Golden Globes, Oscars, SAGs: Your guide to the 2026 Hollywood awards seasons movies

It’s Moira Rose’s favourite season of the year – awards season.

Hollywood loves to give itself gongs, but given the challenged state of moviegoing, you can’t blame it.

It’s essentially a marketing exercise, a declaration to audiences that, at least for a few months every year, culminating in the Oscars in mid-March, it was still an industry that valued original ideas and quality filmmaking.

Awards season is a chance to draw attention to movies that are mostly not the kind of franchise-driven blockbusters that would get the lion’s share of advertising campaigns and marketing spend the rest of the year.

So, here’s your guide to all the films that are popping this awards season.

MARTY SUPREME

Timothee Chalamet is looking like he’s going to win the Oscar for his performance as Marty Mauser, a 1950s New York hustler and ping pong champion who will do whatever it takes to realise his dream. The frenetic film by Josh Safdie never stops moving, and will keep you in its clutches.

Watch: January 22, but previews from January 13

HAMNET

An emotionally wrenching drama about love, loss and grief, this Chloe Zhao film is adapted from Maggie O’Farrell’s best-selling novel. It tells the dramatised story of Shakespeare’s wife Agnes and the playwright and their family. Jessie Buckley has been widely lauded for her performances.

Watch: January 15

SINNERS

Ryan Coogler’s historic drama cum vampire horror is a wild time, featuring not one but two effective performances from long-time collaborator Michael B. Jordan. It also has an insanely good soundtrack, excellent production values and a blood-soaked climax that is hard to shake.

Watch: HBO Max

ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER

Paul Thomas Anderson’s thrilling drama-comedy about former revolutionaries battling an old, deranged foe was one of, if not the best film of 2025. And, so far, that’s what the awards voters are saying too. It’s cleaning up on the circuit. Expect a lot of visits to the stage from Anderson and his crew.

Watch: HBO Max

SENTIMENTAL VALUE

This Finnish drama from The Worst Person in the World filmmaker Joachim Trier is a perfectly calibrated and performed story about fractured relationships, and the ache of confronting the unsaid traumas in your family history. Stellan Skarsgard is phenomenal.

Watch: Cinemas

FRANKENSTEIN

Sorry to say it, but Guillermo del Toro’s adaptation of Mary Shelley’s novel is really not very good. All bluster and no subtlety, it’s a tiresome experience, but still seems to have a legion of fans given how well it’s performed in awards season, particularly for Australian actor Jacob Elordi, who is looking like a very strong Oscar contender.

Watch: Netflix

THE SECRET AGENT

This Brazilian political drama stars Narcos actor Wagner Moura as a former professor caught up in the chaos of the military dictatorship. The character is fictional, but the persecution and danger of that murderous regime was not.

Watch: Cinemas from January 22

BLUE MOON

Ethan Hawke reunited with frequent collaborator Richard Linklater for this very easy to like character portrait of real-life American lyricist Lorenz Hart, set across one night as Hart watches his former professional partner’s career soar. Hawke’s performance is gaining a lot of traction – and it’s well deserved.

Watch: Cinemas from January 29

BUGONIA

Adapted from a Korean film and directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, this biting comedy features Jesse Plemons as a paranoid loner who is convinced that a successful and severe pharmaceuticals boss is secretly an alien controlling the human population. So, he kidnaps her, as you do.

Watch: Digital rental

IF I HAD LEGS I’D KICK YOU

Written and directed by Mary Bronstein, this anxiety-inducing panic attack of a film features a career-best performance from Rose Byrne as a mother of a chronically ill child, in the middle of a breakdown as one thing after another goes wrong. Byrne’s desperate and darkly comedic turn should see her nominated while Bronstein’s script is also a potential contender.

Watch: Digital rental

IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT

The winner of the Cannes Palme d’Or, persecuted Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi’s drama-comedy is a fable about the cycle of violence, told through the story of a man who thinks he’s come across the prison guard who tortured him. It Was Just An Accident is looking strong in the international feature, best picture and director categories.

Watch: Cinemas from January 29

TRAIN DREAMS

A quiet and affecting drama about a man who works as a logger and railway construction worker, and the significant moments in what could be regarded as a small life. Joel Edgerton’s restrained performance has gained a lot of notice and he is working hard to secure that Oscar nod.

Watch: Netflix

NO OTHER CHOICE

This brilliant South Korean drama-comedy-satire by Oldboy director Park Chan-wook stars Squid Game’s Lee Byung-hun as a desperate family man trying to survive after he is made redundant after 25 years as a company man. The hunt for another job drives him to extreme acts in this indictment on work culture.

Watch: Cinemas from January 15

NOUVELLE VAGUE

Nouvelle Vague is somewhat on the bubble in the awards conversation but there are many, many fans of Richard Linklater’s delightful ode to the French New Wave, which portrays the story of how Jean-Luc Godard made his first film, Breathless.

Watch: Cinemas

THE TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE

Mona Fastvold’s strange and hypnotic musical-of-sorts about the odd life of Ann Lee, who after a series of personal tragedies was driven to found the Shakers, a religious sect who abstained from sex and expressed their devotion through song and dance. Amanda Seyfried is luminous in the title role.

Watch: Cinemas from February 26

SIRAT

A devastating survival story about a father who along with his son and his dog is searching for his daughter, who vanished some months earlier. Directed by Oliver Laxe, it’s Spain’s entry into the international feature category and has already won a slew of prizes including at Cannes.

Watch: Cinemas from February 26

KPOP DEMON HUNTERS

Perhaps 2025’s biggest screen release on any platform, especially if you’re a parent to youngish kids, KPop Demon Hunters will also blaze through awards season. It’s a strong contender in animated feature races and will surely win in the original song categories.

Watch: Netflix

ZOOTOPIA 2

Disney’s long-awaited sequel to Zootopia has stormed the box office to be, so far, the highest grossing Hollywood movie of 2025, and with its pop animation and a likeable story, is vying for those animated feature awards against KPop Demon Hunters.

Watch: Cinemas

SORRY, BABY

This smaller, independent drama about an isolated academic still dealing with a years-earlier sexual assault has been a surprise hit on the awards circuit, having nabbed a best actress Golden Globes nomination for Eva Victor, who is also its writer and director. It’s also up for a slew of Indie Spirit Awards.

Watch: Digital rental

THE SMASHING MACHINE

The Smashing Machine, a biopic about MMA fighter Mark Kerr, was supposed to be Dwayne Johnson’s big Oscars play but it’s largely off the boil (it wasn’t great, and it didn’t make much money), but Johnson and a miscast Emily Blunt still nabbed a pair of Golden Globes nominations. Rogue, but that’s the Globes for you.

Watch: Digital rental

JAY KELLY

A movie about a movie star should have more heat, especially when it stars George Clooney as that silver screen legend. But don’t discount it completely, and here’s hoping Adam Sandler, who gives a fantastic performance as Jay’s manager, has a late resurgence in the race because he really is that good.

Watch: Netflix

SONG SUNG BLUE

This schmaltzy crowd-pleaser about a Neil Diamond tribute act will win fans among the musical biopic fandom, especially those in older generations but those who don’t love Diamond songs will struggle. But Kate Hudson’s committed performance is earning plaudits and nominations.

Watch: Cinemas

WICKED: FOR GOOD

The second Wicked movie hasn’t made as much of a splash as its predecessor and it’s not expected to do as well this awards season, but where it will most likely be nominated is for Ariana Grande’s performance and below-the-line categories such as costume and production design.

Watch: Cinemas

AVATAR: FIRE AND ASH

The third Avatar movie might sneak into the best picture nominations list just because the previous two instalments did, and the franchise makes so much money. But really, the objectively terrible script should keep it out. But expect to see it show up in the visual effects races because Avatar is nothing if not its CGI world.

Watch: Cinemas

WEAPONS

Traditionally, genre movies such as horror have a really hard time breaking into the awards conversation but Weapons’s Amy Madigan, a well-respected veteran whose last Oscar nomination was 40 years ago, looks to be the frontrunner to win supporting actress for her genuinely creepy and upsetting turn as Aunt Gladys.

Watch: HBO Max

F1

The Brad Pitt Formula 1 racing extravaganza movie/brand content was perfectly fine as an enjoyable blockbuster, if you don’t think too much about the writing. But what it really nailed was some of its technical aspects, and F1 should be recognised in the editing and sound races.

Watch: Apple TV

WAKE UP DEAD MAN

There’s not a lot of awards heat on the third Knives Out mystery, which is a shame because there are some really excellent performances here, especially from Josh O’Connor and Glenn Close. But it’s still a chance for an Oscars screenplay nod, given Rian Johnson was recognised for the other two films in the series.

Watch: Netflix