One of the biggest gaps in the DSR/CBC film coverage is that of the biggest night of the motion picture year: The Academy Awards. As festival season truly ramps up, we’ve seen Venice, Telluride, and TIFF all very recently, we are revealling our projections for all four acting categories. We will publish a new article every month reflecting how the season has changed, and these will serve as a guide for readers throughout the season as we do supplemental coverage elsewhere.
These races aren’t fluid, so expect our initial projections to look vastly different than our final projections alongside new reviews for different films, box office performances, precursor ceremonies such as SAG and BAFTA shining new light on which films have passion behind them, studio campaign choices, among a variety of other things that alter the race and form a noise of narratives. For now, our projections rely highly on instinct and narrative more than an exact science, but the methodology will change the closer we get to the ceremony.
Best Actress in a Leading Role:
Photo credit: A24.
September 2026:
This is perhaps the most fascinating race to this point because it’s the least clear. Early on in the season, it seemed as though A Place in Hell, Disclosure Day, and Sense and Sensibility would all be contenders here, with Michelle Williams finally being the favorite for her overdue Oscar. Then A Place in Hell got pushed back. This moved Emily Blunt into the early favorites slot, and then Disclosure Day bombed at the box office with lukewarm reception, despite a very acclaimed performance from Blunt, which puts her into ‘will get nominated at the Globes, but top out there’ territory. Sense and Sensbility, an early favorite because its 1995 adaptation scored both Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet acting nominations, doesn’t seem to have any momentum ahead of its release and has been firmly jumped in priority from its distributor by a horror film that made over $500M at the box office on a sub-$1M budget. Suffice to say, other than the star of said horror film and the veteran of the category who has already won, there doesn’t seem to be much here at this point in the season.
We currently have Moore taking her second Oscar. There seems to be a lot of passion to put Moore back into the nominee circle, particularly after the May December snub in the 2023 season. Moore hasn’t been nominated since she won in her fifth try for 2014’s Still Alice, and is still one of Hollywood’s most beloved prestige actors. Jesse Eisenberg’s previous film, A Real Pain, won Kieran Culkin Best Supporting Actor, and The Debut seems to be far baitier and far deeper on the Academy’s radar and higher on A24’s priority list than A Real Pain had been for Searchlight. Enough time has passed with Moore continuing to do great work that there won’t be much of a ‘well, she’s won one already’ feel in the room, and with ‘career best’ reviews coming out of Telluride, it won’t seem as though it’s a name check win. In a field with very few clear nomination choices, Moore as the veteran seems like a safe choice.
But then there’s the Inde Navarrette factor of it all. Best Actress doesn’t normally score career wins for its veterans, as seen recently with the losses of Glenn Close and Demi Moore. It also has liked to award young ingenues in the last fifteen years, with wins such as Jennifer Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook, Brie Larson in Room, Emma Stone in La La Land, and Mikey Madison in Anora. With a pure camp horror villain winning Best Supporting Actress last season, the genre stigma doesn’t seem to be there anymore, and Navarrette’s turn as Nikki is going to be the most talked about performance of 2026. Not only does Navarrette pull off an incredibly difficult role with levity that most actresses would make cheesy while showing off every crayon in the actor crayon box, she became an overnight superstar with the role, too. While it’s hard to predict a horror breakout performance to win Best Actress, if anybody is pulling the upset, perhaps the Academy is obsessed with Obsession.
The remainder of this projection feels like a crapshoot. Virginie Efira has been doing good work for a while, and each year the Academy likes to nominate somebody who isn’t in Hollywood in lead. With NEON showing a knack of getting multiple people nominated, including for the international plays, this seems like a safe bet alongside Renate Reinsve, who scored her first nomination earlier this year, if All of a Sudden and Fjord are legitimate best picture contenders, which coming out of Cannes seems as though they are. Reinsve feels like more of a gamble even with her solidified status, however, considering the reports are that her performance is very subdued.
The last slot could have gone to anybody. Maybe A24 ramps up a Rosalind Eleazar campaign for Misty Green? Maybe Laura Linney pulls an Ethan Hawke Blue Moon and can be a lone nominee for a beloved, overdue character actor, especially with how baity Onwards and Sideways sounds. Does Carrie Coon in The Liberation become a thing? It could even be as simple as the Academy wants to give Olivia Wilde something for The Invite and doesn’t have room in director.
Right now, we tentatively have Lea Seydoux for Gentle Monster, though we aren’t comfortable with it. Netflix has a history, as seen a few years ago with Nyad, of getting acting nominations in movies that don’t contend elsewhere, and Lea Seydoux having such strong work for years with no Academy recognition to show for it may be a good campaign recipe.
Sleeper contenders: Olivia Wilde (The Invite), Laura Linney (Onwards and Sideways), Sandra Huller (Fatherland), Rosalind Eleazar (Misty Green), Ruth Madelay (Being Huemann), Mikey Madison (The Social Reckoning), Carrie Coon (The Liberation).
Best Actor in a Leading Role
Photo credit: Warner Bros.
Just a year after Paul Thomas Anderson won Best Director, Magnolia fans will cheer as our initial predictions have its two stars winning the Lead awards, and for Cruise, it’ll be in his first acting nomination since that performance.
It’s hard to believe that Cruise hasn’t gotten in since, particularly with the strong performances delivered in films such as Collateral, though the fixation on returning to Ethan Hunt throughout the century clarifies why that is. Since his last nomination, it’s been a bit of a fall and rise for Cruise, as the post-Kingsley era saw a time period where his weird couch jumping was the least of his problems. The scientology, the postpartum rants, and just the general public consensus around Cruise as a human were in doubt, but over the last fifteen years his perception has shifted to the ‘President of Movies,’ as a guy that does anything and everything to ensure the overall health of the industry, endearing him to not just regular people, but industry folk alike. One of Cruise’s biggest breakthrough roles had been Scorsese's The Color of Money opposite Paul Newman, and Newman ended up winning Best Actor just a year after receiving his honorary Oscar. Here, if Cruise were to win as we project, he’d do so just a year after receiving his honorary Oscar.
Digger will be very divisive, considering everything we at CBC have heard about the project. But Inarritu’s previous two films that were filmed in English, Leonardo DiCaprio won his overdue Academy Award and Michael Keaton was win-competitive. This is Warner’s top priority and will most certainly be a showcase for Cruise in ways we haven’t seen in decades. Factoring in the fact that post-pandemic the Academy seems eager to award movie stars that are getting people into the theatres, such as Robert Downey Jr., Michael B. Jordan, and Zoe Saldana, that’s a very big part of the equation for Cruise. Warner started the marketing for Digger with a trailer portraying Cruise as a movie star showing every film in Cruise’s career rather than the movie itself, essentially using the opportunity as a FYC campaign.
But, there’s been speculation about its budget. With a $200M budget, which some are reporting, the film would require a $500M breakeven point which may not be feasible. A divisive movie where the movie bombs at the box office could be an immediate removal from the projections. Right now DSR/CBC has it as an ‘if he’s in, he wins’ scenario for Cruise.
If he doesn’t win, the field opens up. Pedro Pascal isn’t really in the running just yet, but having read the script from Tony Gilroy, there’s a lot to work with for Pascal, and in a very blockbuster year for Best Actor, the Academy’s going to try and welcome a beloved older actor from an acclaimed independent film into the club. That’s partly why we also have Elsinore, though it being the main Best Actor play for Focus with a baity role for Andrew Scott, another actor who has continually done great work welcomed by the Academy but has yet to breakthrough himself helps.
But the likely winner at that point would be either Malkovich or Damon. This, for now, depends on the other awards throughout the night. Every Best Picture winner this decade (McDormand for Nomadland, Kotsur for CODA, Downey Jr. and Murphy for Oppenheimer, Madison for Anora, and Penn for One Battle After Another) has an acting prize to go in its package. Should there be a scenario where either of these films win and their supporting chances don’t win, that’s probably your winner. For Damon, an acting prize would make him only the second actor, after Emma Thompson, to win an acting prize and a screenplay prize. For his aforementioned Rounders co-star, Malkovich hasn’t been nominated since 1993, and this is likely going to be the last chance to give one of the most beloved actors his flowers.
Then there’s the Ryan Gosling of it all. Maybe Project Hail Mary overperforms. Everybody loves Ryan Gosling, he’s been nominated three times, and it doesn’t look as though his upcoming slate has anything to nominate him for. The film should firmly be in Best Picture. He’s likely next man up if somebody here falls off. It just feels right now that this is very much like his Barbie co-star in 2023 where there’s so many nominees that Robbie just didn’t have room to get in.
Sleeper contenders: Ryan Gosling (Project Hail Mary), Robert Pattinson (Primetime), John Turturro (The Only Living Pickpocket in New York), Jafaar Jackson (Michael), Sebastian Stan (Fjord), Jack O’Connell (Ink).
Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Photo credit: NBCUniversal
Anne Hathaway has had a year. Between the smash hits of The Odyssey and The Devil Wears Prada 2, the strong performance in A24’s Mother Mary, the fact she’s the most redeemable part of The End of Oak Street, and the upcoming adaptation of Verity, perhaps no stock has risen this year more than Hathaway, who will seek her second Academy Award.
While she does have the first nomination for Rachel Getting Married, she hasn’t been back since her win in 2013 for Les Miserables which was one of the most panned Oscar wins of all-time. With how much the win hurt her career, Hathaway being the acting prize for what will likely win Picture is not only a welcome back for one of Hollywood’s most underrated stars, but a pretty redeemable win in its own right. There’s at least two scenes, one opposite Holland where she explains why she hasn’t re-married and one opposite Damon when Odysseus returns where she isn’t supposed to know that it’s her husband, that could win her the Oscar even if the scene only existed in a vacuum. The question here is whether or not there’ll be passion to give Hathaway a second Oscar, especially with a beloved Samantha Morton sitting there in the same movie stealing the show in her one scene in the picture. However, this screams ‘Penn vs Del Toro’ from last year where Del Toro cruised to a nomination because he’s beloved, but Penn had so much more to do in the eventual Best Picture victor.
This category, if it goes how we’re predicting right now, will be the litmus test for how difficult it’ll be to be nominated twice in the same category as this is the first year after the Academy changed that rule. Penelope Cruz is dynamite in The Invite, and excluding international films such as Volver and Open Your Eyes, one could argue this is the Academy Award winners best Hollywood performance. She also has a show-stealing scene, if reports out of the festivals are to be believed, in Netflix’s La Bola Negra, an early Best Picture contender that’s seemingly the favorite for Best International Picture, making it likely to score an acting nomination somewhere.
Rounding out the category in our early projections is Parker Posey, who doesn’t seem to have as much to do in Wild Horse Nine as Mariana di Girolamo, but the familiarty and veteran status of Posey probably scores her a nomination over the lesser known co-star. This feels one that’ll be shifted when we actually see the film, but for now, a nomination for Posey for doing good work throughout her career seems just with a weaker category.
Sleeper contenders: Olivia Colman (Elsinore), Kate O’Flynn (Tender Loving Care), Nia Long (Michael), Mariana di Girolamo (Wild Horse Nine), Scarlett Johansson (Paper Tiger), Tao Okomato (All of a Sudden), Monica Barbaro (Artificial), Sandra Huller (Project Hail Mary, Digger).
Best Supporting Actor
Photo credit: A24.
With the talk of ‘Best Picture contender’ coming out of the festivals, I’m more than willing to project a Three Billboards scenario where a film wins two acting prizes but not Best Picture. While it hasn’t happened very recently, it’s happened this century with that, Dallas Buyers Club, The Fighter, Million Dolllar Baby, and Mystic River.
Giamatti’s raves aren’t quite on the level of Moore, but this category seems to be so up-in-the-air this early that we’re predicting both Goodman and Buscemi sight unseen on the fact that they’re beloved character actors who have yet to be nominated. Giamatti almost certainly came in second place in his last try with The Holdovers, which could have easily joined the list of films to take two acting prizes and not win Best Picture. With strong reviews and an Academy that seems excited for Giamatti’s body of work, that’s our projection early on.
If Buscemi is in, Rockwell is definitely making it. Rockwell has already won for a McDonagh film, funnily enough, the aforementioned Three Billboards. Rockwell clearly has a lot to do as a co-lead, but the studio isn’t likely campaigning him against Malkovich in lead actor. Rockwell won’t win as there’s no way they’re going to give three actors a second Oscar, and especially not somebody who doesn’t have as strong a body of work as Moore or Hathaway, but he’ll firmly slot into our third spot.
Then there’s the Norton of it all. Norton has been nominated as recently as the year before last, and is on his fifth nomination. We have The Invite as a sleeper Best Picture contender with multiple acting nominations and a screenplay nomination, and Norton delivers an incredibly grounded performance in the flick. The showy monologue that his character does have is now well-documented improv on the part of Norton, and that may be something the acting branch of the Academy eats up. I wouldn’t count Norton out for this just yet.
Sleeper contenders: John Leguizamo (The Odyssey), Guy Pearce (Ink), Colman Domingo (Michael), Andrew Garfield (Artificial), Jeremy Strong (The Social Reckoning), Channing Tatum (Josephine), Skyler Gisondo (Primetime).
For the record, we fully expect to be wrong on most of these, which is why we’ll be giving an update every month until the nominations are revealed. Anticipate films from the festivals, including this weekend at TIFF, to clarify things. Expect international films to have actors pick up steam that aren’t on anybody’s radar. Expect surprises at the precursors that turn the race on their head. These won’t be right at the end of the year, but it’ll be fascinating to look back upon after the Oscars happen and see how our projections altered throughout the duration of the race, and for now, the categories seem sound.
Jameus Mooney is an entertainment writer for Comicbook Clique, having covered the entertainment industry for years. You can follow him on Twitter here, and Letterboxd here. You can also listen to his horror podcast, The 2:17 Horror Podcast, at the DeathArts XIII YouTube channel.