I’ve watched all 10 Best Picture Oscar nominees – this is who’ll win | Films | Entertainment

Looking back at the last 25 years of Best Picture Oscar winners, you might be surprised to find there aren’t many that are remembered for being rewatchable masterpieces – aside from the likes of Gladiator and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. The Academy Awards voters are often criticised for being out of touch with the cinema-going public, picking pretentious arthouse pieces that bombed at the box office over accessible crowd-pleasers that stand the test of time.

When was the last time anyone watched Moonlight, The Shape of Water, Nomadland or CODA? This year is largely no different, as average flicks like F1 and Frankenstein make the final list of 10 for 2026. Sure, Brad Pitt’s Top Gun Formula 1 and Guillermo Del Toro’s take on Mary Shelley’s gothic classic had an audience, but they were hardly hailed as being among the best films of the year upon release.

Meanwhile, Hamnet, The Secret Agent and Sentimental Value were gushed over by most critics but arguably failed to connect with audiences. Jessie Buckley’s performance in the “Shakespeare in Grief” is certainly Oscar-worthy, just a shame it was for a snoozefest.

The same could be said for the almost three-hour The Secret Agent, a Brazilian spy thriller with almost no thrills that baffled cinemagoers.

As for Stellan Skarsgård’s Norwegian drama about an estranged filmmaker reuniting with his daughters, again, there is worthy acting here, but overall, nothing to write home about that’s going to stand the test of time.

Luckily, of these five mentioned so far, none has a chance of winning the coveted gong this time around. At least the other half of the Best Picture nominees are pretty decent. It’s just a shame that the bookies’ favourite among them is overrated, forgettable Oscar bait.

All eyes are on the Leonardo DiCaprio-led One Battle After Another, a black-comedy thriller set at the Texas-Mexico border that’s odds-on for Best Picture.

Prior to its release last year, critics showered this flick with praise, calling it a “masterpiece” and “one of the greatest films ever made”.

In reality, it’s quite good, but once again left many cinema-goers with a “it’s a bit overrated” shrug.

So why’s it odds-on? Well, everything is pointing to it being writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson’s turn this year.

The 55-year-old has been Oscar-nominated 14 times without a single win, and it’s highly expected he will take home Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.

This is the almost-annual “it’s their turn, even though this isn’t their best movie” filmmaker sweep, following in the recent footsteps of Sean Baker (Anora) and Sir Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer).

The only other film with a chance of causing an upset in the Best Picture category is Sinners, with its record 16 Oscar nominations, from five-time nominated writer-director Ryan Coogler. This ambitious vampire movie set in 1930s Mississippi stars Michael B Jordan in a dual role as criminal twin brothers.

The first half of the movie is a handsome period piece before the second half turns into a wild and bloody horror fest. It’s very good, but again, its awards season attention is a little overblown.

Then there’s Yorgos Lanthimos’ fourth collaboration with Emma Stone in Bugonia, which is a real treat. In a reverse alien abduction, Jesse Plemons’ conspiracy theorist kidnaps Stone’s chief executive, suspecting she’s UFO royalty in a literally jaw-dropping series of events that keeps you guessing until the end.

But in this critic’s opinion, there are two other films nominated that surpass it in terms of being five-star films and worthy of a Best Picture win.

Marty Supreme is Josh Safdie’s fast-paced comedy-drama that feels somewhere between Forrest Gump and Uncut Gems. Timothée Chalamet, who may beat Jordan to the Best Actor Oscar, stars as a 1950s ping-pong champion who also happens to be a terrible person.

Marty will throw anyone and everyone under the bus to meet his goals in this incredible satire of the American success myth. But it just missed out on my pick for this year’s Best Picture.

As for who should win, but won’t, I would go for Clint Bentley’s Train Dreams. A beautifully-captured Netflix period drama that’s largely been overlooked. The plot follows an Idaho-based logger (Joel Edgerton) from the start of the 20th century across 80 years.

A meditation on life, suffering and beauty in all things, this underrated modern classic will fill your soul.

The 98th Academy Awards take place at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood on Sunday, March 15 and will be broadcast in the UK on ITV1 and ITVX from 10:15pm.