their Hollywood counterparts. Ted Hope rightly declared “International Films were muchmuchmuch better than American movies in 2025.”

Each country may submit one title for consideration. This year there were 86 selections, and there was a process to determine a 15-film shortlist, from which nominees are decided by voters who opted-in to view all of those titles. It’s a bit like the Olympics, which can be fun, and this system sometimes brings lesser-known titles to the fore. (Recall the delightful surprise of Bhutan’s Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom.)

But this system has two big flaws. Sometimes a country produces more than one great film in a given year. There was an outcry when the French board selected The Taste of Things instead of Anatomy of a Fall, which went on to get a Best Picture nomination.

The more pertinent issue is that films are usually submitted by some form of government arts council, which makes them subject to political pressure. China routinely ignores their internationally renowned auteurs in favor of domestic blockbusters that stand zero chance of a nomination, let alone a win. India’s snub of All We Imagine As Light spurred chatter about reforming this category. And as long as Iran is ruled by the Ayatollah, they will never, ever, ever, submit a film by Jafar Panahi, who himself noted that this process does not work “for countries with despotic regimes.”

This reliance on government support forces dissident directors to find another country that can reasonably claim partial ownership. In the eyes of the Academy, It Was Just An Accident is a French film. Last year, the Iran-set The Seed of the Sacred Fig was submitted by Germany6. In both cases, they qualified because post-production occurred in those European nations.

Outsiders have proposed some sensible solutions to this problem. Whether or not the Academy implements them remains to be seen.

Cinematography

Personal ballot: Sound of Falling / One Battle After Another / 28 Years Later / Sinners / Train Dreams

Costume Design

Personal ballot: Sinners / The Shrouds / Frankenstein / Bonjour Tristesse / Marty Supreme (Merch Collection)

Film Editing

Personal ballot: Caught By The Tides / BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions / Pavements / A House of Dynamite / One Battle After Another

Makeup & Hairstyling

Will Mavity@mavericksmovies

Although WB campaigned three people for the Makeup & Hair Oscar for One Battle After Another (Heba Thorisdottir, Ahou Mofid, Arjen Tuiten), only Arjen Tuiten, who designed Sean Penn's prosthetics, will remain under consideration for a nomination.

1:58 AM · Jan 10, 2026 · 4.59K Views

2 Reposts · 28 Likes

Original Score

Personal ballot: The Smashing Machine / Marty Supreme / Sinners / Bugonia / Train Dreams

I have Marty Supreme on the outside because the Music Branch isn’t really a fan of aggressively electronic scores and they are generally suspicious of newcomers… the exception is if the film is a strong Best Picture contender. And Marty may well be.

Original Song

Personal ballot: “Golden” - KPop Demon Hunters / “Train Dreams” - Train Dreams / “Trunks” - Highest 2 Lowest / “Give Your Love,” The Ballad of Wallis Island / “Love and Obsession”, Lurker

Storyline: Bad Year for Real Pop, Great Year for Movie Pop

Songs were woven into the fabric of many of this year’s movies, whether it be A$AP Rocky spitting in the booth in Highest 2 Lowest, the fittingly mid-tier R&B of Lurker, or the Shaker hymns refashioned into chamber pop for The Testament of Ann Lee.

This year had the strongest crop of original songs in ages, and maybe it’s unfair that “Golden” will run away with it. “I Lied to You” structures the best scene in Sinners, but “Golden” is a bonafide hit, has a great narrative behind it, and is integral to its film.

It’s the very fringe of this category that I find interesting. Diane Warren is going to get her obligatory nomination and I feel pretty good about one of the new Wicked songs getting a nod. That leaves one more spot. Train Dreams has a lovely end credits from Nick Cave, or another Sinners tune can get in. This branch tends to have poor taste, so a snoozer like Miley Cyrus’s “Dream As One” or the Highest 2 Lowest title ballad could make it. But I’m going to go with “Salt Then Sour Then Sweet,” from Come See Me in the Good Light, which was sung by Sara Bareilles and Grammy darling Brandi Carlile; Andrea Gibson’s poetry inspired the lyrics.

Personal ballot: The Secret Agent / Sinners / Frankenstein / Marty Supreme / Grand Tour

Sound

Personal ballot: If I Had Legs I’d Kick You / Sinners / Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning / Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere / Die My Love

Visual Effects

Will Mavity’s report from the VFX bake-off was very helpful here.

The Short Films

I don’t know anything about these! No one really writes up a rundown of the shortlisted shorts and I don’t have time to do it myself. So these toss-ups are literally just based on what had a good title and/or had a distributor that does well here (Netflix, The New Yorker, LA Times).

Animated Short: Éiru, I Died in Irpin, The Girl Who Cried Pearls, The Shyness of Trees, The Three Sisters

Live Action Short: A Friend of Dorothy, Jane Austen’s Period Drama, Pantyhose, The Boy with White Skin, Two People Exchanging Saliva

Documentary Short Subject: All the Empty Rooms, All the Walls Came Down, Last Days on Lake Trinity, Perfectly a Strangeness, We Were the Scenery

Congrats for making it to the end! If you have any bold Oscar predictions, narratives that you’re following, or just nominations that you’d love to see, let me know!

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