Our Oscars Preview - The Acting Categories [2026]

It's Oscars Week '26! With these preview articles, we're trying to pin point winners so that you do well in your Oscars prediction pool (a shameless plug for ours)... BUT we're also trying to read the tea leaves and give you concrete reasons for WHY you should make certain selections or steer clear of others. Maybe this our year to nail our predictions... Here is Part 4 of our preview.

Sentimental Value [2025]

Best Supporting Actor

Nominees

• Benicio del Toro – One Battle After Another as Sensei Sergio St. Carlos (+2700)
• Jacob Elordi – Frankenstein as The Creature (+3300)
• Delroy Lindo – Sinners as Delta Slim (+750)
• Sean Penn – One Battle After Another as Col. Steven J. Lockjaw (-320)
• Stellan Skarsgård – Sentimental Value as Gustav Borg (+430)

Predictions

Hopster: This is an interesting spread. Two of the nominees are from the same movie (del Toro and Penn for One Battle). To this point, Penn, a two-time Best Actor Oscar winner, won the BAFTA and at SAG, while del Toro (another former Best Actor recipient), won the National Board of Review. Then, there's a trio of first-time Oscar nominees in Elordi, Lindo, and Skarsgård. Elordi is a long-shot, who firmly sits in the "happy to be nominated" camp, even though he did win at the Critics Choice Awards. Lindo hasn't won a major precursor, aside from his involvement in the Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture at SAG (he also is in the most nominated film of the year, so that's not nothing). And then there's Skarsgård, who won at the Golden Globes but is now something of a slight underdog. You heard it here first: I'm calling an upset and predicting that Skarsgård pulls out the surprise win here. The 74-year-old Swedish actor is marvelous in Sentimental Value, a movie that garnered a lot of top-line nominations but seems to be on the outside looking in for a lot of those categories. Despite not having won a major industry award since his surprise win at the Golden Globes, Skarsgård's performance is extremely well-regarded by critics and may draw in even more attention and praise from international voters in the Academy. If you're looking to poke holes in the case of the other nominees winning, I'd point out that while the phenomenon of voting-splitting between two nominees from the same movie in the same category does not always hold true, it is a thing that happens. In this case, both del Toro and Penn have won Oscars previously, so there may be less of an appetite to award either of them again. A win for Penn would demonstrate the strength of One Battle, while this may also be an opportunity to spread the wealth. Skarsgård delivers one of the more tender and subtle performances of the year; he is the soul of Sentimental Value, and it may endear him with the voters enough to secure the victory in this category.

Stellan Skarsgård – Sentimental Value

Isaac: Sean Penn – One Battle After Another as Col. Steven J. Lockjaw

Best Supporting Actress

Nominees

• Elle Fanning – Sentimental Value as Rachel Kemp (+10000)
• Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas – Sentimental Value as Agnes Borg Pettersen (+3300)
• Amy Madigan – Weapons as Gladys (+125)
• Wunmi Mosaku – Sinners as Annie (+300)
• Teyana Taylor – One Battle After Another as Perfidia Beverly Hills (+170)

Predictions

Isaac: Over the past ten years, this race has more often been a complete domination as opposed to any sort of tight race. Last year was not nearly as close as some may remember it, with Zoe Saldaña winning for Emilia Pérez over Ariana Grande and Margaret Qualley. Prior to that, it becomes a smattering of steamrolls: Da'Vine Joy Randolph in The Holdovers, Ariana DeBose in West Side Story, Yuh-Jung Youn in Minari, Laura Dern in Marriage Story, Regina King, Allison Janney, a legendary Viola Davis performance in Fences, I could keep going. The only really tight race was the, dare I say, absolutely stunning win from Jamie Lee Curtis for Everything Everywhere All at Once over Angela Bassett's performance in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Curtis had only won the SAG, and 7 out of the past 10 winners at this point had won the BAFTA, which she hadn't. So now we have this. One of the tightest races for Supporting Actress in recent history! A three horse race between Teyana Taylor (Golden Globe), Wunmi Mosaku (BAFTA), and Amy Madigan (Critics Choice and SAG) that is really anyone's game. Madigan has the "most" precursors but 2 being greater than 1 is kind of a weak argument, not to mention she is the lone nomination for Weapons. There have only been eight times in which a film wins its lone nomination, the most recent being 2008 when Penélope Cruz won for Vicky Cristina Barcelona, so it isn't impossible. Just rare. There have also been eight times over the past ten years where the BAFTA winner of this category won the Oscar, which is one of the strongest correlations across all of the categories. The only two times it didn't match was 2016 when Alicia Vikander wasn't even in the supporting category for the BAFTA and Curtis in 2022 which was shocking enough. Quick break here to adjust my tinfoil hat. Ultimately, I'm thinking the BAFTA streak adds another year, not because of BAFTA importance, but because of the difficulties presented with winning a film's lone Oscar. There is a serious halo effect when you're in a highly nominated film, well, sometimes. Not for Emilia Pérez last year, but Sinners smashed the record for nominations and its impossible to ignore that a toss up here might lean towards more highly nominated films. Which is a long winded way of me saying give me Mosaku taking home the hardware.

Wunmi Mosaku – Sinners

Hopster: Amy Madigan – Weapons

Marty Supreme [2025]

Best Actor

Nominees

• Timothée Chalamet – Marty Supreme as Marty Mauser (-120)
• Leonardo DiCaprio – One Battle After Another as Bob Ferguson (+1400)
• Ethan Hawke – Blue Moon as Lorenz Hart (+3300)
• Michael B. Jordan – Sinners as Elijah "Smoke" Moore / Elias "Stack" Moore (+130)
• Wagner Moura – The Secret Agent as Armando Solimões / Marcelo Alves / Fernando Solimões (+1800)

Predictions

Hopster: We have a race, ladies and gentlemen! Thanks to a seemingly out of nowhere win at the Actor Awards last week, we find ourselves in a near dead heat for Best Actor. Yes, there are three other nominees, including Leonardo DiCaprio, who won the National Board of Review, Wagner Moura, who won at the Golden Globes, and Ethan Hawke, who hasn't won any major precurors but has a distinct musk of "it's time" that will one day result in Oscar glory. But we really, we can safely say that this is a two-horse race between Timothée Chalamet, who was seemingly running away with this trophy at the beginning of awards season after winning at the Critics Choice Awards and the Golden Globes, and Michael B. Jordan, who just won Best Actor at SAG. This is Chalamet's third Best Actor nomination (he was nominated in 2017 for Call Me by Your Name and last year for A Complete Unknown) and Jordan's first nomination.

After the Oscar nominations were announced, it seemed that Chalamet was in poll position to win Best Actor, which many considered would be the single prominent win Marty Supreme would have on Oscars night. These past few months, Chalamet has campaigning the shit out of this movie, clearly with his eyes on the prize for winning big at the Academy Awards. Last year, he fell short in Best Actor, where Adrien Brody won for his performance in the The Brutalist. If you'll remember, Chalamet won at SAG last year, which seemed to put in line to win at the Oscars. Now this year, just when it seemed to all be in front of him, he lost at the BAFTAs (well technically everyone did to Robert Aramayo for his performance in I Swear) and then again at SAG to... Michael B. Jordan. I didn't confirm this, but there is almost no precedent for an actor winning back-to-back years at SAG, so maybe Chalamet's Oscar chances are better than we're giving him credit for. That said, not only did Michael B. win Best Actor, Sinners went on to win Best Ensemble, which shows a lot of industry support and came at a time that was in the exact middle of Oscar voting. As far as predicting this category goes, I recognize that I haven't offered any hard data, aside from just recapping the awards race to this point.

A few other lingering questions: (1) Is now the time where I should mention that last year, SAG awarded Chalamet and Demi Moore the top prizes, and then Brody and Mikey Madison won at the Oscars? Point being, you never know what can happen, especially when things are this close? (2) Is it crazy to think DiCaprio or Moura have an outside chance at sneaking out a win? Probably, but I'm not ruling it out completely. (3) Has Chalamet's chances dwindled because of off-the-field problems? If you're not sure what I'm referring to, I encourage you to do your independent research. Needless to say, the ballet and opera art communities are having a field day with his recent comments.

All things considered, here's the final point to make: both Chalamet and Jordan are great in their respective films. They both transform, they both hold the screen like true blue movie stars, and they both elevate the already great material they've been given. This is more or less a coin flip, so my advice is to follow your heart.

Michael B. Jordan – Sinners

Isaac: Michael B. Jordan – Sinners

Best Actress

Nominees

• Jessie Buckley – Hamnet as Agnes Shakespeare (-4000)
• Rose Byrne – If I Had Legs I'd Kick You as Linda (+1200)
• Kate Hudson – Song Sung Blue as Claire Sardina (+4000)
• Renate Reinsve – Sentimental Value as Nora Borg (+3300)
• Emma Stone – Bugonia as Michelle Fuller (+2500)

Predictions

Isaac: I'm not even gonna try and put a longwinded explanation here. I've written enough and I bet you're tired of reading my incessant ramblings. This is beyond locked in for Jessie Buckley.

Jessie Buckley – Hamnet

Hopster: Jessie Buckley – Hamnet