As the Venice, Telluride, and Toronto Film Festivals kick off, awards season is about to begin for another year. The first wave of awards contenders will be unveiled for those lucky enough to be in attendance, meaning it’s time to launch Filmotomy’s coverage of the 2026/27 season. Welcome back, folks. Let’s look at what’s been seen, what’s to come, and my first Oscars predictions of the season.
As is tradition, we’ll start with the studio that took home Best Picture last year. When Warner Bros. announced that Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another would be shunning the fall festival season last year, many eyebrows were raised. It was a curious move that some thought may have signalled either an issue with the film’s quality or WB’s lack of confidence that it could be an awards contender. In the end, neither suspicion proved true, and the film went on to dominate the precursor season and ultimately take home six Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
Warner Bros. will be hoping to replicate that run with Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Digger, which is also steering clear of the fall festivals and will instead focus on its wide release on October 2. Expect to see its world premiere sometime in late September, or it could have a surprise debut at the New York Film Festival like Marty Supreme last year. The first trailer drew a divisive reaction. Some have declared it looks like a masterpiece. Others believe it looks like an OTT mess. Iñárritu has never been a subtle filmmaker, so time will tell how his latest will be received.
WB will also have Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Three dropping in December. While the first film scored 10 Oscar noms and six wins, its sequel only netted five nods and two wins. Still, that’s a better result than most sequels can dream of (hello, Wicked: For Good). Even The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers saw a huge drop in nominations from its predecessor, before its follow-up, The Return of the King, went on to win all 11 of its nominations. Could this be Villeneuve’s coronation à la Peter Jackson in 2003?
Much like they did in 2023, Universal holds the undeniable frontrunner as the season gets underway. And it just so happens to be another film from Christopher Nolan. But can Nolan really do it all again just three years after Oppenheimer swept the Oscars with seven wins from 13 nominations? With a staggering box office take of $1.5 billion and counting, plus rave reviews across the board, The Odyssey could absolutely replicate everything Oppenheimer achieved. Universal has nothing else on its awards slate, so you know they will be throwing everything they have at this.
Once an awards season darling, Searchlight Pictures struggled to find any luck last year. For the first time in 20 years, they failed to receive a single nomination after films like Rental Family, Is This Thing On?, and The Testament of Ann Lee were completely snubbed. They’ll likely find better luck this season with Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine. McDonagh’s previous two films, The Banshees of Inisherin and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, scored 16 nods collectively. McDonagh was likely the runner-up for Best Original Screenplay in both years, and both films were strongly in contention for Best Picture, so this could finally be his year.
Searchlight will also have Tony Gilroy’s Behemoth!, starring Pedro Pascal, who’s clearly attempting to transition from his Star Wars and Marvel personas into being a “serious actor.” The film centres on a gifted cellist who returns home after 20 years on the road before heading on an “adventure that will change him forever.” It screams Oscar bait, and that didn’t work out so well for something like Is This Thing On?. It’s shunning the early festivals and won’t premiere until NYFF in early October, so time will tell.
As they have in the past, indie darling A24 joined the awards race early with Olivia Wilde’s The Invite earning rave reviews and solid $50 million at the box office back in July. This strategy hasn’t worked out so well in the past. Both 2023’s Past Lives and 2024’s Sing Sing released at similar times and felt like major awards players before fading to nab only a couple of nominations each. One can only hope Wilde’s brilliantly funny and surprisingly deep little gem doesn’t suffer the same fate.
A24 will also have Jesse Eisenberg’s The Debut, which feels like one of the buzziest films coming at the fall festivals. Oscar winner Julianne Moore joins Oscar bridesmaid Paul Giamatti in a musical comedy centred on a shy woman who is unexpectedly cast in a local production of an original musical directed by a strong-willed and enigmatic director. Yes, it’s the plot of that The Simpsons episode where Marge plays Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire. But, hey, Eisenberg’s previous film A Real Pain nabbed two Oscar nods, so he could deliver again.
Back in June, NEON scored its seventh consecutive Palme d’Or win when Cristian Mungiu’s Fjord picked up Cannes’ top honour. They’ll be hoping it can score better awards success than last year’s It Was Just an Accident, which started the season strong but fell off a cliff and only landed a nod for Best International Feature Film. Despite containing a hefty amount of English dialogue, NEON has confirmed Fjord will qualify for that category. And, under the Academy’s new rules, its Palme d’Or win meant it didn’t technically need a country to select it as its official submission, but we’ve just learnt Romania has indeed selected it. It’s looking likely to be a major contender across the board and should be NEON’s major focus this season.
After it was shockingly dumped by Amazon MGM Studios in June, NEON has also picked up Luca Guadagnino’s Artificial, the supposedly unflinching look at the life of Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI. In recent years, Guadagnino has struggled to get back into the good graces of the Academy. His last three films, After the Hunt, Queer, and Challengers, all failed to land any nominations. But with pertinent subject matter and a stacked ensemble cast headed by Andrew Garfield, this could be the one to lead Guadagnino back to awards season adoration.
Sony Pictures is handling one of the biggest question marks of the season – Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Reckoning, the “companion piece” to David Fincher’s 2010 masterpiece The Social Network. After Fincher and Oscar-nominated star Jesse Eisenberg declined to return, Sorkin is stepping into the director’s chair to return to the world of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, now played by Jeremy Strong. Can Sorkin possibly recapture the magic of one of the most acclaimed films of the 21st century? The film is following the Digger route and side-stepping the fall festivals and will instead premiere in early October.
After leading Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet to eight nominations and a win for Best Actress for Jessie Buckley last year, Focus Features has a few contenders up their sleeve. Georgia Oakley’s Sense and Sensibility will be looking to replicate the awards success of Ang Lee’s 1995 seven-time nominated adaptation. Andrew Scott has felt on the cusp of his first Oscar nomination for a few years now, and Simon Stone’s Elsinore could be the film to do it. Whether it’s a broader contender overall remains to be seen, but it looks like a meaty role for Scott. Focus will also have Robert Eggers’ Werwulf dropping on Christmas Day. Many were begging for the Academy to acknowledge Eggers’ Nosferatu in 2024, so expect a similar chorus surrounding this one.
But the awards season focus of, uh, Focus might end up being the box office surprise success story of 2026. Films like The Substance and Weapons have proven the age of the Academy shunning horror films might finally be over, and Curry Barker’s Obsession might be next in line to land some Oscar love. Made for just $750,000, Obsession stunned pundits to earn over $500 million worldwide. Add in rave reviews and a breakthrough lead performance from Inde Navarrette, and this has all the right ingredients for awards season success.
And then there are the streamers. After a strong premiere at Cannes, Netflix beat out Mubi and NEON for the distribution rights to Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi’s sweeping queer epic La Bola Negra. Netflix has committed to giving the film a four-week theatrical release in mid-October (highly unusual for them), and it feels like this is going to be the horse they’re really going to back this season. They’ll also have Danny Boyle’s Ink, a look at the rise of Rupert Murdoch’s notorious The Sun newspaper, and David Fincher’s The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth, the spin-off of Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood centred on the titular character that won Brad Pitt an Oscar in 2019.
Amazon MGM Studios finally scored a big box office win way back in March with Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s sci-fi gem Project Hail Mary. With a Rotten Tomatoes score of 95% and a box office take of $684 million worldwide, it’s one of the biggest success stories of the year. And it will undoubtedly be Amazon’s major push this season. They’ll also have Peter Farrelly’s I Play Rocky, a biopic centred on Sylvester Stallone and the development and production of the film that would make him a star.
After landing 19 nominations last year with films like Sentimental Value, The Secret Agent, and It Was Just an Accident, Mubi returns with two hugely acclaimed international films, Paweł Pawlikowski’s Fatherland and Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Minotaur. Pawlikowski is an Academy darling, so Fatherland could be this year’s Sentimental Value and land nominations across the board. And all eyes will be on France to see if they select Zvyagintsev’s scathing portrait of corruption in Putin’s Russia as their submission for Best International Feature Film.
That wraps up a wider view of the entire race as it stands right now, but others may emerge from under the radar as the festivals get underway. There are still months ahead to dig more deeply into each category, plus a plethora of incoming precursor awards that generally begin to shape how the race plays out. Below are my first predictions for the season in 21 categories and my early predicted winners in bold. Let the games begin!
BEST PICTURE
The Debut (A24)
Digger (Warner Bros.)
Dune: Part Three (Warner Bros.)
Fjord (NEON)
The Invite (A24)
La Bola Negra (Netflix)
Obsession (Focus Features)
The Odyssey (Universal Pictures)
Project Hail Mary (Amazon MGM Studios)
Wild Horse Nine (Searchlight Pictures)
BEST DIRECTOR
Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo – La Bola Negra (Netflix)
Alejandro González Iñárritu – Digger (Warner Bros.)
Martin McDonagh – Wild Horse Nine (Searchlight Pictures)
Christopher Nolan – The Odyssey (Universal Pictures)
Olivia Wilde – The Invite (A24)
BEST ACTRESS
Cynthia Erivo – Prima Facie (TBC)
Sandra Hüller – Fatherland (MUBI)
Julianne Moore – The Debut (A24)
Inde Navarrette – Obsession (Focus Features)
Renate Reinsve – Fjord (NEON)
BEST ACTOR
Tom Cruise – Digger (Warner Bros.)
Matt Damon – The Odyssey (Universal Pictures)
Ryan Gosling – Project Hail Mary (Amazon MGM Studios)
John Malkovich – Wild Horse Nine (Searchlight Pictures)
Andrew Scott – Elsinore (Focus Features)
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Olivia Colman – Elsinore (Focus Features)
Penélope Cruz – La Bola Negra (Netflix)
Mariana di Girolamo – Wild Horse Nine (Searchlight Pictures)
Anne Hathaway – The Odyssey (Universal Pictures)
Tao Okamoto – All of a Sudden (NEON)
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Steve Buscemi – Wild Horse Nine (Searchlight Pictures)
Paul Giamatti – The Debut (A24)
John Goodman – Digger (Warner Bros.)
John Leguizamo – The Odyssey (Universal Pictures)
Sam Rockwell – Wild Horse Nine (Searchlight Pictures)
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
The Invite – Rashida Jones and Will McCormack (A24)
La Bola Negra – Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo (Netflix)
The Odyssey – Christopher Nolan (Universal Pictures)
Project Hail Mary – Drew Goddard (Amazon MGM Studios)
The Social Reckoning – Aaron Sorkin (Sony Pictures)
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
The Debut – Jesse Eisenberg (A24)
Digger – Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Alexander Dinelaris, and Nicolás Giacobone (Warner Bros.)
Fjord – Cristian Mungiu (NEON)
Obsession – Curry Barker (Focus Features)
Wild Horse Nine – Martin McDonagh (Searchlight Pictures)
BEST CASTING
Dune: Part Three – Francine Maisler (Warner Bros.)
Fjord – Hannah Chocron Foldøy (NEON)
La Bola Negra – Eva Leira and Yolanda Serrano(Netflix)
The Odyssey – John Papsidera (Universal Pictures)
Wild Horse Nine – Sarah Halley Finn and Jacqueline Gallagher (Searchlight Pictures)
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Digger – Emmanuel Lubezki (Warner Bros.)
Dune: Part Three – Lunus Sandgren (Warner Bros.)
La Bola Negra – Gris Jordana (Netflix)
The Odyssey – Hoyte van Hoytema (Universal Pictures)
Project Hail Mary – Greig Fraser (Amazon MGM Studios)
BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Dune: Part Three – Jacqueline West (Warner Bros.)
La Bola Negra – Ana López Cobos (Netflix)
Michael – Marci Rodgers (Lionsgate)
The Odyssey – Ellen Mirojnick (Universal Pictures)
Sense & Sensibility – Grace Snell (Focus Features)
BEST FILM EDITING
Digger – Stephen Mirrione and Conor O’Neill (Warner Bros.)
Dune: Part Three – Joe Walker (Warner Bros.)
La Bola Negra – Alberto Gutiérrez (Netflix)
The Odyssey – Jennifer Lame (Universal Pictures)
Wild Horse Nine – Mikkel E.G. Nielsen (Searchlight Pictures)
BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
Digger (Warner Bros.)
Dune: Part Three (Warner Bros.)
I Play Rocky (Amazon MGM Studios)
Michael (Lionsgate)
The Odyssey (Universal Pictures)
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
The Debut – Emile Mosseri (A24)
Digger – Cosmo Sheldrake (Warner Bros.)
Dune: Part Three – Hans Zimmer (Warner Bros.)
The Odyssey – Ludwig Göransson (Universal Pictures)
Wild Horse Nine – Carter Burwell (Searchlight Pictures)
BEST ORIGINAL SONG
“By Any Means” from By Any Means (Paramount Pictures)
“TBA” from The Debut (A24)
“Shape of a Woman” from The Devil Wears Prada 2 (20th Century Studios)
“When I’m Home” from The Odyssey (Universal Pictures)
“I Knew It, I Knew You” from Toy Story 5 (Disney/Pixar)
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
Digger (Warner Bros.)
Dune: Part Three (Warner Bros.)
La Bola Negra (Netflix)
The Odyssey (Universal Pictures)
Werwulf (Focus Features)
BEST SOUND
Dune: Part Three (Warner Bros.)
La Bola Negra (Netflix)
Michael (Lionsgate)
Project Hail Mary (Amazon MGM Studios)
The Odyssey (Universal Pictures)
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Dune: Part Three (Warner Bros.)
Godzilla Minus Zero (Toho)
The Odyssey (Universal Pictures)
Project Hail Mary (Amazon MGM Studios)
Spider-Man: Brand New Day (Sony Pictures)
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Forgotten Island (DreamWorks Animation)
Hoppers (Disney/Pixar)
Ray Gunn (Netflix)
Toy Story 5 (Disney/Pixar)
Wildwood (Laika)
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
The History of Concrete (Magnolia Pictures)
Musk (Bleecker Street)
Once Upon a Time in Harlem (NEON)
One in a Million (PBS Documentary Films)
Who Is Still Alive (Watermelon Pictures)
BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM
All of a Sudden (Japan)
Coward (Belgium)
Fjord (Romania)
La Bola Negra (Spain)
Minotaur (France)