In 2007, just as the Oscar voting period reached its end, Eddie Murphy released Norbit. The immortal tale of a gawky dweeb (Murphy) married to a morbidly obese woman (also Murphy), Norbit was such an earth-shaking failure that many theorised it actively lost Murphy his once all-but-guaranteed Oscar for Dreamgirls.
Flash forward to 2026, and the Eddie Murphy of today may well be Hamnet’s Jessie Buckley, her Norbit being Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Frankenstein redo The Bride!, her “morbidly obese woman” a cackling 1930s flapper possessed by the ghost of Mary Shelley. The Bride! has received an energetic drubbing, with Buckley described as giving a performance “so astonishingly poor and so catastrophically ill-judged that it almost needs to be seen to be believed”. And that was in The Times! Could it really be bad enough to kill her Oscar chances?
Of course, all this Buckley-losing speculation may just be proof that this awards season has gone on too long and everyone’s a bit bored. We’re days away from Sunday’s ceremony – new, dramatic possibilities must be entertained! See also: the discourse surrounding last week’s mysteriously unearthed clip of Buckley wishing death upon all cats (or something).
That said, who would have thought that in a season dominated by the idea of Timothée Chalamet finally getting his Oscar for Marty Supreme, Sinners star Michael B Jordan suddenly seems likely to beat him to the Best Actor trophy?
Taking in all these last-minute developments, we’ve cast an eye over the major Oscar categories (the full list can be found here) and decided who we think will likely win, who really should win, and who should have got a look-in.
Best Picture
Bugonia
F1
Frankenstein
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
The Secret Agent
Sinners
Sentimental Value
Train Dreams
Will win: One Battle After Another
Should win: One Battle After Another
Shoulda got a look-in: It Was Just an Accident
Last month, Bafta and the BBC abandoned any sense of duty of care and left both the Tourette syndrome campaigner John Davidson and the Sinners stars Michael B Jordan and Delroy Lindo flailing in the wind. As you will inevitably know by now, Davidson’s condition – which inspired the Bafta-winning drama I Swear – caused him to yell a racist slur as Jordan and Lindo walked on stage at one point in the ceremony, a slur that was inexplicably left intact in the BBC’s broadcast despite a two-hour delay. Reactions were a soup of the fair and empathetic and the objectionably insane, but it’s possible that it may have sparked a rush of voting appreciation for Sinners in the weeks since, driven by literal evidence that even at the highest levels of achievement, Black artists still have to deal with nonsense. So it’s not out of the question for Sinners to score Best Picture, even if it has felt for a while that One Battle After Another has the win sewn up. And, let’s call it as it is, One Battle was the best film of 2025, so probably should take the trophy. It would have been lovely to see Jafar Panahi’s urgent, funny, thrillingly relevant drama It Was Just an Accident here, though, likewise the runaway horror smash Weapons, which deserved a slot in Best Picture far more than F1, at the very least.
Best Actor
Timothée Chalamet, Marty Supreme
Leonardo DiCaprio, One Battle After Another
Ethan Hawke, Blue Moon
Michael B Jordan, Sinners
Wagner Moura, The Secret Agent
Will win: Michael B Jordan, Sinners
Should win: Timothée Chalamet, Marty Supreme
Shoulda got a look-in: Josh O’Connor, The Mastermind
Best Actor is typically where excitement goes to die, but this year it’s suddenly the most interesting major category of the night. On 1 March, Michael B Jordan won Best Actor at the Actor Awards, which doubles as the last major pre-Oscar awards ceremony and serves as a reliable – if not always exact – indicator of how Oscar night will unfold. Jordan has a lot going for him, though. The Bafta controversy shone a major, positive spotlight on Sinners as a whole, while Jordan is popular in the industry and feels as if he’s filled the vacuum left behind by two men who were at one point or another the category favourite: the wheels seemed to fly off Timothée Chalamet’s, um, vaguely smug Oscar campaign a few months ago, while DiCaprio has been a mercurial presence on the circuit (chances are he may miss the actual ceremony, too, as he’s shooting Martin Scorsese’s new film). Voila: a Jordan win. And he’s so good in the movie – playing twins, no less! – that few would complain. But it is a bit frustrating that Chalamet has very publicly wanted the Best Actor win this year, which is always an approach that tends to leave voters cold. His work in Marty Supreme is thrilling, proper batten-down-the-hatches, here’s-a-movie-star stuff, that is ballsy and funny and bravely obnoxious. Missing here, arguably, is Josh O’Connor, who had a fantastic year (he comfortably stole the show in the third Knives Out) and is lovingly grotesque as a wealthy scumbag art thief in the black comedy The Mastermind.
Best Actress
Jessie Buckley, Hamnet
Rose Byrne, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Kate Hudson, Song Sung Blue
Renate Reinsve, Sentimental Value
Emma Stone, Bugonia
Will win: Jessie Buckley, Hamnet
Should win: Rose Byrne, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Shoulda got a look-in: Jennifer Lawrence, Die My Love
Jessie Buckley’s undeniably affecting work as a grieving mother will undoubtedly lead her to her first Oscar win this year, but I was admittedly far more struck by Rose Byrne’s funny, freaky turn as a mum at her wits’ end in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. Byrne is one of those actors who’s turned in spectacular performances for more than two decades (Bridesmaids! Spy! Marie Antoinette!) and often to minimal awards acclaim, so perhaps the nomination here is enough. Still, I’d like to see her swipe it at the last minute. Separately, let’s pour one out for Jennifer Lawrence, whose career-best work as a fraying mother in Lynne Ramsay’s Die My Love deserved a hell of a lot more awards attention. I will repeat this statement until I’m in my grave, frankly.
Best Supporting Actor
Benicio del Toro, One Battle After Another
Jacob Elordi, Frankenstein
Delroy Lindo, Sinners
Sean Penn, One Battle After Another
Stellan Skarsgård, Sentimental Value
Will win: Sean Penn, One Battle After Another
Should win: Benicio del Toro, One Battle After Another
Shoulda got a look-in: Ralph Fiennes, 28 Years Later
This is another tricky category to call. There’s been no decisive winner in Best Supporting at the major precursor ceremonies, with Jacob Elordi taking the Critics’ Choice Award, Stellan Skarsgård the Golden Globe, and Sean Penn taking the Bafta and the Actor Award. My money is on Penn to win the Oscar, primarily because he’s so big and funny and mad in One Battle After Another, but there’s also a world where Delroy Lindo, for his drunken bluesman in Sinners, could sneak in and swipe it on the night. Least likely (sadly) is probably Benicio del Toro, whose sharp, sensitive work in One Battle is a ray of wholesomeness in an otherwise charged movie. Speaking of, wouldn’t it have been lovely to see Ralph Fiennes in here? In a movie as gnarly as 28 Years Later, Fiennes injected a gentle, endearing whimsy.
Best Supporting Actress
Elle Fanning, Sentimental Value
Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Sentimental Value
Amy Madigan, Weapons
Wunmi Mosaku, Sinners
Teyana Taylor, One Battle After Another
Will win: Teyana Taylor, One Battle After Another
Should win: Teyana Taylor, One Battle After Another
Shoulda got a look-in: Gwyneth Paltrow, Marty Supreme
A nice thing about the Best Supporting Actress category this year is that all five women are bona fide supporting players in their respective movies, who sweep in, steal the show, then bounce. No Ariana-in-Wicked category fraud here! And it’s for that reason that I’d love to see Teyana Taylor take the Oscar on the night. Her volatile revolutionary disappears from One Battle After Another after the first half hour, but haunts every second of the movie that follows. It’s the performance of the year, Taylor finding the humanity in a character who is erratic, naive and passionate yet completely infuriating. Separate to Taylor, this is a very strong collection of performances, but annoyingly, MIA is Gwyneth Paltrow, who joins Jennifer Lawrence in the role of “actor doing career-best work but who bafflingly struggled to get awards traction this year”. As a semi-retired actress embroiled in a mortifying affair with Chalamet’s ping-pong sleazebag in Marty Supreme, she glides into the movie and, in one scene of breathless confrontation, nearly steals it from under its star.
Best Director
Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another
Ryan Coogler, Sinners
Josh Safdie, Marty Supreme
Joachim Trier, Sentimental Value
Chloé Zhao, Hamnet
Will win: Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another
Should win: Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another
Shoulda got a look-in: Mary Bronstein, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
On paper, Paul Thomas Anderson has this category in the bag, but there is still the Sinners question hanging over this year’s Oscars – there is absolutely a version of Sunday night that sees Sinners sweep, with everything from Best Director to Best Supporting Actress going its way. And while it’s hard to say that Ryan Coogler is overdue an Oscar, he’s made a career out of beating the odds so far – he made Black Panther, a Marvel movie that had a real directorial stamp on it, directed Fruitvale Station and Creed to raves, and got Sinners off the ground in the first place, despite how hard it is to mount an entirely original, expensive blockbuster today. Plus, it made a ton of money. A Coogler Best Director win isn’t out of the question. I’d argue that he should have been joined in this category, though, by If I Had Legs I’d Kick You’s Mary Bronstein, who worked stressful wonders on a shoestring budget.
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