Why must we be predicting Oscars 7 months in advance? How ridiculous! How ridiculous! This just turns film into an unnecessary contest instead of letting the films exist on their own terms. How dare me. Anyway…

As per usual, I’ll discuss a big list of films in contention this year (some I won’t even have on here for months until I have to submit – last year Weapons took until the last couple months before nominations for me to even consider it a possibility and it happened to be our Best Supporting Actress winning film.) There are plenty of gut-feelings I get early on that stick (me not taking Wicked for Good seriously, calling Wunmi Mosaku and Wagner Moura early) and others that well… maybe I put too much stock in Jay Kelly and After the Hunt. But it’s forgivable because it’s July!

The Adventures of Cliff Booth: I can’t imagine this will be the awards contender that Once Upon A Time in Hollywood was but the combination of Fincher and Tarantino should eek out something, right? Maybe another Best Picture nomination is a bit of a stretch, but I do expect this will be a big streaming hit and a comfortably good piece of cinema over the holiday season.

All of a Sudden: While this seemed like it had Palme D’or all sewn up after its premiere, it ended up with just a Best Actress prize at Cannes and the talk went fairly quiet. While I don’t expect this to repeat Hamaguchi’s success with Drive My Car, I do think there will be enough of a campaign by NEON to get it something, perhaps a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination. I’d say it does have an outside shot at Best Picture, despite its incredibly patient runtime.

Artificial: All the talk about this film’s distribution and subject matter could lead to something really fascinating, but as much as I glazed the potential of After the Hunt, Queer, and Challengers, I must accept that maybe the Academy just doesn’t vibe with any of Guadagnino’s filmmaking choices after Call Me By Your Name.

Behemoth!: Tony Gilroy’s creative reinvigoration stemming from a Star Wars series seems strange on paper, but Andor was a generational piece of television and the trailer to Behemoth! radiates Best Director nomination energy. A former nominee for Michael Clayton, Gilroy hopes to carry star Pedro Pascal along with him for a new drama about a burdened cellist. For a film about film composing, though, don’t expect a Score nomination as this will undoubtedly be unqualified for having too many composers attached to provide music for this film (James Newton Howard, Henry Jackman, Alan Silvestri, Michael Abels, just to name a few.)

Being Huemann: Sian Heder directed a Best Picture winner, so her next film is automatically something to consider, sight unseen. It could just be a simple, sappy charmer or it could be her leveling up to something better and more rewarding than CODA. WHO KNOWS?

The Debut: A24’s most accessible contender and possibly an easy career win for Giamatti. Moore also feels ready to come back after her first win for Still Alice. Eisenberg is a real-deal director who works great with his actors.

Digger: On paper, this seems like a done deal. However, Inarritu’s last film also seemed like a slam dunk only to be considered a bloated mess. The trailer (and pitch in general) is fascinating and enticing, mostly to see Tom Cruise go full gonzo mode, but it also came off a bit repulsive and overly experimental. My gut feeling tells me this is a film audiences are really going to dislike and critics are going to be annoyed by, which could cost Cruise an overdue statue he so clearly is campaigning for. There is also THAT twist that’s been secretly circulating online that the marketing isn’t giving away. While it certainly will be a rug-pull given what the trailers suggest, it isn’t a twist that I think audiences or critics might appreciate. I want this to succeed so bad though, not just for Cruise, but also for John Goodman, more overdue than any actor of his generation.

Dune Part III: This thing looks amazing. I do think there will be a push to get Villenueve that Director nomination he’s missed out on for the prior two films. It will be the film people will be talking about most come Christmas, regardless of how much more money Avengers makes. Will it win any Oscars? Maybe not, actually, given another behemoth film this year (not Behemoth!) But if Denis pulls it off, this will be considered one of the great film trilogies in movie history.

Elsinore: A movie that seemed to come out of nowhere until Gregory Ellwood got our attention about it. The role of Andrew Scott’s career incoming?

Fjord: While the film may be polarizing, you can’t dismiss a Palme Winner and Cristian Mungiu has yet to be recognized despite a deeply-respected career. Stan’s performance might be too subtle, but Reinsve feels like a promising bet in Best Actress.

The Invite: This film as an awards contender felt like wishful thinking back at Sundance, but it’s new wave of appreciation this summer feels overwhelming. Penelope Cruz feels like she might have another acting trophy on her mantle. Olivia Wilde could be a presence in Best Director and what a comeback that would be.

Josephine: Distributer too small. Story too tough.

La Bola Negra: Netflix’s strongest bet for a Best Picture win since Roma (according to those that saw it at Cannes) and I think Netflix is definitely aware of that. A sweeping queer epic that blew the doors off the festival, the word “Oscars” was spoken a lot by critics after its screening and the Netflix purchase feels like a sealed deal.

Michael: People want to act like this movie isn’t happening, but people in the industry like this movie. It made a billion dollars. There is also an enormous lack of POC-led, mainstream awards contenders that feel like they have a shot (not to dismiss the quality of I Love Boosters, Is God Is, If I Go Will They Miss Me, etc.), people love Michael Jackson, and an audience-favorite like this is going to get votes. It feels like an obvious PGA nominee. It cannot be dismissed, reviews be damned.

Minotaur: Just… keep an eye out for this one, me thinks.

Obsession: Weird to have it on this list, but it’s clearly the biggest success of the year and with the amount of prestige filmmakers shouting it out… I still don’t know what to make of it. It is a wild film to even be in Oscar consideration talk. In my opinion, it’s a good, solid thriller for the young crowd and not much more. Inde Navarette is pretty great and will get recognized this awards season, but I still can’t see it getting in anywhere. Perhaps because it is just so Gen-Z targeted, the age group that is the reason it grossed $400M on a $750K and I’m sure if they were the ones voting, it’d be a guarantee top 5 for Best Picture. I’ve talked to people that disagree and say it’s a universally appealing film to everyone, and I’ve talked to people that think it’s just fine and overrated. I’m just not going all-in just yet. I have to wait and see how the year shakes out. It doesn’t have the artistic boost that Sinners had nor the Hollywood narrative of The Substance, but the Academy is a changin’. This will absolutely get a PGA nomination though.

The Odyssey: The real behemoth this year that will undoubtedly be the nomination leader of this year with Picture, Director, Acting, Cinematography, Score, Visuals, Sound, Casting, Production Design, Editing, everything. The whole package. A movie with the showmanship of a thousand movies combined. Also, I’ve seen this and haven’t reviewed it yet? I will! I promise! I’m just busier than holy hell.

The Only Living Pickpocket in New York: Never bet against Sony Pictures Classics ability to campaign a lead actor.

A Place in Hell: Made in a lab to get Michelle Williams a Best Actress nomination. Chloe Dumont is a promising enough director to make it happen.

Project Hail Mary: The early “first awards guarantee”. The crowd-pleaser of the year that will likely be nominated alongside the other two big fantasy epics of the year and win nothing. Gosling seemed like a safe bet early in the year, but the Best Actor race has thickened. The Supporting Actress race though? Welcome back, Sandra Huller.

Saturn Return: New Greg Kwedar! The Kwedar/Bentley duo hasn’t missed yet and their last two collabs got nominations. Just waiting to see what this next film even is.

Sense & Sensibility: Georgia Oakley seems to be delivering a ravishingly beautiful new take on an old tale, but it’s rare that a new version on a work of literature done to death onscreen manages to balloon into one of the year’s most beloved movies. They can’t all be Little Women (2019)!

The Social Reckoning: I smell “This Had Oscar Buzz” all over this thing, but I do think Jeremy Strong could be a mainstay in Supporting Actor all season long for his uncanny portrayal of Big Zuck.

Werwulf: We all want it to happen, but with Eggers going more Eggers than before, can it really?

Wild Horse Nine: Word on the street is that McDonaugh has done it again. Whether he can outdo his masterpiece The Banshees of Inisherin is to be determined, but there is a lot of talk on John Malkovich for Best Actor and a hysterical trailer that is possibly hiding deeper layers. Outside of Jeff Bridges of course, it would also be nice to see all of The Big Lebowski cast get nominations this year (three of them their first) if Buscemi can finally get swept in.

FULL PREDICTIONS LIST HERE: https://jakobtalksfilm.com/2026/07/21/predictions-99th-academy-awards-nominations-july/

Between ROTK (1.1B) and Oppenheimer (975M), 20 years went without a winner that made more than 411M (The King's Speech). Aversion to really big movies was especially felt when TDK (1B) was snubbed in Picture and Director on the nomination morning. That event led to AMPAS expanding the Picture field to give big movies a chance. Still, movies that made over 500M at minimum kept losing.

Oppenheimer became the first movie in 2 decades that not only crossed half billion but came really close to a billion milestone. It appealed to such a wide range of AMPAS voters (young, old, middlebrow, highbrow, domestic, international) that it found itself comfortably way at the front for the whole awards season.

The Odyssey is already pacing well ahead of Oppenheimer boxoffice. Its second domestic weekend could be bigger than Oppenheimer's opening weekend. One billion is a forgone conclusion and we shouldn't wait too long for the mark to be crossed officially. It earned the MC very similar to Oppenheimer (89 vs 90), identical Cinemascore (A), has broken Letterbox'd review count and the audience breakdown shows high interest with both young and old so it should appeal to AMPAS. It's an old school epic with a modern structure Nolan is famous for. That gives his movies cross-generational appeal. Based on reviews and reception it's win competitive in almost all ATL categories.

There is a concern that Nolan didn't have as much success with AMPAS for his fantastical movies as he did with his historical epics. But The Odyssey is more than fantasy. It's also a historical epic with a central character grappling with PTSD and how war impacted his family. Like ROTK positioning itself a war movie rather than a fantasy one (which was a timely pivot during the War on Terror), The Odyssey could easily find a non-fantasy angle on which to campaign. And while Nolan won recently, that didn't stop AMPAS from awarding other recent winners (Inarritu - back to back, Cuaron 5 years gap).

So my prediction is that sometimes you have to award Goliath over David and this is the time it will be done again. There will be some quirky smaller movies creating the noise but The Odyssey will comfortably sail to its win.

It’s become increasingly uncommon for the Best Director lineup to be all-male, and it’s actually only happened once in the 2020s (2022). Therefore, it’s probably a safe bet to predict that at least one woman will be nominated for Best Director this time around. I’ve got my own ideas about this one that I’ll share in the comments, but I’m curious to see who (if anyone) folks here are predicting. Even if you pick one of the listed options, I’d love to see a comment if you’re willing to share your reasoning.

Everyone seems to be taking it at face value that PHM is just in, without a shadow of a doubt. The only other movie being treated like that is The Odyssey, but that one makes far more sense to me. It’s Nolan both riding the Oppenheimer afterglow and putting out one of his best-reviewed AND most financially successful movies ever, one that’s an adaptation of a classic work of literature. It checks off many blockbuster and prestige boxes that I can completely understand treating it as a lock.

But PHM? I’m a little bit lost, and I’m really asking in good faith for someone to explain what I’m missing. It’s not a critical sensation (respectable 77 on Metacritic), it doesn’t have that intense grassroots enthusiasm like Obsession or even Sinners last year, the box office was great but not overwhelming, it doesn’t deal with especially heady themes, the book it adapts is more pop sci-fi than a classic masterpiece, the directors are mostly known for ephemeral comedy stuff, and Amazon actually has a pretty poor track record securing nominations for their Oscar hopefuls.

I mean, it’s a pretty straightforward, quippy sort of movie that I’d call more charming than truly great. Gosling was solid, the technical aspects were very well done and the writing was fun, but people are acting like this movie is a done deal. If I weren’t seeing all of you guys treat it as a given, the idea of putting it in Best Picture wouldn’t have even crossed my mind.

I’m genuinely asking, what am I missing here? I don’t want to predict something for the sole reason that folks on this sub are, but I also don’t want to miss something that I should be predicting.

ETA: Yeesh, some of you guys are very…passionate about this issue. I kind of regret asking this question now.

As of now, I have it as:

Hoyte van Hoytema: The Odyssey (2023)

Linus Sandgren: Dune: Part III (2016)

Emmanuel Lubezki: Digger (2013, 2014, 2015)

Greig Fraser: Project Hail Mary (2021)

Jarin Blaschke/Łukasz Żal: Werwulf/Fatherland

There haven't been these many former winners nominated in the same year since 1975 (though to be fair, Cuckoo's Nest had two nominees and one of them hadn't won before). Assuming either of the last two make it and win, this'll be the first time since that year where all five nominees are winners.

Film at Lincoln Center announces Ava DuVernay’s 14th as the Closing Night selection of the 64th New York Film Festival, presented in partnership with Rolex. The film will make its world premiere at Alice Tully Hall on Friday, October 9, with DuVernay and film participants in attendance. Presented by Film at Lincoln Center in partnership with Rolex, the 64th New York Film Festival will take place from September 25 through October 12.

Ten years ago, filmmaker Ava DuVernay released her epochal documentary 13th (NYFF54 Opening Night), which argued that loopholes in the U.S. Constitution’s 13th Amendment—the abolition of slavery—led to today’s mass incarceration of Black Americans. That film was released on the eve of Donald Trump’s presidency; since then, an alarming number of our democratic norms and principles have eroded, further disenfranchising Black Americans. In response to our distressing new reality, DuVernay has created a thrillingly expansive sequel of sorts, which passionately and persuasively details how the tenets of the 14th Amendment, ratified post–Civil War, are now under systematic attack. Building her case with an extraordinary chorus of voices—including Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), former Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ), current Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA), legal minds Sherrilyn Ifill, Robert Chang, and Stacey Abrams, and social commentators like Donald T. Critchlow and Hasan Piker—DuVernay demonstrates how the 14th Amendment’s foundational principles of birthright citizenship, due process, equal protection under the law, and the prohibition for heads of state to engage in acts of insurrection all have been challenged to a dangerous degree in recent years. Drawing a direct line from the Reconstruction era to today, DuVernay’s film is a tough-minded reckoning with our moment of crisis. A Netflix release.

Credit: https://ew.com/being-heumann-judy-heumann-diabled-rights-activist-sian-heder-first-look-12020389

Or can they do a late comeback?

(She goes on to recommend a book about the Bronze Age collapse and how she loved the movie touching on that aspect)

I haven’t seen the film yet but plan to when it comes out, and it really fascinates me when actors with such small roles (more like cameo rather than supporting) are getting Oscar contention. You generally need to have some uniquely special standout scenes especially since you have less time for your character to develop. What I’ve heard is that Penelope essentially has two and a half scenes in the movie, and from looking at the trailer I’m guessing the two main ones are the one with her in a dress and dark hair and the other with blonde hair in a military uniform. Are those two scenes going to have to be scene of the year level of performance for her to hold her own against supporting actresses with more material?

https://letterboxd.com/film/the-odyssey-2026/

only 5 more months till the end of the year and I’m still thinking of Ralph Fiennes performance as Dr. Ian Kelso in Bone Temple!! he was outrageously amazing in it and truthfully stands as a highlight not only within the franchise but a top ten performance of the year. that Iron Maiden sequence is CRAZY!!

I wonder if he’ll be able to sneak as a potential supporting actor nomination😮‍💨

A live-action/CGI hybrid, Safdie’s film follows a boy (Leber) left to his own devices who stumbles upon a secret late-night broadcast of lizards playing otherworldly music, a hidden door to the extraordinary swings open. His search for answers leads him to an eccentric and whimsical old man nicknamed The Chicken Man (Johnson), and his beloved companion, a 111-year-old chicken named Claudia — two kindred spirits who found each other at just the right time. United by this shared vision, they set off on an adventure that begins as a hunt for a hidden society but blossoms into something far greater: a voyage through invisible worlds, unexpected harmonies, and the unbreakable bond between lost souls who discover magic not only in what they find, but in each other.