98th Academy Awards Best Picture Race: Breaking Down the 2026 Oscar Contenders
Alexandria, VA – The 98th Academy Awards will take place March 15, honoring the year’s best films and setting the stage for a competitive Best Picture race. Hosted by Conan O’Brien, who stars with Best Actress nominee Rose Byrne in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, the Oscars’ ten 2026 Best Picture-nominated films present a divergent representation of filmmaking.
Following last year’s Oscar sweep by Sean Baker’s indie Anora, another wild ride currently dominates the awards roller coaster. With 13 Oscar nominations, Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another is driving hard and fast, much like Brad Pitt in Best Picture-nominated F-1, already winning over 35 top critics and guild awards.
Not to be knocked out, Sinners, produced, written, and directed by Ryan Coogler (of the Black Panther franchise), comes to the battle for Oscar with 16 nominations, breaking the all-time record held by All About Eve (1950), Titanic (1997), and La La Land (2017). The horror film with a bleeding heart has got a chance.
So far Sinners has won the Golden Globe Award for Cinematic and Box Office Achievement and the Award for Best Original Score by Ludwig Göransson. With sumptuous cinematography, the fantastical flick is a bold departure from the horror genre – a feast for the eyes and ears, as well as for scores of hangry vampires. Having already earned high praise by winning six critics’ awards, and named an AFI Movie of the Year, this blend of post-World War I period racial inequality set in the Jim Crow South by way of soul-seeking and -sucking blues-loving vampires has grossed over $369 worldwide.
With a $90 million budget that earned upwards of $279 million domestically alone, Sinners has been deemed a massive commercial success. By contrast, One Battle After Another, with a budget of about $175 million against $72.1million in domestic box office numbers, is considered comparatively a flop.
Film producer and Alexandria native Cameron MacConomy is a member of the Producer’s Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA, with voting power come awards season. Having worked on five of the six Hunger Games franchise films (with screen appearances in four of them), and producing last year’s The Long Walk, which recently won the Independent Spirit Robert Altman Award, he knows that box office battles pack a punch winning kudos and ultimate film prizes.
MacConomy thinks Sinners has all the right stuff: revenge/redemption/contrition themes, stellar cinematography, evocative blues and folk jamming. It’s a whirling dervish of a Blaxploitation/vamp vibe masterpiece with an eloquent score and sterling cast that includes Michael B. Jordan in twin roles.
MacConomy doesn’t see Sinners as down for the count against heavyweight Leo DiCaprio failing the good fight in yet another life in post-dystopian disaster America. “One Battle is still holding as the heavy favorite, but it’s important to remember that Best Picture is actually the ‘most liked’ picture since the Academy uses ranked choice voting,” said MacConomy. “And given the record-setting amount of nominations Sinners has, voters clearly like it a lot. So it can’t be ruled out.”
Another political Battle or vampire gore not your cup of tea? What else is there on screen that’s Oscar-worthy? Hamnet and Train Dreams are absolutely exquisite, the sort of films that once upon a time in Hollywood would be Oscar-bound. Best Picture contender F-1 is as thrilling a ride as the undulating roadway racing scene in One Battle After Another. Judging by the number of F-1 billboards around LA at Christmas, this film may well cross at least one Oscar race finish line.
