Oscars 2026 Date and the Best Picture field led by The Secret Agent

The oscars 2026 date is March 15, 2026, and ten films will vie for Best Picture on that night, including Hamnet, Sinners and The Secret Agent; Sinners also set a new nominations record with 16 nods. With the ceremony scheduled for March 15, 2026, attention has turned to which of the ten contenders will translate critical favor into Academy votes.

Oscars 2026 Date: the nominees and a historic nominations haul

The Best Picture slate for March 15, 2026 lists Bugonia, F1 The Movie, Frankenstein, Hamnet, Marty Supreme, One Battle After Another, The Secret Agent, Sentimental Value, Sinners and Train Dreams. Sinners made history on the nominations roll with 16 nominations, surpassing the longstanding record previously shared by three films with 14 nominations each, and a new award — Best Achievement in Casting — has been added to this year’s ballot.

Tomatometer rankings and the frontrunner

Among the nominees, The Secret Agent sits at the top of Tomatometer-based rankings with a 98% critics score; the film is listed with a critics consensus calling it a thematically rich and visually arresting political thriller set in Brazil in 1977. Other nominees appearing high in critical roundups include Train Dreams, described as a gorgeous meditation on America anchored by Joel Edgerton’s performance, and One Battle After Another, praised as Paul Thomas Anderson’s entertaining and thematically rich work.

What to watch among the Best Picture contenders

Look for performances and filmmakers already singled out in the nominations: Ryan Coogler’s Sinners topped the nominations with 16 nods, and films such as Hamnet and Marty Supreme feature prominently on critics’ lists. Train Dreams, starring Joel Edgerton, and The Secret Agent, starring Wagner Moura, are being discussed for both acting and overall film honors ahead of the March 15 ceremony.

For readers who want a quick checklist of the Best Picture lineup for March 15, 2026:

• Bugonia; F1 The Movie; Frankenstein; Hamnet; Marty Supreme; One Battle After Another; The Secret Agent; Sentimental Value; Sinners; Train Dreams

In advance of the March 15 ceremony, critics’ leaderboards and Tomatometer rankings have been used to sort the field, with The Secret Agent noted as the critics’ favorite at 98% and Sinners notable for its unprecedented 16 nominations. Those two concrete markers — a 98% Tomatometer score for The Secret Agent and Sinners’ 16 nominations — frame many awards-season conversations as voting closes ahead of the March 15, 2026 event.

The next confirmed milestone is the Oscars ceremony itself on March 15, 2026, when the Academy will hand out trophies across 24 categories, including the newly created Best Achievement in Casting and the Best Picture award contested by the ten nominated films.