Hollywood’s awards season took a dramatic turn Thursday with the announcement of the 2026 Oscar nominations, a list that blended expected heavy hitters with eyebrow-raising omissions and a handful of genuinely welcome surprises.
The nominations for the 98th Academy Awards were unveiled Jan. 22, and they were dominated by Sinners, Ryan Coogler’s genre-bending vampire epic. The film earned a record-breaking 16 nominations, surpassing the long-standing mark of 14 shared by All About Eve (1950), Titanic (1997) and La La Land (2016). The sweep immediately positioned Sinners as the year’s clear front-runner and secured its place in Oscars history.
Several other major contenders performed largely as anticipated. Paul Thomas Anderson’s caper One Battle After Another landed 13 nominations, while Chloé Zhao’s emotional drama Hamnet also made a strong showing across top categories. Both films had been widely tipped as awards-season staples, and their success helped shape a nominations slate dominated by prestige projects.
At the same time, voters surprised many with a number of unexpected inclusions, elevating performances and films that had hovered on the margins throughout the season. Those late-breaking nods were viewed by many as a reminder of the Academy’s capacity to defy conventional awards-season narratives.
In the acting races, early favorites have begun to emerge. Jessie Buckley is widely considered the front-runner for her emotionally charged performance in Hamnet. Timothée Chalamet also drew attention for his nomination for Marty Supreme, which carried additional significance. At age 30, Chalamet became the youngest actor since Marlon Brando to receive three Best Actor nominations, matching a milestone Brando reached decades earlier with A Streetcar Named Desire, Viva Zapata! and Julius Caesar.
Source: The Independent