The race on paper is decided. One Battle After Another has crossed into -750 territory for Best Picture and Paul Thomas Anderson sits at 93% implied probability for Best Director — numbers that move only in one direction on ceremony night. The interesting questions now are underneath: whether Sinners, with its all-time record 16 nominations, can convert that breadth into historic wins; whether the acting races, which have been genuinely competitive all season, break the way the market expects. Here is how we see it.
Major Categories
Best Picture10 nominees • Presented last
Frontrunner
One Battle After Another −750
dir. Paul Thomas Anderson
PTA’s Pynchon adaptation swept the DGA, WGA, and PGA. When a film wins all three major precursors, it wins Best Picture. The market has priced this as near-certain.
Dark Horse
Sinners
dir. Ryan Coogler
Sixteen nominations is the all-time record. The film is beloved. If there is a collective vote to make history and send a statement about what kind of cinema the Academy wants to celebrate, Sinners is the beneficiary. A long shot, but the most meaningful one in this field.
Our Pick
One Battle After Another
The guild sweep doesn’t lie. PTA wins his first Best Picture Oscar.
Best Director
Frontrunner
Paul Thomas Anderson 93%
One Battle After Another
Won DGA. After nominations for Boogie Nights, Magnolia, There Will Be Blood, The Master, and Phantom Thread, Anderson has never won. The Academy has been waiting for the right film to right that wrong. This is it.
Dark Horse
Ryan Coogler
Sinners
Making a film this formally ambitious — a supernatural horror epic rooted in the specific textures of 1932 Mississippi — and executing it at this level would be a historic win. The sentiment exists even if the market doesn’t reflect it.
Our Pick
Paul Thomas Anderson
The DGA has been wrong about Best Director twice in 25 years. This is not one of those years.
Best ActorPresenter: Adrien Brody
Frontrunner
Michael B. Jordan
Sinners
Won SAG. Playing twin brothers in the year’s most-nominated film, Jordan is its emotional core. The SAG win is the single best predictor of this category and the markets sit at 65%. The circuit has been slower to align here than in other years, but the money has moved decisively Jordan’s way.
Dark Horse
Timothée Chalamet
Marty Supreme
Won BAFTA and Critics Choice. Playing a ping-pong obsessive with full Safdie Brothers intensity, Chalamet delivers what critics have called a career-best performance. The most plausible upset on the ballot — but a Chalamet win would rank among the bigger surprises in recent memory.
Our Pick
Michael B. Jordan
The SAG win almost always predicts the envelope. We follow the money here, and the money says Jordan.
Best ActressPresenter: Mikey Madison
Frontrunner
Jessie Buckley
Hamnet
Won Globe, BAFTA, SAG, and Critics Choice. Her portrayal of Agnes, Shakespeare’s wife navigating impossible grief, has swept every major precursor in the category. At 91% on the betting markets, this is the closest thing to a certainty on Sunday’s ballot.
Dark Horse
Renate Reinsve
Sentimental Value
Already a Cannes icon for The Worst Person in the World, Reinsve’s performance in Joachim Trier’s latest is described as even more devastating. The only plausible upset, but the market and the precursors both point decisively elsewhere.
Our Pick
Jessie Buckley
Four major precursor wins. This race ended weeks ago.
Best Supporting ActorPresenter: Kieran Culkin
Frontrunner
Sean Penn
One Battle After Another
At 81% on the betting markets, Penn is the clearest lock in any supporting category. His turn as a world-weary radical priest in PTA’s film has been described as the kind of late-career character work that Academy voters remember for decades. Part of One Battle’s expected sweep.
Dark Horse
Delroy Lindo
Sinners
One of the most beloved character actors in American cinema, Lindo received a historic injustice when he wasn’t even nominated for Da 5 Bloods. The Academy has a long memory. His work in Sinners is revelatory — and if the film has a strong night, this is the category where sentiment could override the market.
Our Pick
Delroy Lindo
The market says Penn. Our heart says Lindo. Thirty-plus years of great work and the Academy will be staring at a second chance. We’re taking the contrarian position.
Best Supporting ActressPresenter: Zoë Saldaña
Frontrunner
Amy Madigan
Weapons
Sitting at 53% on the betting markets — a majority, but barely. Madigan has the most consolidated support in a fractured field. Her work in Weapons has been praised as quietly devastating, a performance built on restraint rather than showmanship. The branch tends to reward that.
Dark Horse
Wunmi Mosaku
Sinners
An otherworldly presence at the center of Coogler’s mythology, Mosaku gives the film much of its spiritual gravity. At 22%, she’s the most plausible alternative in the only genuinely open race of the night. If the Sinners wave builds on Sunday, this category is where it could show up.
Our Pick
Wunmi Mosaku
53% is a thin lead for a frontrunner. We think the Sinners voters show up here. This is our upset pick of the night.
Best Original Screenplay
Frontrunner
Ryan Coogler
Sinners
Won WGA Original. A wholly original work that constructs an entire mythology — historical, supernatural, musical — from the ground up. If Sinners wins anywhere outside the technical categories, this is the most likely place.
Dark Horse
Eskil Vogt & Joachim Trier
Sentimental Value
The Norwegian writing team behind The Worst Person in the World has delivered another precisely observed original. If Sentimental Value has a strong night, this could convert.
Our Pick
Ryan Coogler
Coogler wins the writing Oscar for a film the Academy loves but won’t give Best Picture.
Best Adapted Screenplay
Frontrunner
Paul Thomas Anderson
One Battle After Another
Adapting Thomas Pynchon — notoriously considered unfilmable — into a coherent, emotionally resonant, formally brilliant film is itself award-worthy. Won WGA Adapted. Part of PTA’s expected sweep.
Dark Horse
Chloé Zhao & Maggie O’Farrell
Hamnet
Adapting O’Farrell’s beloved novel while honoring its emotional invention is no small feat. If voters want to reward Hamnet’s quiet excellence somewhere, this is where.
Our Pick
Paul Thomas Anderson
PTA could be holding two Oscars by end of night.
Technical & Below the Line
Best Original Score
Ludwig Göransson
Sinners
Göransson fuses the blues tradition with orchestral composition in a way critics called unlike anything in recent cinema. His second Oscar after Black Panther.
Best Original Song
“I Lied To You”
Sinners
Performed live at the ceremony by Miles Caton and Raphael Saadiq with a full ensemble. The live performance will be watched by 18 million people. That almost always wins.
Best Cinematography
Sinners
DP: Autumn Durald Arkapaw
The blues-drenched visual language of 1930s Mississippi, captured on film with extraordinary attention to natural light and period texture. ASC award winner.
Best Film Editing
Sinners
Ryan Coogler, dir.
With One Battle favored for the top prize, editing could break for Sinners as part of its technical sweep.
Best Production Design
Frankenstein
Guillermo del Toro, dir.
Del Toro’s gothic world-building is the film’s most visible achievement — period architecture, creature design, hand-crafted detail throughout.
Best Animated Feature
Zootopia 2
Walt Disney Animation
Disney Animation’s polished storytelling tends to dominate this category in high-competition years.
Best International Feature
Sentimental Value
Norway
With acting and screenplay nominations, Sentimental Value has the broadest Academy support of any international entry. Trier’s third Oscar-nominated film in this slot.
Best Casting (new category)
Sinners
Ryan Coogler, dir.
The first-ever Oscar in this category goes to whoever assembled the extraordinary ensemble at the center of 2026’s most-nominated film.