The countdown is officially on. With just days left before Hollywood’s biggest night, the oscar best film nominations 2026 have sparked more debate, passion, and genuine excitement than the Academy Awards race has seen in years. Ten extraordinary films are fighting for the top prize at the 98th Academy Awards, set to take place Sunday, March 15, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. Conan O’Brien returns as host for the second year in a row, and the night promises to be one for the history books.
Whether you’ve seen all ten films or you’re just now catching up before the ceremony, here’s everything you need to know about this year’s Best Picture contenders, the records being broken, and why this particular Oscar race has the entire film world holding its breath.
[Read this before Sunday — your complete guide to every Best Picture contender is below ↓]
Sinners Is Making Oscar History Before a Single Award Is Handed Out
No film this awards season has generated more buzz than Sinners, Ryan Coogler’s supernatural horror drama set in the Jim Crow South. The film earned a staggering 16 Oscar nominations — the most in Academy Awards history, surpassing the previous record of 14 nominations shared by All About Eve, Titanic, and La La Land.
Michael B. Jordan delivers career-defining work in dual roles as twin brothers Smoke and Stack, who return to their Mississippi hometown to open a juke joint, only to find themselves confronting a spreading supernatural evil. The supporting cast, including Delroy Lindo, Wunmi Mosaku, Hailee Steinfeld, and Miles Caton, earned widespread critical praise. Sinners also set another record: the most Black individuals nominated for a single film in Oscar history, with ten nominees tied to the production.
The film won for Cinematic and Box Office Achievement and Best Original Score at the 2026 Golden Globes and led the Critics’ Choice Awards nominations with 17 nods.
One Battle After Another Is the Other Film to Beat
Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another stands as Sinners’ strongest rival. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio as a paranoid former revolutionary named Pat Calhoun, the sprawling political dramedy received 13 Oscar nominations — including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for DiCaprio, and multiple supporting acting nominations for Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, and Teyana Taylor. The film won Best Picture at the 2026 Golden Globes and earned a record seven nominations at the 2026 Actors Awards.
The Full List of 2026 Best Picture Nominees
This year’s Best Picture field is genuinely diverse in genre, geography, and tone. The ten nominees are:
- Sinners — Ryan Coogler’s record-breaking supernatural Southern Gothic
- One Battle After Another — Paul Thomas Anderson’s political action dramedy with an all-star cast
- Hamnet — Chloé Zhao’s adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s novel about Shakespeare’s family tragedy, starring Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley; winner of the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Drama
- Marty Supreme — Josh Safdie’s table tennis sports dramedy starring Timothée Chalamet, who won the Golden Globe for Best Actor for the role
- Frankenstein — Guillermo del Toro’s long-awaited gothic adaptation of Mary Shelley’s novel, starring Oscar Isaac and Jacob Elordi
- The Secret Agent — Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Brazilian neo-noir political thriller, the most awarded film at Cannes this cycle, earning Wagner Moura the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Drama
- F1: The Movie — Joseph Kosinski’s racing drama starring Brad Pitt as a retired Formula 1 driver
- Sentimental Value — Joachim Trier’s intimate Norwegian family drama starring Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgård, and Elle Fanning
- Train Dreams — Clint Bentley’s lyrical period drama starring Joel Edgerton, based on Denis Johnson’s celebrated novella
- Bugonia — Yorgos Lanthimos’s dark satirical comedy starring Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons
A Historic Year for Genre and Global Cinema
One of the most talked-about aspects of this Oscar race is what it says about the Academy’s evolving tastes. Sinners becoming the most nominated film ever marks a turning point for genre cinema and Black filmmaking at the Oscars — a horror film has not won Best Picture since The Silence of the Lambs in 1992. The inclusion of The Secret Agent and Sentimental Value — films predominantly in Portuguese and Norwegian, respectively — signals continued openness to international storytelling in the Best Picture category.
Hamnet and Train Dreams represent the quieter, more literary end of the spectrum, while Marty Supreme, F1, and Bugonia bring propulsive energy and crowd-pleasing momentum to a lineup that rarely feels this balanced.
New Category, New History
The 98th Academy Awards will also debut a brand-new competitive category: Best Casting. It is the first new Oscar category introduced since Best Animated Feature in 2001. Several of the Best Picture nominees, including Sinners, One Battle After Another, Hamnet, and Marty Supreme, are also nominated in this inaugural category. The Academy’s Casting Directors Branch, established in 2013, finally gets its moment on the main stage.
What to Expect on Oscar Night
The ceremony airs live on ABC and streams on Hulu starting at 7 p.m. ET on March 15. The pre-show will be hosted by Tamron Hall and Jesse Palmer. Among the night’s special moments, Sinners star Miles Caton and legendary songwriter Raphael Saadiq will perform the nominated original song “I Lied to You,” joined by a remarkable ensemble including Brittany Howard, Buddy Guy, Shaboozey, Alice Smith, and ballet dancer Misty Copeland.
With the Academy honoring a record-setting genre film alongside prestige literary adaptations and international cinema, the 2026 Oscars feel less like a predictable coronation and more like a genuine competition. The race between Sinners and One Battle After Another has film fans, critics, and industry insiders genuinely divided — and that kind of suspense is exactly what makes Oscar night worth watching.
Which film do you think deserves to take home Best Picture this Sunday? Drop your pick in the comments and check back after the ceremony for full results and highlights.