Oscars 2026: Make your extremely early nominee predictions today!
We are launching our Gold Derby predictions center event for Oscars 2026 nominations today! Even though Academy Awards nominees will not be announced for another six months, on Jan. 22, 2026, see how well you see into the future. Click here to jump in right away, helping us set the extremely early odds and rankings for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Supporting Actor.
As we begin this new event, there are almost 50 contenders for Best Picture. Please keep in mind that we will update the predictions center weekly by adding, deleting, and changing movies, performers, and more. These updates will be made based on new information from the studios/campaigners provided to us. A movie and its contenders can only be added once it has a U.S. distributor and an approximate or firm release date in 2025. In a few months, we will add all of the other crafts categories, plus animation, documentary, international, and the shorts.
Among the many contenders are several potential first-time nominees alongside the usual suspects. Here are a few of the high-profile directors (previous Oscar winners and nominees and a few rising stars) who have films in contention this year:
Paul Thomas Anderson with One Battle After Another (starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Regina Hall, Sean Penn) for Warner Bros.
Darren Aronofsky with Caught Stealing (starring Austin Butler, Liev Schreiber, Regina King) for Sony.
Noah Baumbach with Jay Kelly (starring George Clooney, Laura Dern, Billy Crudup, Adam Sandler) for Netflix.
Edward Berger with The Ballad of a Small Player (starring Colin Farrell, Tilda Swinton) for Netflix.
Kathryn Bigelow with A House of Dynamite (starring Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Greta Lee) for Netflix.
James L. Brooks with Ella McCay (starring Emma Mackey, Woody Harrelson, Jamie Lee Curtis) for 20th Century.
James Cameron with Avatar: Fire and Ash (starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña) for 20th Century.
Jon M. Chu with Wicked: For Good (starring Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jonathan Bailey) for Universal.
Bill Condon with Kiss of the Spider Woman (starring Jennifer Lopez, Tonatiuh) for Lionsgate/Roadside.
Ryan Coogler with Sinners (starring Michael B. Jordan, Delroy Lindo, Hailee Steinfeld) for Warner Bros.
Scott Cooper with Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere (starring Jeremy Allen White, Jeremy Strong, Gaby Hoffmann) for 20th Century.
Ronan Day-Lewis with Anemone (starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Sean Bean, Samantha Morton) for Focus.
Guillermo del Toro with Frankenstein (starring Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth, Christoph Waltz) for Netflix.
Mike Flanagan with The Life of Chuck (starring Tom Hiddleston, Mark Hamill) for Neon.
Luca Guadagnino with After the Hunt (starring Julia Roberts, Andrew Garfield, Ayo Edebiri) for Amazon MGM.
Yorgos Lanthimos with Bugonia (starring Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Alicia Silverstone) for Focus.
Spike Lee with Highest 2 Lowest (starring Denzel Washington, Jeffrey Wright) for A24 / Apple Original Films.
Richard Linklater with Blue Moon (starring Ethan Hawke, Andrew Scott, Margaret Qualley) for Sony Pictures Classics.
Jafar Panahi with It Was Just an Accident (starring Vahid Mobasseri, Ebrahim Azizi) for Neon.
Celine Song with Materialists (starring Chris Evans, Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal) for A24.
Joachim Trier with Sentimental Value (starring Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgard, Elle Fanning) for Neon.
Chloé Zhao with Hamnet (starring Paul Mescal, Jessie Buckley, Emily Watson) for Focus.