Food for the Soul: Oscar Contenders 2026
By Nina Heyn
There are many reasons why the film industry is in trouble. The two-pronged pressure of streaming platforms and the ravages of AI are some of the main drivers, but there other factors, too. They range from the inflationary costs of production and exhibition, a lack of tax incentives (a constant struggle in the capital of the industry, i.e., Los Angeles), rapidly changing audience tastes, lengthy worldwide lockdowns, barriers to entry for independent filmmakers (from where a lot of original talent derives), and other, local factors—the list is long.
However, one of the reasons might be that theatrical-release movies are, curiously, not very engaging. There are no disaster movies from Roland Emmerich marking the turn of this century. Social comedies—wedding tales, buddy movies, and especially cop movies—have not found their financing because these genres have largely moved to streaming. Big fantasy, sci-fi, and comic heroes blockbusters are still in theaters (it’s kind of hard to watch Avatar or Star Wars spectacles on a phone), but there is less and less content that can easily resonate with very wide audiences. Studios, producers, and filmmakers are clearly searching to connect with the thinning ranks of audiences worldwide, and this is perhaps reflected in the wide range of genres represented in this year’s Oscar contenders. Ten pictures have been nominated for this year’s Best Picture Award to be given out on March 15 at the ceremony in Los Angeles. Here they are, in alphabetical order.
BUGONIA
Director Yorgos Lanthimos and his muse, Emma Stone, won numerous awards in 2023 for Pretty Things (including an Oscar for Stone), and the artistic duo is coming back for more in this year’s fantasy/arthouse comedy. The plot revolves around the abduction of a female CEO of a Big Pharma company by two men who are convinced that she is an alien bent on the destruction of the human race. It starts as a sci-fi comedy about clumsy conspiracy theorists, but the ideas that are finally revealed are less from the world of fantasy and more in the category of a warning about the dangers of today’s world, with no alien help required.
F1: THE MOVIE
A movie that has already been lauded for Best Sound Effects, it stars Brad Pitt as a seasoned race driver who is training the next-generation Formula 1 star, not only teaching him the craft but also forming his character. The nomination acknowledges the mastery of the racing scenes, and the movie is a leading contender in this field with nominations for sound, visual effects, and editing. Other than that, the film is an unquestionable box office success ($633M worldwide to date and counting) and entertainment for fans of Formula 1 or Pitt’s charisma.
FRANKENSTEIN
Guillermo del Toro’s take on the classic novel is visually breathtaking and emotionally moving—much more so than many “realistic” dramas. The film opened the Venice Film Festival in August last year, and it had a brief theatrical run. The film now lives on Netflix, which produced it. The titular monster is played by Jacob Elordi, conveying not only the anguish of this artificial creation but also giving a glimpse into the character’s gentleness and the vulnerability that makes his suffering even more poignant. The counterpoint to Frankenstein is the character of Victor (Oscar Isaac)—a manic scientist who is consumed with his scientific obsession to the point that he is following his Creature literally to the end of the world. The story is bookended by scenes of a confrontation on a ship iced in the Arctic circle. These polar scenes as well the setting of Victor’s family castle are pure cinematic art.
HAMNET
It’s a story of a couple who love each other but also grapple with a loss, except that instead of being contemporary, this tale is set in the 16th century, and the parents are William Shakespeare and his wife Agnes (whom we know historically as Anne Hathaway). The film (and the book on which this is based) suggest that the playwright created Hamlet as a way of processing his personal grief. It’s also a story of the power of art as therapy. Beautifully filmed and star-studded (Paul Mescal, Joe Alwyn, Emily Watson), this is a movie that may either move you to tears or leave you cold, but it had a successful international theater run, so it is worth checking out.
MARTY SUPREME
This partially true story of an American ping-pong player might earn Timothée Chalamet another Oscar win. He creates a frenetic and complex character of a man hellbent on succeeding in the most unlikely circumstances, having to defeat both the low stature of the sport as well as his own tendency to torpedo his life. The director is Josh Safdie, whose study of another New York hustler in Uncut Gems earned the director and the movie numerous nominations and awards in 2020.
ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER
Leonardo DiCaprio has been specializing for years in tightrope performances as a manically determined man in such movies as The Wolf of Wall Street and The Revenant. This time, he portrays Bob, a stoned, ex-leftist revolutionary, currently in witness protection with his daughter Willa. It is literally one battle after another when Willa tries to escape an obsessed security agent, creatively named Lockjaw, and Bob tries to catch up with Willa and protect her from killers, even though his ninja skills leave a lot to be desired. An action drama that is half serious and half a satire on the genre, the movie rides on outstanding acting performances—other leads include Benicio Del Toro, Sean Penn, Teyana Taylor, Regina Hall, and Chase Infiniti. This movie is the leading contender for the big prize as Best Picture, having garnered to date hundreds of awards and nominations.
THE SECRET AGENT
A winner of the Best Film and Best Actor awards from Cannes, this is a story of a man who returns to Recife, the Brazilian city of his youth, only to discover that a place full of casual violence and rampant corruption is hardly a refuge for a man in hiding. The South American flavor of fantasy novels mixes here with the brutal realism of political violence to give this story a climate of 20th-century novels from that continent. Nostalgia mixes with fear, mystery comes from political oppression worthy of Kafka, and the main hero is our conduit into the world of state-condoned lawlessness. Wagner Moura is nominated for the Best Actor award.
SENTIMENTAL VALUE
In the best tradition of Ingmar Bergman’s piercing analyses of the human psyche, this movie tells a simple story of a father who tries to connect with his adult daughter. Stellan Skärsgard, a likely winner of the Best Actor Award, stars as an aging film director whose last film is scheduled to feature a famous Hollywood star (the appropriately cast Elle Fanning) because his own daughter refused to be in a tale that examines years of broken relationships within this family. Eventually, both father and daughter have to face their demons, separately and together. Subtle, well-narrated, relatable, and full of psychological wisdom, this is probably the most accomplished drama of the whole list. The director, Joachim Trier, won a Palme d’Or in Cannes last year.
SINNERS
Ostensibly a vampire horror, this one seemed to me the most cinematically accomplished of all the contenders. Michael B. Jordan stars in a double role of twin brothers, “Smoke” and “Stack,” who leave their gangster career in 1920s Chicago, returning to a “bucolic” life in the Mississippi countryside. Their plan is to invest their fortune in a place they want to turn into a local dance bar, but they have not counted on either the Klan hostility nor the forces of evil that roam the land. The dance bar becomes a battleground between people who can barely protect themselves with garlic and voodoo from a gang of vampires hungry for the music and human flesh. A lot will happen before the sun rises. The film is nominated for 16 Oscar awards, and it has already garnered hundreds of nominations and wins at festivals and award events all over the world, particularly praising director Ryan Coogler.
TRAIN DREAMS
Joel Edgerton stars as Robert Grainier, a logger in the Pacific Northwest who works in the early 20th century for the developing railroad industry. This is a quiet saga of a life among nature that the hero uses as his source of income but also as solace in his personal grief.