The Oscars are often pretty predictable in their main categories, following the trends of wins in the other awards shows leading up to it, from the Golden Globes to the BAFTAs.
However, 2026 initially proved to be an exciting race with different actors winning at each one aside from the Best Actress shoo-in, Jessie Buckley for Hamnet.
At the Globes in January, the bookies had Timothée Chalamet (Marty Supreme), Stellan Skarsgård (Sentimental Value) and Teyana Taylor (One Battle After Another) as the Oscars’ favourites for Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress, respectively.
However, as the awards ceremonies went on, the results proved the opposite and then in the lead up to the Oscars the bookies’ basically correctly predicted all the wins.
Wunmi Mosaku (Sinners) won the Best Supporting Actress BAFTA, but Amy Madigan (Weapons) took home the Actor award, only to go on and win the Oscar. Meanwhile, Sean Penn (One Battle After Another), who only showed up for the Globes where he didn’t win, took the Best Supporting Actor BAFTA, Actor and his third Oscar. And then there was the much-talked-about Best Actor category. Chalamet may only be 30, but he launched an extensive campaign for the gong, only to lose the BAFTA to Robert Aramayo (I Swear) – who wasn’t even Oscar-nominated and then lost the Actor to a very surprised Michael B Jordan (Sinners).
Suddenly, his odds-on win lost traction at the bookies, especially after his controversial comments about ballet and opera, even though they were made after the Oscars voting concluded. In the end, a deserving Jordan took home the Oscar in one of the few memorable moments at what ended up being a bit of a “meh” ceremony. Conan O’Brien returned as host again, but fluffed his lines in his opening words, as ITV struggled with bleeping sound issues at the start. His Monty Python-inspired antics and opening sketch went down well, but it was almost like he wasn’t there once the show got going.
It may have been Paul Thomas Anderson’s night, winning three Oscars for One Battle After Another after 14 nominations and no wins, but as with the acting categories in the end, there were no big surprises. If anything it felt more like Sinners’ night (a film that’s much more likely to be remembered than the overall winner), with first gongs for director Ryan Coogler and Jordan and Autumn Durald Arkapaw becoming the first woman to win Best Cinematography. The film’s generation-crossing musical performance was also one of the night’s most impressive moments, alongside a particularly touching In Memoriam segment featuring Barbra Streisand singing for Robert Redford. Yet by the time the credits rolled, what at first felt like one of the most unpredictable Oscars in years ended up being the opposite, with no shock wins apart from a rare joint one for Best Live-Action Short. Oh well, there’s always next year.