Oscar Morning Shockers, Snubs & Screams
No trophy yet, but there were 10 big winners of the day
This morning, while Christopher Rosen and I watched the Oscar nominations live on YouTube together, there were a few moments when my pulse genuinely raced. Yes, there were some surprises and some true thrills — I’ll get into those below — but mostly I just get so excited on this day every year. Finally, months of speculation about the Oscar race culminate in the reveal of the names who will make it into the history books.
You can rewatch our livestream if you want to see me and Chris jumping for joy over nominations like Delroy Lindo for Sinners (click here to watch Chris’ profane reaction for being one of the few pundits to get this prediction right), or both of us mourning our various bad predictions. (I shouldn’t have doubted Bugonia; Chris shouldn’t have been so confident in Odessa A’zion. Check out all our picks on the Prestige Junkie Pundits page.)
You can also join us for much more discussion of these nominees on Prestige Junkie After Party, where Chris and I will be taking your calls and going deep on every category — for paid subscribers only, so now’s a great time to join!
That call-in show episode will also include a few calls I had this morning with some of the 2026 nominees, who were all trying to balance the duties of daily life — Hamnet co-screenwriter Maggie O’Farrell was having soup with her daughter, Zootopia 2 producer Yvett Merino was getting her kids out the door to school — with the anxiety of Oscar nominations morning. When I talked to Train Dreams filmmaker Clint Bentley about the film’s four nominations, he was standing outside a restaurant where he and his wife had scheduled a brunch date as something to look forward to, whether or not his film got recognized. As for Zootopia 2 co-director Jared Bush, he was trying hard to fit in a few congratulatory phone calls before boarding a plane.
You’ll be able to watch all of those brief, ecstatic conversations on the After Party episode dropping this weekend, so see you there!
Oscar Nominations: Who Really Won
Now, onto the fun. Find the full list of nominees here, and then read on for my breakdown of the 10 biggest winners of the day —not just the films with the most nominations, but the films, studios and campaigners who came out of this morning with the most to celebrate.
1. Sinners — With a Bullet
It’s hard to overstate the enormity of what Sinners accomplished this morning. Setting the all-time nominations record with 16 (besting All About Eve, Titanic and La La Land, all of which had 14 nominations, in the history books) was possible partly thanks to that new casting category, sure, but also the film’s strong performance in virtually every category where it was a contender — plus the wonderful shock of seeing the legendary Delroy Lindo earn his first Oscar nomination at last. It’s all incredibly validating following the sturm and drang last spring about how much Warner Bros. spent on the film — and raises a very genuine question of whether the only thing that can keep the studio from winning best picture with One Battle After Another is another of its own films. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
2. One Battle After Another, Despite That Chase Infiniti Snub
Surely there’s disappointment in Burbank that 25-year-old Chase Infiniti, the breakout star of One Battle After Another, got bumped out of the best actress race in favor of the veterans Kate Hudson and Emma Stone. (More on them in a moment!) But the Paul Thomas Anderson film otherwise landed absolutely everywhere else it needed to do well, including nods for production design and sound that were far from guaranteed. With 13 nominations, One Battle came very close to tying the previous record for most-ever nominations, another astonishing accomplishment for Warner Bros. this morning. (The fact that the studio also had theatrical distribution on Apple’s surprise best picture nominee F1 is truly just rubbing it in for everybody else.)
3. Focus Features, Despite That Paul Mescal Snub
Yes, Paul Mescal missing out on a nomination for best supporting actor for Hamnet is a tough pill to swallow, a snub that quite possibly happened because of voter confusion about whether he’s a lead or supporting actor. (We’ll never know!) But it was an otherwise strong morning for Hamnet with eight nominations, and an exceptional one for studio Focus Features and their wide range of contenders. Bugonia, as everyone but me predicted, found its way into the best picture lineup after all, with additional nominations for star Emma Stone, writer Will Tracy and a real shocker nod for composer Jerskin Fendrix. The true feather in their cap, though, is Kate Hudson, whose crowdpleaser Song Sung Blue didn’t exactly catch fire with audiences or voters but whose incredibly charming one-woman campaign did the trick. Hamnet, Song Sung Blue and Bugonia are wildly different movies, but thanks to Focus’ canny campaigners, each managed to find its Oscar lane. And fun fact: With Jessie Buckley’s nomination for Hamnet, Focus has become the first studio since Miramax in 2003 to field three best actress nominees in a single year (when Nicole Kidman won for The Hours, and Salma Hayek for Frida and Renée Zellweger for Chicago were among the nominees).
4. Neon, Despite the It Was Just an Accident Snub
I admit I’ll be mad for a while that Jafar Panahi’s tremendous It Was Just An Accident, the Palme d’Or winner at Cannes last year, missed out in best picture as well as director. (At least Panahi is a nominee for best original screenplay.) And Neon also failed in its admittedly far-fetched effort to back all five international feature nominees, with The Voice of Hind Rajab taking the spot that might have gone to No Other Choice. But there’s still so much to celebrate from the reigning best picture champ, which grabbed 18 nominations in 12 categories from five international titles. Leading the charge was the very strong performance from Sentimental Value, which snagged acting nominations for all four of its stars plus five other nominations, including director and picture. Add that to the four nominations for The Secret Agent (including best picture, best actor for Wagner Moura and a well-deserved casting mention), and two more for Sirāt (sound and international feature), and it’s clear that voters are seriously considering these films well beyond the borders of the international feature category. A consecutive best picture win is probably unlikely for Neon this year, but their strategy of banking on international hits continues to pay off.
5. The European Film Awards
All of the nominations mentioned above happened because of Neon’s excellent campaigning and the films themselves, of course. But credit to the European Film Awards for seeing all of this coming. Taking place last Saturday in Berlin, the awards went hard for Sentimental Value with six wins, plus an additional five crafts wins for Sirāt. The awards were handed out after Oscar voting ended, so they didn’t influence anybody, but with the BAFTA nominations not out until later this week, the European Film Awards became the de facto glimpse into which way many international Academy voters might be leaning.
6. Train Dreams, Choo-choo!
As you’ve heard me say ad nauseam in this newsletter and on the podcast ever since Sundance last year, Train Dreams is truly the little movie that could, and getting a whopping four Oscar nominations is an even bigger accomplishment than I’d hoped for. I think cinematographer Adolpho Veloso is a real contender in that category now, while the nominations in song, adapted screenplay and best picture really prove the depth of affection for the film. Yes, I would have loved a nomination for star Joel Edgerton as well, but we’ll practice gratitude instead.
7. Blue Moon and the SPC Slow-Burn Strategy
Sure, my prediction that Blue Moon would sneak into best picture didn’t pay off. But the best actor nomination for Ethan Hawke, in addition to the best original screenplay nod for Robert Kaplow, is clear evidence that the movie was surging at the exact right moment, nearly a full year after it first premiered at the Berlin Film Festival. From doing the fall festival rounds to doing fantastic work as a presenter at the New York Film Critics Circle dinner earlier this month, Hawke has been an especially charismatic figure on the campaign trail. Fighting his way through that insanely crowded best actor lineup was truly no easy feat.
8. Frankenstein and Its Many Crafts
Guillermo del Toro was bumped out of the best director category despite his Directors Guild Awards nomination, replaced (presumably) by Joachim Trier. But del Toro already has his Oscars from The Shape of Water and Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, and he’s a two-time nominee this year anyway for producing and writing Frankenstein. So, I’m sure he’s fine. Instead, the Academy went all in on the film’s crafts as well as supporting actor Jacob Elordi, with nine nominations total — a huge haul even in a year with Sinners putting up such gaudy numbers. Particularly with Wicked: For Good bombing out of the race entirely, Frankenstein is a strong contender for wins in multiple categories like costumes, production design and especially hair and makeup. Following its rough reception at the fall festivals, I don’t think I ever would have expected Frankenstein to become Netflix’s top Oscar contender. That’s the bumpy road of awards season for you!
9. Kokuho, Now at the Top of Everyone’s Catch-Up List
Never doubt Tom Cruise? The Japanese submission for best international feature first made it on to my radar when it was included on multiple shortlists from the Critics Choice Awards, and then again when it was on the Academy’s shortlist for makeup and hairstyling. In between, Cruise famously hosted a screening for it that got a big bump on social media. So while Kokuho missed the international feature field, scoring a nomination in the hair and makeup category — again, over Wicked: For Good, a truly unexpected outcome — means that a lot of us now have some catching up to do!
10. The New Casting Category
How incredibly exciting to have a brand-new Oscar category to talk about, the first time that’s happened in my entire career of covering awards. And what great news that, even though the category is made up entirely of best picture contenders, the variety of options — the tight family ensemble of Hamnet, the wild cast of single-scene characters in Marty Supreme, The Secret Agent and One Battle After Another, the multiple communities of Sinners — suggest that the casting category really can emerge as something other than Oscar’s answer to best ensemble. Casting directors were overdue for this moment of recognition, and they are really making the most of it. As Hamnet nominee and casting legend Nina Gold put it in her reaction statement, “I’m also claiming this nomination for the previous 97 years of brilliant casting directors before us, and sharing my joy with them.”