The Oscars are almost here. The 98th Academy Awards will be presented on Sunday, March 15, in Los Angeles, where some of Hollywood’s biggest stars will vie for the coveted statuettes honoring the best films and performances from the past year.
And this year’s Oscars race is shaping up to be one of the most unpredictable in recent memory. There appear to be two leading contenders for Best Picture: Sinners, director Ryan Coogler’s supernatural thriller, which received a record 16 nominations overall, and Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, which grabbed 13 nods.
But the acting categories appear to be (mostly) wide open.
Timothée Chalamet, star of Marty Supreme and this award season’s most controversial character, became the youngest actor since Marlon Brando to receive three best-actor Oscar nominations. But Chalamet has yet to win one, and he’s up against Leonardo DiCaprio (One Battle After Another), Michael B. Jordan (Sinners), Ethan Hawke (Blue Moon) and Wagner Moura (The Secret Agent).
In the race for best actress, two-time Academy Award-winner Emma Stone (Bugonia) is vying for her third against four would-be first-timers: Jessie Buckley (Hamnet), Rose Byrne (If I Had Legs I’d Kick You), Renate Reinsve (Sentimental Value) and Kate Hudson (Song Sung Blue).
The best-supporting actor category features a two-time Oscar winner, Sean Penn (One Battle After Another); a fellow winner and One Battle cast member, Benicio Del Toro; and three actors who’ve never won one: Jacob Elordi (Frankenstein), Delroy Lindo (Sinners), and Stellan Skarsgård (Sentimental Value).
This year’s competition also features the first-ever Academy Award for casting, with One Battle After Another, Sinners, Hamnet, Marty Supreme and The Secret Agent vying for that inaugural Oscar.
The 2026 Academy Awards will be held on March 15 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles and broadcast live at 7 p.m. ET on ABC and Hulu. Conan O’Brien returns as host for the second consecutive year.
