Norway's 'Sentimental Value' and 10 other 2026 Oscar contenders to watch now

Christmas is now fast approaching, which – at least for Hollywood – only means one thing: the Oscars are finally on the horizon, and the race is starting to take shape. It includes the usual Cannes and Venice Film Festival breakouts from indie darlings, a smattering of crowd-pleasing blockbusters, a handful of ravishing period pieces, and the return of everyone’s favourite emerald-skinned, high note-hitting, wrongfully-vilified witch. Plus, crucially, it remains all to play for, with a few early frontrunners already facing off, and a number of dark horses waiting in the wings and finalising their game plans.

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Ahead of the 2026 Academy Awards ceremony on 15 March, these are the 11 releases to add to your watchlist.

A film I’ve been beating the drum for since Cannes, Joachim Trier’s Bergman-esque, Grand Prix-winning examination of knotty familial relationships is a low-key masterpiece – and exactly the kind of intimate, observant epic the now more internationally-leaning Academy ought to embrace. It should be a shoo-in for nods across the board: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay (for which Trier shares credit with his longtime collaborator Eskil Vogt) and Best International Feature (for Norway), with a feasible path to winning at least those last two.

And that’s not even mentioning the note-perfect performances: industry legend Stellan Skarsgård should score his first Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, for his heartbreaking turn as the grizzled filmmaker trying to reconnect with his daughters, and could easily emerge victorious; while Best Actress hopeful Renate Reinsve deserves at least a nod, as do both Elle Fanning and breakout Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas in Best Supporting Actress (I foresee the latter hopefully taking that stealthy international standout slot in this category, previously occupied by Roma’s Marina de Tavira). The Oscars love both films about families (Everything Everywhere All At Once, CODA, Parasite) and films about the entertainment industry (La La Land, Birdman, The Artist), so, in theory, this should be a one-two punch.

Related: Scandi cinema at its finest: Cannes hit 'Sentimental Value' might be the best film you see all year

If there’s one Best Picture frontrunner that’s now gone way out ahead, it’s Paul Thomas Anderson’s searing rallying cry against Trump’s America, the tale of a revolutionary father and daughter battling the far right. It’s genuinely criminal that the helmer of Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood and Phantom Thread still doesn’t have an Oscar, after a staggering 11 nominations – the Best Director statuette is almost certainly his this time, and nods should follow for Leonardo DiCaprio in Best Actor, radiant newcomer Chase Infiniti in Best Actress, Sean Penn in Best Supporting Actor and Teyana Taylor in Best Supporting Actress, as well as for its adapted screenplay, sun-drenched cinematography, taut editing and goosebump-inducing score. It’s likely to emerge as the night’s biggest winner – a result which would serve as a powerful statement of intent from an industry which stands proudly apart from the nation’s regressive current president.

Or else, the Academy could choose to go in a more traditional direction: Chloé Zhao’s return to the awards race following the triple Oscar-winning Nomadland is with this painterly adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s Shakespearean tragedy, which scooped the Toronto Film Festival’s People’s Choice Award and is hot on the heels of One Battle when it comes to Best Picture. The always excellent Jessie Buckley is every prognosticator’s current pick for Best Actress, and nods should also follow for Zhao’s direction, Paul Mescal’s tortured supporting turn, the weepy screenplay, ravishing cinematography, sweeping score and meticulous production design and costuming. If Shakespeare in Love could scoop the top prize, why not Hamnet?

Then comes the underdog that could. Ryan Coogler’s rip-roaring vampire saga is the contender that breaks the mould: a word-of-mouth sensation which dropped with almost no warning all the way back in April, made over $300 million at the box office and, despite the Academy’s long-standing disdain for the horror genre, has cemented its position as a major player. Expect to see it on the Best Picture shortlist, as well as Best Original Screenplay and Best Director for Coogler. (With a nod, he’d, remarkably, be only the seventh Black director ever nominated for the latter, and not a single one has ever won.)

It’s possible that Michael B Jordan squeezes into Best Actor, too, with his delicious dual role, and there should also be recognition for the film’s shadowy cinematography, hair-raising score and genius casting (a new category for the 2026 ceremony). If voters want to reward a verified cultural phenomenon which will encourage real people – not just insiders and obsessives – to tune into the ceremony, this is where they should start.

Another Christmas period means another unforgettable Timothée Chalamet performance – after A Complete Unknown last year, and Wonka the year before that, the 29-year-old two-time Oscar nominee might actually secure the Best Actor statuette this time with Josh Safdie’s mile-a-minute romp tracking a prolific ’50s ping pong player. It received raves following its surprise world premiere at the New York Film Festival, and boasts the kind of sprawling world building, barnstorming turns (Gwyneth Paltrow! Odessa A’zion! Tyler the Creator!) and sumptuous craftsmanship that should result in a sackful of nods – for Best Picture and Director, alongside recognition for its zippy script, inspired casting, fast-paced editing and off-kilter costumes. As with its scrappy and recklessly ambitious protagonist, this is a film you underestimate at your peril – one with that period sheen, but also a very modern sensibility; and one which is arguably even more accessible and Academy-friendly than previous Safdie hits like Good Time and Uncut Gems.

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The campaign for Guillermo del Toro’s long-gestating passion project, a candlelit, supremely sentimental retelling of the Mary Shelley classic, got off to a bumpy start following its Venice premiere, with audiences and critics deeply divided. (I, personally, loved it.) Since then, it’s had something of a resurgence, with the beloved auteur bringing out all the big guns – Q&As moderated by all his starry friends and a lavish exhibition celebrating the film’s craft, along with interviews which highlight his reverence for his source material.

The jury is out on whether or not Frankenstein can make it into the Best Picture line-up, and del Toro into Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, but Jacob Elordi surely deserves a shot in Best Supporting Actor for his incredible body-and-soul transformation into the fragile monster. Where the release could dominate, though, is in the below the line categories: Kate Hawley’s costumes are mind-bogglingly beautiful, Tamara Deverell’s production design jaw-dropping, and Mike Hill’s prosthetics work basically guaranteed to earn an Oscar.

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Like our last Best Picture winner, Anora, Jafar Panahi’s darkly funny Iranian thriller won the Palme d’Or, but its road to the top is unlikely to be as smooth. This is a small-scale chamber piece that some voters will inevitably overlook, but those who do see it will, I think, find it difficult to resist. It’d be a highly worthy Best Picture nominee, and Panahi’s long history of against-all-odds dissident filmmaking and fascinating backstory could very well secure him Best Director and Original Screenplay nods, too – this story of a now-free mechanic (a brilliant Vahid Mobasseri) still reeling from his recent politically-motivated imprisonment is Panahi’s first film since being released from jail himself, following his incarceration by his nation’s government for “propaganda against the system”. It’s also France’s entry for Best International Feature (it’s a co-production between France, Iran and Luxembourg), and currently just a step or two behind Sentimental Value in that race as well.

Kaouther Ben Hania’s shattering recounting of the true story of the titular six-year-old who was trapped in a car under fire in Gaza City in 2024 is essential viewing. At the Venice Film Festival, it received a 23-minute standing ovation, the longest in film festival history, and seemed destined to win the Golden Lion and go on to more awards glory. In the end it, rather controversially, walked away with only the second-place Grand Jury Prize, and despite the likes of Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix, Rooney Mara, Jonathan Glazer and Alfonso Cuarón signing on as executive producers, only recently secured US distribution.

Given much of the industry’s continued uneasiness when it comes to facing the subject of Gaza head-on, it’s hard to determine how the Oscars will respond – though, we should remember that Palestine’s No Other Land did scoop the Best Documentary prize last time around, so the Academy has shown its willingness to engage in the topic, to an extent at least. But, on a purely cinematic level, this is a film which deserves to make it onto the Best Picture shortlist, as does Ben Hania in Best Director for her blistering and assured work. And as Tunisia’s Best International Film submission (the director’s home country), it has a decent shot there, too. As nominations near, I’m keeping all my fingers crossed – especially because a strong awards season presence could be the thing which persuades even more people to commit to seeing this admittedly tough and emotionally devastating movie in the cinema.

Apart from the aforementioned Frankenstein, Netflix has faced some hurdles with its crowded Oscar slate: Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly may still make it onto the Best Picture list, but is bad (sorry); Kathryn Bigelow’s A House of Dynamite starts strong and then becomes a slog; Edward Berger’s Ballad of a Small Player was a disappointment; and Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague beautiful but a tad underwhelming. This has left space for a quieter contender from the streamer to rise the ranks: a delicate period piece from Sing Sing’s Clint Bentley centred on a logger from the Pacific Northwest, which stars Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones and Kerry Condon, and was a sleeper hit out of Sundance. There’s a chance of it featuring on the Best Picture and Adapted Screenplay shortlists, and its swoon-worthy cinematography ought to be recognised as well. Beside other noisier competitors, its slower, thoughtful and humanist approach, as it grapples with the true cost of the American dream, is likely to appeal to many.

Wicked scored two Oscar wins – for Paul Tazewell’s flamboyant costumes, and Nathan Crowley and Lee Sandales’ impressive production design – from 10 nominations earlier this year, and the general consensus seemed to be that it’d net substantially more with its hotly-anticipated sequel (as, for instance, the final Lord of the Rings movie did, as a way of rewarding the whole franchise). It should make it into Best Picture, though Jon M Chu, having missed out on a directing nod last time, may still remain out of that race. Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, both previous nominees in Best Actress and Supporting Actress, respectively, will probably return, and second wins could easily come for Tazewell, Crowley and Sandales. This is a film with both escapist appeal and, to some, a kind of anti-Trumpian resonance and urgency.

Come the 2026 ceremony, no Academy Awards are currently fully locked in – with the possible exception of two: Best Animated Feature for this countless-Halloween-costumes-inspiring organic smash hit from Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans, and Best Original Song for the total ear worm that is “Golden”. Approximately 325 million households have already streamed it, making it Netflix’s most-watched movie of all time, but if you still haven’t, correct that now so you can sing along on Oscar night. The campaign to push it into the Best Picture line-up (helmed by me) begins now.