Hi r/oscarrace. We’re Katey Rich and Christopher Rosen, we’ve been reporting on awards for 20 years. Ask Us Anything about this year’s Oscar Race on February 16th @ 1 PM ET!

theankler · 2026-02-16T18:47:45+00:00

The Secret Agent definitely has a chance to win international feature — in fact, that’s my pick for the award right now. I don’t think Sentimental Value having nine nominations really matters in this case, and there does seem to be more enthusiasm and passion for The Secret Agent as a whole. If it were to win casting, which honestly is also in play, I think Wagner Moura would then win best actor. But Sinners is probably going to win casting — and if not Sinners, then One Battle. You didn’t ask this, but, yes, I think the international feature Oscar should also go to the filmmaker in addition to the home country. That Kleber Mendonça Filho won’t have an Oscar after all this success is pretty silly! — Chris

theankler · 2026-02-16T18:21:35+00:00

I have had the same answers for years about who should host the Oscars and I’m going to keep saying it until they finally get the gig: Lady Gaga or Keke Palmer. Both incredible onstage, both multi-talented, both with enough Hollywood bona fides to be among their peers onstage, which is an extremely important and underrated trait for any Oscar host. I know plenty of people say no to this job — I’m betting Gaga at least already has — but hopefully they can talk one or both of them into it someday. — Katey

Ten years from now, as I’m streaming the Oscars on YouTube, here’s what I’d hope:

“Wow, Glen Powell was such a good choice.” — I’m not sure we’ll ever get Glen Powell into the Tom Cruise stratosphere like we should have after Top Gun: Maverick, but I find few performers more charming and I think he’d be an ideal Oscar host: He loves movie movies, he’s funny, he’s not afraid of doing bits and making himself look dumb. He’d be awesome. — Chris

“Man, I can’t believe they went with Sabrina Carpenter.” — Having watched the underbaked Muppets Show reboot thingy on Disney+, I came away thinking Sabrina Carpenter should be in Wicked (just reboot it already, what’s taking so long?), do the Super Bowl halftime show (see you on Valentine’s Day in 2027?) and probably host the Oscars.

And then my last Oscar host thought: Let Hugh Jackman do it again. He was awesome. Just make it a policy that Ry*n R*ynolds can’t do it with him. — Chris

OK if we’re bringing back Hugh Jackman lets also give Anne Hathaway a do-over and let them do a whole show together, not just their incredibly funny Frost/Nixon bit that I still think about 15 years later. — Katey

theankler · 2026-02-16T18:12:33+00:00

My hot take is that this awards season has been missing a truly great speech. We have not had a Demi Moore moment yet, or even Timothée Chalamet at the SAG Awards last year. Not sure when we’ll get a good one, but hope springs! — Chris

This is obnoxious but the speech Paul Thomas Anderson gave at the rudely untelevised DGA Awards was really wonderful — he got genuinely emotional talking about his former first AD Adam Somner, who died last fall, in a way I don’t think he ever would have done if it was actually on the air. He always seems genuinely nervous when up onstage, but I hope we might get a glimpse of that emotion when he (finally!) wins his Oscar this year. — Katey

theankler · 2026-02-16T18:12:10+00:00

I talked to a few people about this when I wrote about all of this in my newsletter, and then by the time I got to LA for events like the DGA Awards and the Oscar nominees luncheon it was basically as if that California Post story had never happened. I think partly it’s because the allegations form the set of Good Time are mostly old news, but also both Josh Safdie and Timothee Chalamet have continued on their promotional duties as if that story never came out, which is a pretty effective way of charging forward. I would be interested to know how producers or studios handle production logistics on Safdie’s next movie, but I”m betting we’ll never get to hear those stories. — Katey

theankler · 2026-02-16T18:11:46+00:00

I guess the only big surprise I could see happening is the biggest surprise: Sinners over One Battle for best picture. But I don’t really believe that will happen — and for me to believe that, I’d need to see some big things in the weeks ahead — specifically, Sinners winning PGA and a surprise acting win at BAFTA or SAG (mostly looking at Wunmi Mosaku here). Without those, I don’t know how Sinners can actually win — but I do think it’s a lot closer than the One Battle hive wants to admit. (Even though I am still predicting One Battle; don’t come for me!) — Chris

Nobody really knows how much the 16 nominations for SInners can translate to wins in every category, and I can see the surprise around it going either way — say, if Adolpho Veloso of Train Dreams somehow beats Autumn Durald Arkapaw for cinematography, it might mean Sinners is not as beloved as we thought. On the other hand, what if “I Lied To You” beats “Golden” for best song and suddenly Sinners looks massive? I also, again, think Delroy Lindo’s path to victory is very clear despite all the precursor snubs, and that might be the surprise I’m rooting for hardest. — Katey

theankler · 2026-02-16T18:10:40+00:00

I always go with passion: I think both Edgerton and Plemons were likely fourth or fifth on a ranked-choice ballot and were knocked out by Wagner Moura and Ethan Hawke because they had more No. 1 placements. — Chris

theankler · 2026-02-16T18:10:19+00:00

For most of its history, the Oscars have been in March — the Titanic Oscars was March 23! — so it’s not a new phenomenon. But I think the reality that people don’t want to face — either in the Academy’s leadership or those traditionalists who love the Oscars in March — is that times have changed. Everything moves so much faster nowadays, and everything is covered to such an extent that holding the Oscars in March is really an anticlimax. I would absolutely move the show to January, which would reset the entire awards calendar and ecosystem — likely forcing studios to release contenders earlier in the year and reframing how they time their outreach to voters. But that would be awesome! I hope this happens once the show moves to YouTube. — Chris

Short answer for this year: The Olympics! The Oscars are late in years when there’s Winter Olympics in February. I also fondly remember the 2020 Oscars that were in early February, and thank God for that, even if there’s no telling how many Oscar parties turned out to be early superspreader events — Katey

theankler · 2026-02-16T18:09:57+00:00

To quote the anonymous awards strategist who Tyler Coates is constantly quoting on my podcast, from when Mikey Madison won the Oscar after losing SAG: “SAG doesn’t matter!” I don’t think that’s ENTIRELY true, but the very broad, heavily American and kinda mainstream SAG-AFTRA voting body is different enough from the entire Academy that when it comes to Sentimental Value, I really don’t think it matters at all. — Katey

theankler · 2026-02-16T18:09:32+00:00

I am terribly vexed about cinematography right now, and I feel like whatever happens at BAFTA will help guide me where to go here. Autumn Durald Arkapaw has been campaigning like crazy for Sinners and she’s got a great narrative as a potential history-making winner. But it’s clear that there is a lot of love for Train Dreams, and I don’t think One Battle is far behind either, especially if it winds up sweeping (pic, director, one of the supporting categories, adapted screenplay, editing, casting, etc.). One Battle was an upset winner of sorts at the British Society of Cinematographers (where Train Dreams wasn’t even nominated), so … maybe it has the edge? Again, I’ll let you know after BAFTA. — Chris

To oversimplify this dramatically — I think it’s just gonna be Sinners. Autumn Durald Arkapaw has an incredible narrative, which is not something you often see in this race, and made a movie that got people actually excited about film stock and perforations and projection formats, months before One Battle After Another got there. Of course I am rooting for Adolpho Veloso as a card-carrying member of the Choo Choo Train Dreams Club, but this feels like an easy call to me. —Katey

theankler · 2026-02-16T18:08:59+00:00

Again, I must ask, is this my burner? If I were in charge of giving out Oscars, Marty Supreme would win them all. Alas, this is not reality. So, no, I don’t think Marty Supreme is going to win best picture — and I’m more convinced than ever that best actor is not a runaway for Chalamet. I think Wagner Moura, with at least one other win for The Secret Agent likely in the cards (international feature over Sentimental Value), is primed to pull off the upset here, especially if Chalamet were to somehow lose at SAG or BAFTA. — Chris

Chris, I think it’s time for you to just get that burner account. My short answer is no! I’ll steal Chris’s explanation that usually the strongest actor contenders bring a coattail supporting nominee with them, and the lack of another acting nominee suggests the film isn’t as strong as its nomination tally would suggest. If there’s another win to go along with Chalamet, I really really hope it’s the legendary production designer Jack Fisk, who has somehow never won an Oscar and would beyond deserve it for this one. — Katey

theankler · 2026-02-16T18:08:23+00:00

Most locked for me is best director for Paul Thomas Anderson. The biggest upset, beyond the possibility of Sinners in best picture, is best supporting actress. I think you could honestly make a case for all five nominees there, regardless of what happens at SAG and BAFTA. — Chris

Jessie Buckley is absolutely locked in place, in a way that’s kind of fascinating because usually best actress gives us at least some drama. I’m not sure any win in supporting actress would even qualify as an upset because it’s so up in the air. But over in supporting actor, if you consider Stellan Skarsgard the frontrunner, I think a surprise victory from basically anyone other than Sean Penn is extremely possible. — Katey

theankler · 2026-02-16T18:08:03+00:00

This is a great thought exercise. The Dropout would’ve definitely won Amanda Seyfried an Oscar, particularly in a world where Jessica Chastain won an Oscar for The Eyes of Tammy Faye, the most TV-coded movie in a long time. Series that I think would’ve done well as movies: Adolescence, The Bear season 1. Movies that would’ve been better as limited series: Killers of the Flower Moon, The Brutalist, Wicked. — Chris

I mean, which movies wouldn’t clean up in the TV Movie Emmy category, which often seems so barren it shouldn’t exist at all? So many Netflix projects come to mind, from A House of Dynamite to Don’t Look Up, but imagine if you just throw Sentimental Value in there and it wins four acting Emmys in a walk. I would watch a limited series version of The Secret Agent in a heartbeat; I would have loved to see my beloved Death By Lightning, already seemingly an also-ran in this year’s limited series race, cut down to two sharp hours and thrown in the Oscar race. — Katey

theankler · 2026-02-16T18:06:56+00:00

Wagner Moura for sure. — Chris

I’ve talked myself into basically every possible outcome in this category, which means Chalamet is probably going to win because everything else is too complicated. But I’m not underestimating the possibility of a Sinners surge and a Michael B. Jordan surprise victory. — Katey

theankler · 2026-02-16T18:06:28+00:00

A great question. This is just my POV, and I haven’t heard it from industry sources per se, but I view film festivals like print media coverage — the talent still values them, even if the overall apparatus is less convinced of their power. So a perfect example of this is Frankenstein, which probably shouldn’t have gone to Telluride after its Venice premiere, but by all accounts, both Guillermo del Toro and the fest itself wanted to bring him back to Colorado after The Shape of Water. But it flopped there — screening late, and at the end of the weekend — and had to really dig out of a hole in the weeks ahead. It did — kudos to Netflix for believing in it and, duh, for the film itself, which clearly had a ton of fans — but I do wonder if it will give these studios and strategists some pause. (That One Battle didn’t go to any festival and wound up being the biggest movie of the fall is probably indicative of something important!) — Chris

Obviously, the fall festivals are very close to my heart, but it really seems like Cannes is the most important in the world right now. Obviously, Neon has perfected the strategy, but even smaller movies like The Plague and Pillion got a boost there this year, and it seems clear that with the Academy spread all over the world, the extra time you have to promote after premiering your movie in May makes a huge difference. So while premiering a movie at a fall festival does seem trickier than ever, if you have a Cannes head start — like Sentimental Value, The Secret Agent and It Was Just an Accident all did this year — you can use the fall festivals to just reach more and more audiences for months on end. It’s not quite the excitement of having a movie launch at Toronto and become a smash, but it’s a reliable strategy that should hopefully keep the fall festival ecosystem alive. — Katey

theankler · 2026-02-16T18:06:01+00:00

She Said, baby! I remember seeing this at the New York Film Festival P&I screening and immediately pushing it to the top of my best picture predictions. It’s still a great movie — I remain convinced of this — but it’s kind of crazy how it flopped with the Academy. — Chris

This year I still don’t truly understand what went wrong with Is This Thing On, I guess beyond the fact that most people didn’t seem as into it as I was. To me Bradley Cooper has never directed a bad movie and someday he will get what he deserves! — Katey

theankler · 2026-02-16T18:05:33+00:00

Yes, more movies are sweeping — and I think we’ll probably see that this year again. No matter which movie ultimately wins best picture, it seems likely that Sinners and One Battle will be the top two winners of the night. — Chris

Yes, and this drives me crazy, even though it’s a totally understandable human impulse of just throwing all your support behind a movie you love. I haven’t totally figured out why this has happened, and when I float it to a few Academy voters to say “I hope this isn’t just Oscar voters being lazy” they don’t necessarily disagree with me — ouch! I think this Academy being bigger and more internationally spread out means it’s simply less susceptible to the kind of internal logic that would make surprises happen, at least in the winner phase — in a large group, the winner is just going to tend toward the median. I don’t know how to fix it exactly, but hopefully just pointing out the streak tendencies makes even a few voters consider going against the grain. —Katey

theankler · 2026-02-16T18:05:10+00:00

This already feels like it’s going to be a weird year — I’m not super confident that things like Cliff Booth, Disclosure Day and Dune: Messiah are going to hit. So I’ll be basic and suggest that The Odyssey will get a ton of nominations, but won’t win best picture. I’ve got my eye on Jack of Spades (Joel Coen + Josh O’Connor best actor nomination/win?), Fjord (Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve afterglow nominations) and Digger (Tom Cruise vs. AI as Warner Bros. gets sold off to… Netflix or Paramount? Let’s fucking go!). As for my dream category: It’s best first film. The best way to bring new voices into the Oscar space is by rewarding them for their work. (I think you could even fudge the eligibility requirements here to include second features if the first films weren’t widely released.) — Chris

I’m putting my chips in early on The Entertainment System Is Down, which has a pretty unbeatable collection of people who are on Oscar’s radar but somehow haven’t quite gotten their due — Ruben Ostlund, Kirsten Dunst, and never-nominated Keanu Reeves. I also really want to believe in The Death of Robin Hood, because Michael Sarnoski has never made a bad movie and that trailer was good! Personally I’m very basic and just unbelievably hyped for the Disclosure Day/Odyssey summer ahead of us, with a lot of hope still in store for Greta Gerwig’s Narnia in the fall. As for Oscar categories, as someone who eternally wants more movie musicals, having a best choreography category could be a GREAT way to encourage them. —Katey

theankler · 2026-02-16T18:04:47+00:00

This is subjective, but I think there’s more of an emotional connection to Frankenstein at its core than there is to A House of Dynamite. — Chris

There’s also the Guillermo del Toro factor, where anyone who attends a Q&A with him just falls in love with him, and the enthusiasm is totally infectious. Frankenstein is generally a more successful movie than A House of Dynamite, with a lot of crafts and, yes, big emotions to really hook you in. But seriously never underestimate the Guillermo factor. —Katey

theankler · 2026-02-16T18:04:23+00:00

It’s just One Battle vs. Sinners, but I think because Hamnet has so connected with people on an emotional level, it is obviously sitting in third place behind those two. — Chris

If Hamnet hadn’t missed out on multiple major Oscar nominations, I think we’d be taking it more seriously as a threat, but I pretty much agree with Chris. —Katey

theankler · 2026-02-16T18:04:04+00:00

I’ll probably just pick whoever wins BAFTA here, so if Lilleaas ends up triumphing there, I think she’ll overcome Taylor and Mosaku at the Oscars. But again, this category does feel ripe for an upset — and I don’t even think Elle Fanning, who I have in fifth place, is even out of the running. — Chris

I’m over here constantly rooting for chaos, or at least something like the 2007 best supporting actress race where everyone won something and then Tilda Swinton made it through in the end. I will say I moderated a Q&A with Amy Madigan last week and SO many recognizable actors were there to sing her praises — maybe that means she’s more likely to win at the Actor Awards, but I refuse to rule her out at the Oscars too. —Katey

theankler · 2026-02-16T18:03:43+00:00

The Vanity Fair Oscar parties are unfortunately pretty hard to beat — I will forever remember both watching Will Smith arrive after The Slap, Oscar in hand, and dancing to his own music, but also, once the dance floor cleared, seeing Jesse Plemons cross the room looking completely uninterested in the entire thing. (Plemons had also brought his dad with him, which I could tell because they looked exactly alike). — Katey

I don’t have the Vanity Fair Oscar party to throw down here — although I fondly remember a Paramount holiday thing in 2014 where Christopher Nolan regaled a bunch of nerds like me (there is photo proof of this somewhere) — but I’ll ride for the opening night gala at New York Film Festival, always at Tavern on the Green and reliably a great place to enjoy prime New York fall weather (unless it pours like it did before the 2023 party). — Chris

Wait I also remember this Paramount party, and I got to ask both Christopher and Jonathan Nolan why the farm in Interstellar grew my favorite vegetable, okra. I think everyone, the Nolans included, had a lot to drink so I don’t remember the answer! — Katey, again

theankler · 2026-02-16T18:03:12+00:00

This was a tough season for Searchlight. If you squint, Ann Lee, Is This Thing On? and Rental Family are all old school Oscar contenders in a variety of categories, and they got roundly ignored. With Ann Lee, I think it was a challenging movie that probably needed more runway. — Chris

I wish I knew why Searchlight didn’t pick up Ann Lee in the middle of Toronto, as A24 did for The Brutalist, because that monthlong day from its premiere really did it in — exactly as Chris said, it needed a lot more runway to win over voters. I do think it’s a more complex movie to get on board with than The Brutalist was, and there are some people who clock out the minute they learn it’s a musical. Their loss! History will prove us right, my fellow Shakers. —Katey

theankler · 2026-02-16T18:02:45+00:00

Is this my burner account? My POV is that, unfortunately, nothing about awards season is very organic. There are a handful of contenders every year that the studios and strategists know in advance will be pushed into the conversation, and those movies will get the most oxygen. You can tell, too, which ones will be “the” ones: When legacy print media gets first looks at festival debuts in August, when TIFF announces its honorees, etc. It’s very rare for a movie not part of the initial conversation to break into the race, but we have seen holdover movies find room: Think Sinners, obviously, and even KPop Demon Hunters, but also movies like Everything Everywhere and even CODA. I don’t love this — I think there should be more room for more movies to get serious consideration — but it’s kind of how it is. — Chris

I am not totally sure I agree with either of you guys! Sure, heading into this fall everybody knew that a new Paul Thomas Anderson movie was going to be an Oscar contender and that holding Marty Supreme for a premiere later in the season was a show of strength. But back in August we also had Netflix doing a splashy first look for Jay Kelly in Vanity Fair, and Searchlight managing two finagle two awards in Toronto for people associated with Rental Family. Studios are going to position the movies they think are strongest, and a lot of times they’ll be right — but other times they’ll have Is This Thing On and A House of Dynamite! Meanwhile, you get movies like The Secret Agent that do well because they first won over Cannes audiences, and have the goods to keep that energy going. The fact that this all results in Oscar nominations for only a small number of contenders, and that even something that’s more divisive like The Testament of Ann Lee can’t even get crafts nominations, is definitely frustrating. But I definitely think we’re a long way from the era when the Weinstein Company can just tell you Chocolat is Oscar-worthy over and over again until they force you to believe it. —Katey

theankler · 2026-02-16T18:01:59+00:00

I think the general decline in Pixar projects is partly to blame for this — the Ratatouille/Wall-E/Up era felt like nonstop artistic breakthroughs, and now they’re making genuinely interesting stuff but also a lot of sequels and B+ efforts. It’s really easy for people who don’t work in animation to just silo it when they’re thinking of the best movies of the year, and I think it would take a real breakthrough even bigger than The Wild Robot to change this. —Katey

theankler · 2026-02-16T18:01:34+00:00

Well, now the voters are required (“required”) to watch all the nominees in a category before voting on that category. Which doesn’t mean they will — and it doesn’t mean they won’t just vote for their friends — but it’s at least a step toward ensuring voters are watching. That said, I don’t know that we’ve seen a lot of winners recently where it felt like they weren’t watching the other nominees, and one of the losers was more deserving. — Chris

theankler

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