The 2026 Oscars nominations were announced Thursday morning, January 22. This finally gives film fanatics a definitive pool of potential winners for the event, which will be held Sunday, March 15 at 7:00 p.m. ET. Let’s break down the odds on DraftKings Sportsbook and predict winners for every major category at the 98th Academy Awards.
See who earned 2026 Oscars nominations for every major category here:
- Best Picture
- Best Actor
- Best Actress
- Best Supporting Actor
- Best Supporting Actress
- Best Director
- Best Original Screenplay
Best Picture
There were some incredible films in 2025, many of which have been honored with a 2026 Oscar Best Picture nomination. One Battle After Another has dominated awards season so far, winning a majority of the critics’ awards and the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture- Musical or Comedy. One Battle After Another writer and director Paul Thomas Anderson also won the Golden Globes for Best Director and Best Screenplay. PTA has long been considered one of the best directors in Hollywood, but has never taken home the Oscar. Winning big for One Battle After Another would be a more than well-deserved reward for his decades of excellent work.
Hamnet is also a strong contender, having won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Drama. Hamnet director Chloe Zhao has directed a Best Picture winner in the past, with Nomadland in 2021. Jessie Buckley is the strong favorite to win Best Actress for her performance in Hamnet, so the film could capitalize on that momentum. The other serious contenders to win the award are fan-favorite Sinners and Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme. Ryan Coogler’s vampire epic was a global sensation, and Timothee Chalamet is the favorite to win Best Actor for his work in Marty Supreme, so both films would be worthy of an Oscar.
Despite all of the nominees being fantastic films, it’s hard to see One Battle After Another not taking home the Best Picture Oscar. Paul Thomas Anderson has been more than deserving of taking home an Oscar for decades, and it seems as if his time has finally come. Ever since the movie was released, it has received almost universal acclaim from both critics and audiences. It is a thrilling action movie, filled with great performances and a prescient message. It is the exact type of film that should be winning Best Picture at the Academy Awards.
Prediction: One Battle After Another
Best Actor
The Oscars have tended to overlook younger stars for Best Actor, with the honor usually going to more established veterans. Chalamet couldn’t pull it out against Adrien Brody last year, while Austin Butler lost to Brendan Fraser in 2023. Back in 2021, Sir Anthony Hopkins beat out Chadwick Boseman, Riz Ahmed and Steven Yeun. And yet, Chalamet just turned 30 years old, so he would no longer be the youngest Best Actor winner ever. Richard Dreyfuss was 30 when he won for The Goodbye Girl in 1978, as was Marlon Brando when he won for On the Waterfront in 1955. Nicholas Cage, Jimmy Stewart and Daniel Day-Lewis were all 32 when they won their first Oscars, while Eddie Redmayne was 33. Chalamet’s stiffest competition is DiCaprio, who has a long history of coming up short at the Oscars. He was also somewhat overshadowed by his co-stars in One Battle After Another, compared to how central Chalamet is to virtually every scene of Marty Supreme. Moura, meanwhile, is a serious dark horse with a potentially massive international support base, especially with The Secret Agent nabbing a surprise Best Picture nomination.
Prediction: Timothée Chalamet (Marty Supreme)
Best Actress
Someone was always going to get snubbed in this category. There were simply too many fantastic performances from women in a leading role this year. Obviously, Jessie Buckley stands out among the pack. She’s already taken home the Golden Globe for Best Actress (Drama) and the Critics’ Choice Movie Award for Best Actress for her emotionally shattering performance in Hamnet. Buckley is the odds-on favorite at -1800 on DraftKings Sportsbook to add an Oscar to her trophy cabinet. That said, it would be foolish to completely count out Rose Byrne, who won the Golden Globe for Best Actress (Musical or Comedy).
While Emma Stone appears unlikely to claim her third Best Actress Oscar, another nomination represents her incredible consistency at the top of her field. Kate Hudson stole the show (along with audiences’ hearts) in Song Sung Blue, and Renate Reinsve’s transformative performance in Sentimental Value put the rest of the film industry on notice. Shoutout to Chase Infiniti, who was an unfortunate snub for this category but put together an masterfully powerful performance in One Battle After Another. Overall, this is an immensely talented field, but it’s Buckley’s award to lose.
Prediction: Jessie Buckley (Hamnet)
Check out all of the 2026 Oscars markets and odds on DraftKings Sportsbook!
Best Supporting Actor
This year’s Academy Awards feature multiple tightly-contested races, and Best Supporting Actor is definitely one of them. Jacob Elordi has flipped from a potential snub candidate due to the volume of high-caliber performances to a dark horse to win the award for his performance in Frankenstein, surprising film fans everywhere by winning the Critics’ Choice Movie Award for Best Supporting Actor. Delroy Lindo was electric as Delta Slim in Sinners, earning a nomination over his co-star Miles Caton and Hamnet’s Paul Mescal.
The One Battle After Another Duo of Sean Penn and Benicio del Toro each dominate their respective film over certain stretches, proving legitimate threats to win this award. However, fresh off a Golden Globe win, Stellan Skarsgård is the current favorite to win his first Academy Award at -120 on DraftKings Sportsbook. Sentimental Value is the culmination of meticulous character work from the 74-year-old over the decades. The result was his best performance to date as an absentee father (and formerly successful film creator) looking to work his way back into his daughters’ lives while simultaneously battling his internal quest for validation in the form of one final hit. Skarsgård is stellar, and every bit deserving of the hardware.
Prediction: Stellan Skarsgård (Sentimental Value)
Best Supporting Actress
Four of five of the Oscar nominees were also nominated at the Golden Globes, where there were six actresses up for the award in the supporting category. Mosaku jumped into the mix, bumping out Emily Blunt and Elle Fanning – who appeared in “The Smashing Machine” and “Sentimental Value,” respectively. Taylor wound up winning the Golden Globe earlier this month. Ariana Grande, Fanning, Lilleaas, Madigan, Mosaku and Taylor were the nominees for the Critics Choice Awards, with Madigan coming out on top in that race. Odessa A’zion, Grande, Madigan, Mosaku and Taylor are the five nominees for the SAG-AFTRA Actor Awards.
In each of the past six years – including all four years of the 10 Best Picture nominees era – the Best Supporting Actress winner came from a film nominated for Best Picture. Only two of the last 22 Best Supporting Actress winners has come from the Best Picture winner, though, with Jamie Lee Curtis and Lupita Nyong’o bucking the trend in 2013 and 2023, respectively. If anyone can join that exclusive company, it’s Teyana Taylor, who put the first act of One Battle After Another on her shoulders with a powerhouse performance. Madigan is a threat to pull off an upset, but horror movies don’t have the best track record at the Oscars. The last Best Supporting Actress winner from a horror movie was Ruth Gordon in Rosemary’s Baby back in 1969. It came as a bit of a surprise, but Grande failed to pick up another nomination for her performance as Glinda the Good, while Fanning earned the nod for Sentimental Value and Mosaku added another nomination to Sinners‘ record-breaking total.
Prediction: Teyana Taylor (One Battle After Another)
Best Director
Paul Thomas Anderson is already carrying the season’s north star profile. He won Best Director at the Golden Globes, then backed it up with Best Director at the Critics Choice Awards, the kind of one-two that turns a respected contender into the default answer on a lot of ballots. Add that Anderson also grabbed the Golden Globe for Screenplay—a rare confirmation that the film’s authority is coming from the page and the camera in tandem.
This is the branch’s favorite kind of choice: the filmmaker whose movie feels completed in the camera—every beat paced, every image argued, every tonal pivot landing like it was inevitable. The season-long read you’re building into this piece matters, too. When the circuit keeps pointing at the same name for both direction and screenplay, it usually means voters are rewarding total authorship, not just moments.
The spoiler is Ryan Coogler (Sinners), because Director is where the Academy can make a clean, forceful statement in a crowded Best Picture year. If Picture fractures, and voters want to honor the year’s loudest act of orchestration, Coogler’s the pivot. But if the ballot follows the “most complete film grammar” instinct, Anderson’s the closer.
Prediction: Paul Thomas Anderson (One Battle After Another)
Best Original Screenplay
This category loves a script that feels like a movie, not a manuscript. Coogler’s lane is clean: authorial voice, muscular scene construction, and a narrative engine that plays on a big stage without turning into soft-focus “importance.” In a crowded Best Picture year, Original Screenplay is also the Academy’s favorite way to make a major statement without having to crown the whole film. If Sinners is in the conversation everywhere, this is the ballot where the craft gets honored directly, and where a filmmaker’s command of tone and consequence reads the loudest.
Coogler’s case is already backed by hardware—Sinners has picked up major screenplay wins at the Critics Choice Awards and the National Board of Review, plus additional critics-group writing prizes, which is exactly the kind of across-the-board momentum that usually converts in this category.
The one that can steal it is Trier & Vogt, Sentimental Value, because the Writers Branch can’t resist emotional precision when it’s this controlled. That’s the pure writing win—behavior, subtext, inevitability, character-driven diamonds utterly pulverized. But if the industry’s temperature is “screenwriting is the headline this year,” the Oscar often goes to the script that married ambition to reach. That’s Sinners.
Prediction: Ryan Coogler (Sinners)
Stay tuned for more 2026 Oscars predictions content over the coming months!
