Oscar nominations 2026 ignite a record chase for Sinners—and a scramble to catch up before March 15

The 2026 Oscar race has snapped into a new shape overnight: it’s no longer just about who leads Best Picture, but how quickly audiences can actually see the contenders before ballots lock. With Sinners setting an all-time nominations record and multiple presumed heavyweights missing in key categories, the season’s center of gravity has shifted from polite “awards chatter” to practical urgency—viewing guides, streaming queues, and a louder debate about what the Academy rewarded this year versus what it left outside the tent.

Nominations for the 98th Academy Awards were announced on January 22, 2026. The ceremony is set for Sunday, March 15, 2026, with Conan O’Brien hosting.

A record leader changes the math—and pulls genre storytelling into the prestige lane

The headline is Sinners: 16 nominations, the most ever for a single film. That number doesn’t just look impressive; it reorders every prediction conversation because it signals broad support across branches—acting, craft, and top-line categories.

Close behind, One Battle after Another landed 13 nominations, staying firmly in the “could win everywhere” tier. A second cluster—Frankenstein, Marty Supreme, and Sentimental Value—came in at nine nominations each, creating a mid-pack that can still steal major wins if the vote splits.

This year also adds a new wrinkle: Casting is now an Oscar category, and the nominees include several Best Picture titles—another way the ballot can reward an ensemble even if it misses an acting trophy.

Best Picture nominees for the 2026 Oscars

The 10 Best Picture nominees are:

• Bugonia

• F1

• Frankenstein

• Hamnet

• Marty Supreme

• One Battle after Another

• The Secret Agent

• Sentimental Value

• Sinners

• Train Dreams

A few high-profile nomination storylines are already shaping the discourse around that list:

• Train Dreams made Best Picture but did not land a Best Actor nod for Joel Edgerton, an omission many expected to go the other way.

• F1 made Best Picture while its star Brad Pitt missed in Best Actor, a split that suggests strong respect for the film’s overall craft package rather than a single performance.

• Hamnet and Sentimental Value emerged as the “serious contender” pair for voters who lean toward literary adaptation and international-leaning prestige drama.

Snubs and surprises: the names and films that didn’t make the jump

Every nominations morning creates a parallel awards show—who got left out. This year, the snubs list is unusually combustible because several omissions are tied to films that still performed well elsewhere on the ballot.

Notable acting misses being discussed:

• Joaquin Phoenix for Eddington

• Jesse Plemons for Bugonia

• Jeremy Allen White for Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere

• George Clooney for Jay Kelly

• Multiple performers connected to Wicked: For Good, which exited the morning with a clean shutout

And for film titles: Eddington’s absence from the nominations haul is being treated as one of the day’s clearest cold-shoulders—especially given how visible its cast and director have been in the broader awards conversation.

Where to watch Sinners and other nominated titles right now

The practical question behind all the hype is simple: can people actually watch these films without a theater run?

Here’s the viewing landscape fans are using to plan the next six weeks:

• Sinners is streaming on HBO Max.

• Frankenstein and Train Dreams are streaming on Netflix.

• F1 is streaming on Apple TV+.

• The Alabama Solution (nominated for Documentary Feature) is streaming on HBO Max.

Availability can vary by country, and some Best Picture nominees are still primarily positioned for theaters or premium rental windows.

Mini timeline to orient the season

• Jan 22, 2026: nominations announced (including the new Casting category).

• Late Jan–Feb 2026: guild awards and precursors sharpen the frontrunner narrative.

• Late Feb–early Mar 2026: final voting window turns momentum into math.

• Mar 15, 2026: Oscars ceremony night—where Sinners’ record haul meets the reality of how many wins it can convert.

If this nominations set proves anything, it’s that 2026 isn’t rewarding a single “Oscar type” of movie. It’s rewarding breadth—films that hit craft branches, performers, and top categories at the same time—and punishing anything that only dominated one corner of the conversation.