The 2025/26 awards season comes to a close on Sunday night (or Monday morning for those of us in the UK), as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announces its winners for the 98th Academy Awards. The season so far has been full of surprises, with record-breaking nomination totals, shock wins, and an incredible 12 different individual acting winners from the major precursors, leading us into a ceremony where essentially anything can happen. It’s a year where many of the categories are up in the air and near impossible to call, but here is what we think will happen at this year’s Oscars:
Best Picture
Despite there being 10 contenders in this category, there are 2 that stand above the rest in battling it out for the top prize: Paul Thomas Anderson’s season sweeper, One Battle After Another, and Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, which goes into the night with a record 16 nominations. And while Coogler’s film has certainly gained significant momentum, the horror-thriller winning the top prize would be an upset on par with Moonlight’s shock win over La La Land in 2017, and Parasite’s toppling of 1917 in 2020. This is due to how strong One Battle After Another has been this season, with no real signs of slowing down, for which you could make the argument that it is when it comes to previous frontrunners losing Best Picture. With PGA, BAFTA, Golden Globe and Critics Choice wins under its belt, along with winning every major director and writing prize on offer, it is very hard to go against Anderson’s epic to win here.
Predicted Winner: One Battle After Another
Best Director
Similar to Bong Joon-Ho’s win in this category for Parasite, if Ryan Coogler wins this award, we would then know that Sinners will be going on to win Best Picture later in the night. However, with the strength of Paul Thomas Anderson’s campaign to this point, both winning every major precursor and having a strong overdue narrative behind him, he’s almost certainly our Best Director winner this year.
Predicted Winner: Paul Thomas Anderson- One Battle After Another
Best Actor
It is rare to see a race switch in momentum so drastically over a few weeks, but that is exactly what has happened in Best Actor. Before the BAFTA Awards, Timothee Chalamet was in the driver’s seat, taking home the Critics Choice Award and Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy for his turn in Marty Supreme. However, frailties in his campaign have come to light over recent weeks, as he lost the BAFTA to Robert Aramayo (who is ineligible for the other awards this year due to I Swear not being released in the United States in 2025), and followed it up by losing at the Actor Awards to Michael B. Jordan for Sinners, two awards that Chalamet was the clear favourite to win. Jordan has now leapfrogged Chalamet in the race and is now the slight favourite going into the Oscars. The dark horse to watch out for in this race, however, is Wagner Moura, who won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Drama over Jordan, though he was not nominated at BAFTA or the Actor Awards. Also, factor in the overdue narrative of industry favourite Ethan Hawke, nominated for Blue Moon, and A-list star Leonardo DiCaprio being nominated for potential Best Picture winner One Battle After Another, and we have a race for the ages. Jordan is perhaps the safest bet right now, but honestly, anything could happen.
Predicted Winner: Michael B. Jordan- Sinners
Best Actress
Even though it’s a very strong line-up this year filled with outstanding performances, it has been pretty much a clean sweep for Jessie Buckley’s breath-taking turn in Hamnet. Even though Rose Byrne has picked up some prizes for If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, including the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy, and the Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead Performance, her losses to Buckley at the Critics’ Choice Awards, the BAFTAs, and the Actor Awards means it’ll be a straightforward win for the Irish actress again at the Oscars.
Predicted Winner: Jessie Buckley- Hamnet
Best Supporting Actor
A category that has lacked a real frontrunner earlier in the season, that has all changed in recent weeks, as Sean Penn has raced ahead in the race after taking home the BAFTA and the Actor Award for his antagonistic role in One Battle After Another, despite not actually being present at either ceremony. It isn’t a category that is completely wrapped up, though, as Stellan Skarsgard (for Sentimental Value) and Jacob Elordi (for Frankenstein) have both won at major precursors, at the Golden Globes and Critics’ Choice Awards, respectively. That being said, those two voting bodies do not correlate with the Oscars’, while BAFTA’s and the Actor Awards do, so Penn is the clear favourite, even though an upset isn’t out of the question.
Predicted Winner: Sean Penn- One Battle After Another
Best Supporting Actress
This is the toughest category to predict. With no major precursor wins and not even being nominated at the Actor Awards, we can discount the supporting actresses from Sentimental Value, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleas and Elle Fanning, from winning here, so we can narrow it down to three. Amy Madigan won the Critics’ Choice Award and the Actor Award for Weapons, while Teyana Taylor took home the Golden Globe for One After Another, and Wunmi Mosaku was victorious at BAFTA for Sinners. All three go into the ceremony almost neck-and-neck, with all of them being predicted by at least 23% of predictors on the Awards Expert app, with 1st and 3rd separated by just 21% of votes. Madigan holds a slight advantage, but it’s not an easy prediction to make when she’s a lone nominee from her film, up against two actresses from the two Best Picture frontrunners.
Predicted Winner: Amy Madigan- Weapons
Best Original Screenplay
Even though It Was Just an Accident started the season strongly in this category at some of the critics groups, Sinners has taken control and is by far and away the favourite to win. Its victory at the important Writers Guild of America Awards last Sunday was a clear indicator that it is now unbeatable in the category, and the most likely place for Ryan Coogler to be awarded for his work on the film.
Predicted Winner: Sinners
Best Adapted Screenplay
Also a winner at the WGA awards, One Battle After Another has dominated the precursors, winning almost every available prize. Paul Thomas Anderson’s screenplay has earned him 47 prizes going into Oscar night, while the 4 other nominees have only 3 wins combined all season. It’s the biggest lock of the night.
Predicted Winner: One Battle After Another
Best Animated Feature
Despite its ineligibility at BAFTA, meaning it missed out on a victory there, KPOP Demon Hunters is still likely to pick up the Oscar in the category. Zootopia 2 took advantage of the Netflix smash hit’s absence at BAFTA to pick up their Best Animated Feature prize, but it won’t repeat that victory here as it simply can’t compete with KPOP’s precursor haul that included wins at the Golden Globes, Critics’ Choice Awards, PGA and the Annies.
Predicted Winner: KPOP Demon Hunters
Best Documentary Feature
A similar story as in the Animated Feature race, the Documentary Feature race experienced a bit of a curveball at BAFTA as frontrunner The Perfect Neighbour lost to Mr Nobody vs Putin. Those two compete against each other again here, but a different winner is anticipated as The Perfect Neighbour is set to win, barring a major upset.
Predicted Winner: The Perfect Neighbour
Best International Feature
In what is a really tight race, Best Picture contenders Sentimental Value and The Secret Agent face off in a contest that could easily go either way. Sentimental Value, despite a really impressive haul of 9 nominations, is only really competitive to win in this category, so it could be an ideal place for the Norwegian film to be awarded. However, The Secret Agent could be victorious in a win that would hold a lot of similarities to last year’s race, which saw another Brazilian film, I’m Still Here, win over a more widely recognised competitor, Emilia Perez. That being said, Sentimental Value’s overperforming on nominations morning showed how much the Academy admire the film, so that gives it a slight edge to be the predicted winner, though there is certainly scope for The Secret Agent to win here in a pairing with Best Actor for Wagner Moura.
Predicted Winner: Sentimental Value
Best Casting
As it is a brand new category at the Oscars, it makes it difficult to predict what kind of films they want to award, as there’s no previous data to base it on. Sinners has done well here throughout the season, picking up the most prizes from critics groups, including the Critics’ Choice Award. That’s the only real basis to predict on, so it has to be the pick here.
Predicted Winner: Sinners
Best Cinematography
Like in Casting, Sinners has picked up the most critics prizes in Best Cinematography. However, momentum has clearly switched in the category over the past month, with One Battle After Another picking up crucial precursor wins at BAFTA and ASC (American Society of Cinematographers), so it has leapfrogged into now being the favourite to win. Look out for a potential upset that could see Train Dreams end up winning, in a win akin to The Zone of Interest winning in Best Sound a few years ago, where a film’s most defining craft gets awarded, even when they haven’t been nominated in other below-the-line categories. The safe bet here, though, is still One Battle After Another.
Predicted Winner: One Battle After Another
Best Costume Design
Had Wicked: For Good been nominated here, it would be a closer race than it is, especially as the first film won in this category last year. However, since it missed out, it looks like a very straightforward win for Frankenstein, with there being no clear alternative to potentially upset.
Predicted Winner: Frankenstein
Best Editing
Going all in on the One Battle After Another sweep, Editing looks like another easy pick up for the Best Picture frontrunner. F1 was gaining some steam in the category following its Critics’ Choice Awards victory, as well as sneaking into the Best Picture line-up at the Oscars, but defeats at BAFTA and ACE have cleared the way for One Battle After Another to take this.
Predicted Winner: One Battle After Another
Best Makeup and Hairstyling
There isn’t too much to discuss about this category; the achievement of the makeup artists and hairstylists on Frankenstein is too great for it not to win comfortably here.
Predicted Winner: Frankenstein
Best Production Design
This category is slightly more competitive than Makeup and Hairstyling and Costume Design, particularly given how memorable and impressive the sets are in films like Sinners and Hamnet, but, again, it looks like Frankenstein will be taking this one.
Predicted Winner: Frankenstein
Best Original Score
Sinners has 46 more critics/precursor wins than its closest competitor in Best Original Score this season; it’s an open-and-shut category.
Predicted Winner: Sinners
Best Original Song
In terms of wins throughout the season, it’s actually pretty close between “Golden” from KPOP Demon Hunters and “I Lied to You” from Sinners, but given how big the song has become in the charts and it being performed so often (there was even a performance of it at the BAFTAs despite the film being ineligible for the awards), it’s gonna be, gonna be “Golden”.
Predicted Winner: “Golden” from KPOP Demon Hunters
Best Sound
There have been quite a few awards experts saying that Sinners is going to win here, but the most logical pick has to be F1, strengthened by its Best Picture nomination, its overall dominance in the category during the season, and its sound being arguably a standout part of the film. It would be interesting if the sound categories were still split- if they were, F1 would likely win Sound Editing, while Sinners would likely win Sound Mixing.
Predicted Winner: F1
Best Visual Effects
Despite the film doing much worse critically and in terms of awards nominations than its 2 predecessors, it would be brave to go against Avatar: Fire and Ash in Visual Effects.
Predicted Winner: Avatar: Fire and Ash
Best Animated Short, Best Documentary Short and Best Live Action Short
With these categories, there’s nothing really to base predictions on. Everyone has their own methods, whether it be watching all the shorts and picking their favourite, copying an expert’s picks, or just picking one and hoping for the best. It is never surprising that the odds always seem to favour whatever appears first alphabetically- that is one strategy that can not be recommended! The shorts always scupper our chances of getting good rankings for our predictions as they are so unpredictable, but they are worth a guess nonetheless.
Predicted Winners: The Girl Who Cried Pearls, All the Empty Rooms, Two People Exchanging Saliva
The 98th Academy Awards are live on ITV from 10:15pm.
Joseph Trusson is a BA Graduate in Film and Television Studies from the University of Nottingham and an MA Graduate in Film Distribution and Marketing from Birmingham City University. He specialises in film awards analysis and hosts the Best Picture Must Be Doing Something Right Podcast, and is covering the 2025/26 Awards Season for Celestial Cinephile. You can find him on Letterboxd @JosephT.
