This year’s Oscars are shaping up as a battle between a gothic vampire horror and an “epic screwball adventure”.

Nominated for a record 16 Academy Awards, Ryan Coogler’s bloody and blues-driven Sinners is widely considered to be in a two-way race for the best-picture gong with Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, which is vying for awards in 13 categories.

But many of the other honours at the 98th Academy Awards – due to be presented on March 15 (March 16, Australian time) – are far less certain after what Vanity Fair has described as “one of the wildest Oscar seasons we’ve seen in a long time”.

While awards leading up to the Oscars usually provide some indication of how things will land on Hollywood’s night of nights, results this time have been all over the place. So much so that one of the few predictions commentators are making with any confidence is that Irish actor Jessie Buckley will take home the best actress award for her role in the heartbreaking drama Hamnet – which also comes third in many best-picture predictions.

Here’s are the experts’ picks in key categories – two of which include Australian nominees.

Best picture

Horror has never been a favoured genre among the more than 10,000 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences who vote for the Oscars, with 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs the only such nominee to win the best picture prize. In 2026, however, there are two horrors in the running: Sinners, and Guillermo del Toro’s fresh take on Frankenstein.

Set in 1932 during the era of US segregation, Sinners follows twin brothers (played by Michael B Jordan) who leave behind gangster life in Chicago to return to their Mississippi hometown and open a juke joint in a disused sawmill – only to find that evil is waiting for them in the form of the undead.

Described by The Guardian as a “a freaky tale of supernatural evil and the blues” and in Vanity Fair as “a bloody and bracing study of history – with vampires”, it has already won a string of accolades, including best ensemble at this month’s Actor Awards.

Likewise, One Battle After Another has shone brightly at the run-up awards, taking home best film at the BAFTAs, the Critics Choice Awards and the PGA (Producers Guild of America) Awards, and best musical or comedy at the Golden Globes.

Inspired by author Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel Vineland, One Battle After Another stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a washed-up, pot-smoking ex-revolutionary who is living off-grid but is forced to reunite with his former far-left resistance group when an old nemesis returns and kidnaps his daughter.

Writing for The Conversation, Ruth Barton said it is a “state-of-the-nation” film that explores an America in crisis. Rotten Tomatoes critics dubbed it “an epic screwball adventure” with “awe-inspiring action set pieces”.

While The Hollywood Reporter and Variety have predicted Sinners to take the win, Vanity Fair is backing One Battle After Another, noting that neither of the two frontrunners has taken the “traditional” path of Oscar contenders.

“These aren’t fall festival premieres that went on to be beloved by cinephiles, selling out theatres in New York and LA but not much else,” it reported. “Instead, they’re both crowd-pleasing blockbusters.”

In total, there are 10 films in the running for the best picture Oscar:  Bugonia, F1, Frankenstein, Hamnet, Marty Supreme, One Battle After Another, The Secret Agent, Sentimental Value, Sinners and Train Dreams.

Most predictions put Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet third on the list of likely winners. Adapted from Maggie O’Farrell’s bestselling 2020 novel of the same name and set in 16^th-century England, the drama follows William Shakespeare and his wife Agnes as they navigate their grief after their 11-year-old son dies of the plague, leading the Bard to pen his famous play, Hamlet.

Best director

Paul Thomas Anderson and Ryan Coogler are also the top contenders in this category, the result of which may depend on which of their films – if, indeed, either – wins best picture.

That said, the two awards don’t always go hand-in-hand, with Ben Affleck among the most high-profile directors who was snubbed for a director gong when Argo won best picture in 2012.

The other contenders this year are Josh Safdie for Marty Supreme, Joachim Trier for Sentimental Value and Zhao for Hamnet. Zhao previously became only the second woman to take home the best director award when she won it for Nomadland in 2021.

Oscars 2026: Who Will Win, Who Should Win

Best Director?

» Will Win: Paul Thomas Anderson
» Should Win: Ryan Coogler
» Who We’d Like to See Win: Both, to be honest. pic.twitter.com/OB23b0zKWj

— Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) March 4, 2026

Best actor

This is considered one of the most volatile categories in 2026, with Timothée Chalamet named best actor at the Critics Choice Awards and the Golden Globes for his role in Marty Supreme, and Michael B Jordan scoring the Actor Award for Sinners.    

Rounding out the nominations are Leonardo DiCaprio (One Battle After Another), Ethan Hawke (Blue Moon) and Wagner Moura (The Secret Agent).

The Hollywood Reporter’s editor of awards, Scott Feinberg, is backing Chalamet for the win, but says that many seem to find his Marty Supreme character – an ambitious young table tennis player – “repellent”, while others have been put off by the actor’s swagger on the awards circuit.

Feinberg also acknowledges that Jordan gives a “tour de force performance” as twins in Sinners, while Vanity Fair – which predicts the Sinners star will win best actor – argues the Actor Award was a big vote of confidence in him.

“There’s also been a surge of support for Jordan and his performance after an upsetting incident at the BAFTA Awards,” it said.

The “incident” saw John Davidson, who has severe Tourette syndrome, unintentionally shout out a racial slur while  Jordan and co-star Delroy Lindo were presenting an award. Coincidentally, Robert Aramayo, who plays Davidson in the biopic I Swear, won the BAFTA for best actor but was ineligible for this year’s Oscars.

Best actress

Australia has a particular interest in the best actress race after our own Rose Byrne (Bridesmaids, Damages) received her first Oscar nomination for her role as an unravelling therapist with a seriously ill daughter in the psychological drama If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.

Byrne’s performance has been widely praised by critics and won her a Golden Globe, but most of the pre-Oscars hype suggests Buckley will win for her portrayal of a mother’s despair in Hamnet – even if the film has ignited debate over the fine line between harrowing realism and “grief-porn”.

Rolling Stone nominates Buckley as the woman it thinks “will win”, “should win” and “who we’d like to see win”, adding: “Throw in a Pulitzer and a Nobel Peace Prize as well”.

Kate Hudson is considered an outside chance for Song Sung Blue, in which she plays one half of a Neil Diamond tribute act, while the other nominees are Renate Reinsve for Sentimental Value and
Emma Stone for Bugonia.

Best supporting actor

Jacob Elordi – currently channelling his best tortured (and torturing) gothic hero in Emerald Fennell’s controversial take on Wuthering Heights – is Australia’s other hope for an acting gong.

The 28-year-old is nominated for his role as “the creature” in del Toro’s adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which already saw him take home the  Critics Choice Award – despite a BBC review claiming “the ridiculously good-looking Australian star” was too handsome to be a convincing monster.

Elordi is vying with fellow best supporting actor contenders Benicio Del Toro and Sean Penn (One Battle After Another), Delroy Lindo (Sinners),  and Stellan Skarsgård (Sentimental Value), with Lindo and Penn considered the frontrunners.

Best supporting actress

Amy Madigan (Weapons), Wunmi Mosaku (Sinners) and Teyana Taylor (One Battle After Another) have already scooped awards in this category at the Actor Awards, BAFTAs and Golden Globes, respectively, so this category is another tough call.

Also nominated are Elle Fanning and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, who both star in the family drama Sentimental Value

The scales seemed to have tipped in Madigan’s favour after the 75-year-old first-time Oscars nominee took out the Actors Award for her role as “unhinged Aunt Gladys” in director Zach Cregger’s Weapons, about a group of schoolchildren who all disappear from class on the same day.

If she does scoop the award, it will be another win for horror in Hollywood.