5 Big Thoughts on the 2026 Oscar Nominations
Marty Supreme | Sinners | Hamnet
Despite falling asleep around 1 AM last night, my body instinctively woke up a little after 5:30 AM Pacific; coincidentally, the exact time that the Oscars nominations were being announced. With that knowledge in mind, I stirred just enough to grab my phone, open Variety, and consume all manner of film-related thoughts and Threads for the next 2 hours. Not great for my overall mental or physical wellness for the rest of the day, but, you know…It’s The Oscars.
As an avid follower of all things film and awards season, I had a lot of opinions on the nominations. Ignore the fact that I’ve apparently only seen 3 of the 10 Best Picture nominations (I know, I know, I need to get on top of it!). I still have plenty of opinions and thoughts on which to ruminate. Here, I’ve expanded upon the notes I first jotted down at 6 AM from the comfort (?) of my own bed:
1) Sinners Makes History, Deservedly So
As I first scrolled through the list of nominees, I was delighted by how many times I saw Sinners on the list. I did not realize at first, in my early morning brain fog, just how fantastic the Ryan Coogler vampire flick performed. Not only was Sinners the most-nominated film of the bunch, but it also now holds the record for most-nominated movie of all time, with a whopping 16 nominations. These include nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor & Actress, Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Score, and more. The introduction of the new Best Casting helped Sinners earn this historic achievement, but even without that, it would have broken the record with 15. I also want to remind people that Best Sound used to be broken up into 2 categories, so don’t get all “can it be the most nominated if they just added more categories?” on me.
Sinners was my personal favorite movie of 2025, so I am of course ecstatic to see it perform so well with the nominations. However, a bunch of nominations does not necessarily mean a bunch of wins, so I will keep myself from getting too hyped, but with this much support across the academy, I would not count out a Sinners sweep.
2) One Battle After Another Surges Forward
Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another has been a juggernaut this awards season, and its strength continued with 13 Oscar nominations. So far, it feels like this has been the movie to beat, with Sinners in tight competition. Will One Battle continue to dominate for the rest of the season, or will the historic support for Sinners push it over the finish line? One impressive thing to note: Warner Bros. is behind both OBAA and Sinners! The fact that they were able to successfully campaign the top two Best Picture frontrunners is really fantastic!
The big shock was that Chase Infiniti, the breakout star of the film, was left off the Best Actress nominee list. She’s been nominated for many other awards, so it’s surprising to see her miss the big Oscar nom, but…
3) Hollywood Loves A Campaigner
…the power of Kate Hudson could not be ignored. In perhaps the most surprising nomination announcement of the morning, Hudson got her second Oscar nomination for her leading role in Song Sung Blue, the Neil Diamond tribute band movie that’s been a bit of a surprise holiday hit.
Word on the street is that Hudson was campaigning like a presidential hopeful around Hollywood in the weeks leading up to the Oscar nominations. She’s also quite literally Hollywood royalty, with a long list of A-listers to advocate for her, so it’s not entirely surprising that all that work paid off with a nomination. If Andrea Riseborough could corral her friends and colleagues into a nomination just a few years ago, it was probably even easier work for Hudson!
4) Wicked: For Good Was Shockingly Shut Out
Before Wicked: For Good, conversations were aflutter about an EGOT for Cynthia Erivo and Oscars for Ariana Grande. When the film premiered to mediocre reviews and waning enthusiasm, it felt like Universal abandoned any campaigning, and the film quickly fell out of the Best Picture conversation.
Still, even the most educated Hollywood pundits were shocked to see Wicked: For Good completely shut out at the Oscars. Not even costume or production design!? And they shoehorned not one but two mediocre songs in hopes of Best Original Song nominations, only to be ignored!? Honestly, it’s wild. The first film scored 10 nominations! And look, I agree that For Good was not as fantastic as the first movie, but the costumes were still grand! You’re telling me that Jonathan Bailey got turned into a straw Ryan Reynolds for nothing? The indignity.
5) When Will The Academy Appreciate Electronic Scoring?
Does the Academy have a bias against electronic scores? I was completely devastated last year when my beloved Challengers was shut out of any Oscar nominations, especially the exhilarating Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross score. Almost 2 years after that film’s release, I still listen to the soundtrack regularly, and it’s the rare score to break through and become popular on TikTok, played at clubs, and withstand its initial moment. Whatever, the Academy doesn’t always get it.
Now, for the second year in a row, the electronic score of a tennis-based film, and arguably the best score of the year, has been omitted: this time, Daniel Lopatin’s sublime 80s-esque Marty Supreme score. The music branch of the Academy must be a little more old guard than others, because this year’s nominees included standard heavy hitters like Alexandre Desplat, Max Richter (who, yes, scored other pieces for Hamnet, but “On The Nature of Daylight” is the crux of the movie and has been used in soooo many other works at this point), and Johnny Greenwood.
Ludwig Göransson will most likely win for his magical work on Sinners, so it doesn’t matter that much, but it would have been nice to see Lopatin up there, considering the music is such a powerful aspect of Marty Supreme.
Overall, I’m pretty pleased with the nominations and excited to get to work watching the rest of the Best Picture nominees so that I can share a full ranking of all the contenders.
For some more Oscars thoughts, check out my TikTok: