First Predictions: Best Supporting Actress

by Nathaniel R

Can Daisy & Esmé pull an Emma & Kate in the new version of SENSE & SENSIBILITY?

With such a banner Best Supporting Actress season in the rearview mirror, how can the next race even dream of topping it? Who will be our next Madigan... our Wunmi or Teyana? Will we get another Inga & Elle twofer? Sight unseen the films of 2026 don't appear to be offering us a wealth of contenders. And yet, who can really know in the spring or summertime?  Promos and buzz and rumors of greatness for forthcoming films almost always center around movie star leads and auteurs. Supporting characters, and the actors who play them, only (usually) turn heads / gather momentum during actual screenings and the reviews / media discourse that follows. Which is a long way of saying I don't feel even remotely confident in this first round of Oscar predictions for the 99th Oscars.

Consider the following possibilities...

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First Oscar Predictions: Visual Categories

by Nathaniel R

First still from WERWULF. Can it follow in Nosferatu's footsteps and receive craft nominations?

We started with Costume Design (we're partial to those threads, don'cha know) but now the rest of the first round predictions for the 99th Oscars are available in all visual categories...

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First Oscar Predictions: The Actors, Lead and Supporting

by Nathaniel R

Can John Turturro hold on to his Sundance buzz for "The Only Living Pickpocket in New York" © Sony Pictures Classics

Whoops. Lost some momentum there to finish the first round of Oscar predictions. Let's take on Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor...

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First Predictions: Best Animated Feature

by Nathaniel R

JIM QUEEN is a French gay adult animated comedy about a virus that turns gay men into heterosexuals. It premiered at Cannes.

Every year I hope to become more of a voracious viewer of animated films. There's so much happening around the world in animation but international animation (beyond some films from Japan) rarely hits US movie theaters or stays for a long enough time to build a fanbase. The animation year started out unexpectedly strong with more animated films premiering at Cannes than is usually the case. And Annecy, the annual summer animation festival, is just around the corner -- we'll be reviewing a few titles from Annecy for the very first time -- though sadly we're not travelling TO the festival but responding to screeners. While we would love for the Best Animated Feature race to be a truly competitive international free-for-all each year, the stats suggest that it's always Disney's to lose. More accurately it's always Disney/Pixar's to lose (or at least it was until the 2020s) even if the selected nominees each year paint a broader picture of the artform...

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First Predictions: Adapted & Original Screenplays

by Nathaniel R

Four inspirations for 2026 movies: Mrs Dalloway becomes CLARRISA, The Unfaithful Wife becomes MINOTAUR, Rocky (1976) gets a making of bio with I PLAY ROCKY, and of course the bestseller turned blockbuster PROJECT HAIL MARY

As someone who never used to have writers block but who has it frequently now, I have a newly reinvigorated respect for fellow writers who perservere. That said, the screenwriters life can't be easy given the amount of script doctoring, star and director and studio "notes", multiple drafts, and anything else that can change an original concept or even an adapted one -- and what is the difference really in some cases? Cheers to anyone who sees anything they wrote up on screen, even if it's only partially their vision in the end. Let's look at some Oscar possibilities after the jump...

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