Oscars nominations 2026: Wicked’s very bad run, Sinners’ triumph and other surprises

Every Oscars nominations morning will deliver a spate of surprises and so-called snubs, and this year was no different.

HOW WICKED 2 LOST THE MAGIC

If you were up late last night watching the Oscar nominations announcement, you knew something was in the air as soon as hosts Danielle Brooks and Lewis Pullman read out the first category.

It was for best supporting actress and right after Elle Fanning’s name came out, the next pronouncement was Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, both for Sentimental Value. The Oscars sequence the nominees by alphabetical order, so by then, it was already clear that Ariana Grande had not been nominated.

Grande missing out was an omen that Wicked: For Good was about to have a very bad morning, confirmed when, 20 minutes later, it had netted zero nominations.

Gravity did its job and pulled the musical extravaganza down from its lofty heights after the previous year’s 10 nominations and two wins.

Some will – and have – called it a snub, even a shocking, egregious one. But they would be wrong.

Sometimes films and performances are snubbed because they were just too quirky or genre for the voters, or because they were small and not enough voters watched it.

But everyone watched Wicked: For Good and they didn’t like what they saw – because it was a bad movie. Most of the performances, even from Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh, were pitched wrong, the story was underwhelming and none of the songs wormed into your ear.

So, how did it come to this?

It never helps when the movie kind of sucks, although that’s not always prohibitive because Frankenstein nabbed nine nominations (hey, art is subjective). But what really killed Wicked off started years earlier when the decision was made to split the stage production’s story in two.

The second half of the play has always been weaker, with no real belter of a song and some tepid story beats. By carving it in half, the filmmakers doomed Wicked: For Good to be exactly what it was, an unsatisfying, shell of a movie.

There is also sequel fatigue, especially for something that followed so quickly after its precedent, and the timing also meant the studio was cognisant of beating people over the head with it, so the runaway promotional train of 12 months ago was dialled back.

Cynthia Erivo, whose chances of repeating her best actress nomination got slimmer as the season wore on, was also committed to rehearsals for Sydney Theatre Company’s restaging of Dracula in London, so she wasn’t as available for publicity or campaigning.

The most memorable moment of the Wicked: For Good publicity tour was when Erivo jumped in front of Grande to save her being grabbed by a pest (how embarrassing, an Australian dude).

Add in the bad-to-lukewarm reviews, the forgettable new songs and a diminished box office ($US524 million to the first film’s $US758m), and Wicked: For Good just had a stink about it which spread across even the craft categories such as costumes and production design, where it feasibly might’ve netted some recognition.

But individual voters want to either barrack for an underdog or be associated with winners, and the love for Wicked: For Good was just not there.

As Nikki Glaser joked at the Golden Globes, Wicked: For Money.

SINNERS MAKES IT A REAL RACE

What an absolute triumph for Sinners to become the most nominated film in Oscars history, toppling a 75-year-old record set by All About Eve in 1951, and matched by Titanic and La La Land.

Hold on a second, isn’t there a new category this year, and that’s why Sinners could boost its numbers? Sure, there is, for casting, but Sinners outstripped the record by two nominations, so it would’ve broken the record either way.

It was nominated in every category it was eligible or had submitted in, and really speaks to the level of craft involved in the film, with everything including cinematography (where, if it wins, Autumn Durald Arkapaw will become the first woman to do so), production design, costume, score and more all in contention.

Part of its overwhelming success was it did even better in the acting races than expected, with Delroy Lindo and Wunmi Mosaku both picking up nods in the supporting categories, and neither were considered locks for nominations.

With those 16 nominations in hand, the thrilling Ryan Coogler-directed epic which uses vampires as a potent metaphor for American racism, now has a real shot at winning best picture.

That makes this contest a real race after One Battle After Another dominated every precursor event, and has been the assumed frontrunner for months.

A predictable Oscars competition is never interesting when the same winners are read out at every lead-up ceremony. The speeches start to get stale, the tension dissipates and you start to tune out.

Hollywood should want a variety of winners to showcase that it can make a lot of great films that people will want to see, otherwise it starts to look like there’s only one movie worth paying for.

Sinners and One Battle After Another are both great ambassadors for the industry – they’re exceptionally crafted, feature movie stars, have thematic depth and are genuinely entertaining, big screen experiences.

This whole awards season is one of the strongest in recent years too with few duds (although there are always a few, again, we refer back to Frankenstein, which was somehow nominated for a screenplay award for that terrible, terrible script), and incredible films that span across genres.

A character-driven, performance-led thoughtful family drama from Norway? That’s the nine-time nominated Sentimental Value. An emotional period piece about Shakespeare’s wife? Step up, Hamnet. A frenetic 1950s-set film about a hustler and ping pong champion featuring the younger generation’s greatest talent? Marty Supreme, we see you.

At the moment, the frontrunners in each acting category all hail from different movies, and with Sinners and One Battle After Another duking it out in best picture, this is going to be exciting year.

DO THE AUSTRALIANS REALLY HAVE A CHANCE?

A great day for Australian contenders with actors Rose Byrne and Jacob Elordi and musician Nick Cave all being nominated for their first Oscars. There’s also costume designer Fiona Crombie, who is not onto her second nomination, this time for her work on Hamnet.

Byrne’s nod is one of great triumph, especially as she is the only nomination for her film, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, a low-budget indie with a difficult subject matter. But her darkly comedic and emotionally raw performance as a mother spiralling through a mental breakdown is undeniable.

It will be hard for her to win though, as the only representative for her film, which suggests that If I Had Legs I’d Kick You wasn’t widely seen beyond the actors’ branch, at least not yet. At the Oscars, each branch (eg, actors, directors, production designers) vote to nominate in their own categories, as well as in best picture, but everyone votes for everything in the second round.

Jessie Buckley is also widely tipped to win for her role in Hamnet, and has been this whole season, so it would be hard for Byrne to mount a real challenge, but she is probably running second at this point, so don’t discount the possibility completely.

Elordi too is an outside chance at winning, competing against more established thespians who have been in the industry much longer than him, and will have the relationships to reflect that.

Stellan Skarsgard is the frontrunner at this stage, and with nine nominations for his film Sentimental Value, there is clearly love for the film, and Skarsgard is considered its best chance for a win, and voters will want to award it something.

Whereas while Frankenstein also has nine nominations, many of them are in the technical categories where it has several paths to victory.

Cave is a longshot for that Oscar win by virtue of the fact his song for Train Dreams is up against KPop Demon Hunter’s megahit Golden. If there’s anything close to a certainty in any Oscar category, it’s that Golden will win.

Fiona Crombie has a shot for her work in Hamnet but Frankenstein is the favourite here with its striking looks, especially those elaborate veils on Mia Goth’s character. If she loses here to Frankenstein, at least she’ll be ceding to a fellow antipodean, New Zealand’s Kate Hawley.

IT’S A WIDE, WIDE WORLD

This year is the first time all four acting categories have at least one performance from an international film. That’s a massive achievement for an awards body that has traditionally been inward looking at almost exclusively American and British films.

With Sentimental Value’s four acting nominations (Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgard, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas and Elle Fanning), and Brazilian star Wagner Moura’s nod in best actor for The Secret Agent, it’s proof positive that voters are paying attention to more stories.

Both those films made it into the best picture race too, and as mentioned, Sentimental Value was showing up across a bunch of different categories. The Secret Agent netted four nominations in total.

Spanish film Sirat also got a sound nomination in addition to international feature, while Iranian picture It Was Just An Accident was mentioned in original screenplay as well as international feature (it was submitted by France in the latter, the French co-produced it and the Iranian government is not fond of art which criticises the regime).

However, It Was Just An Accident did underperform given the buzz that has followed it since it won the Palme d’Dor at Cannes in May, but there is a feeling that it isn’t as widely seen as it should’ve been, with some voters perhaps thinking that an Iranian film was too “heavy”, not realising it is actually quite comedic.

BOOMER DADS ARE STILL A FORCE

The Oscars voting body may have significantly expanded to take in people who are younger, women and from outside of the US, but there still remains a large contingent who fit more of its traditional demographic.

That is to say, white men of a certain age.

And that’s fine, you can’t discount those with decades of experience, even if they were over-indexed over the years because of the opportunities open to them that weren’t to others. That’s just how it shakes out.

That presence is most obvious in the inclusion of the F1 movie making the final cut in the best picture nominations.

The Brad Pitt movie was always expected to show up in some of the technical categories – it was nominated in sound, editing and visual effects – but a best picture nod was far from assured.

It did get in at the Producers Guild Awards, which is relatively reliable bellwether for the Oscars, but PGA voters often give more weight to commercially successful projects, and F1 grossed $US631 million globally.

Did the dads love it? Of course they did! Just as the dads loved Ford v. Ferrari, Top Gun: Maverick, Green Book and Darkest Hour, all recent best picture nominees.

Still, F1 is a mostly well-made and well-liked film with thrilling action sequences, and it was aimed at adults, not 22-year-olds, so it’s not too objectionable an inclusion, even if it meant that other, better films, such as It Was Just An Accident was edged out of the best picture race.

Another movie that Boomers loved, really loved, that was less well-regarded by everyone else was Song Sung Blue, the schmaltzy biopic about a husband-and-wife Neil Diamond tribute band that was beset by one tragedy after another.

It had more cheese than a fondue festival, but it was engineered to be a crowd-pleaser among senior audiences, the same ones who thought Bohemian Rhapsody was a good movie.

Kate Hudson, admittedly, was the stand-out, and she was out in force campaigning, and leveraging all her Hollywood connections as well as the goodwill built over not just her decades in the industry but also mum Goldie Hawn’s.

Hey, look, good for her. Hudson is a likeable screen presence who has made some great films. Song Sung Blue wasn’t one of them.

THE FILMS THAT DIDN’T MAKE IT AT ALL

As with every Oscars year, there are deserving films that were completely blanked either because they were just too small, the categories they were going for were too competitive or it just couldn’t generate enough heat.

If you’re looking for something that didn’t make the cut, and probably should’ve, consider some of these.

The Testament of Ann Lee features a hypnotic lead performance from Amanda Seyfried as the female religious leader and founder of the Shakers.

Is This Thing On is a likeable and grounded character-driven comedy-drama featuring Will Arnett as a middle-aged man going through a marriage separation who finds salvation through stand-up comedy. It’s Arnett as you’ve never quite seen him before.

Sorry, Baby is a small indie drama about a young woman still reckoning with a sexual assault which happened years earlier. It was considered an outside chance at a screenplay nod for writer, director and lead actor Eva Victor.

The George Clooney movie about a movie star, Jay Kelly has been divisive in some quarters, but it’s amiable and features two stand-out supporting turns from Adam Sandler (when is the Sandman going to get his due?!) and Billy Crudup.

No Other Choice is a South Korean satire about workplace culture and middle-class aspiration morphing into absurd violence, starring Lee Byung-hun and directed by Park Chan-wook.

Twinless is a quicky but very cool drama-cum psychological thriller about a young gay man who befriends the twin brother of his crush in a support group. There’s a great, under-rated performance here from Dylan O’Brien.

Nouvelle Vague is Richard Linklater’s film that portrays the behind-the-scenes making of Jean-Luc Godard’s French New Wave classic Breathless. The black-and-white photograph is stunning and the whole film just has an air of delight.