The 2026 Oscar nominations are here at long last, recognizing the best of what was a terrific year for film in 2025. Sinners and One Battle After Another lead the way in terms of nominations with Frankenstein, Hamnet, and Sentimental Value following closely behind. For the most part the nominations went as planned, but as is always the case there are a handful of surprises that I didn't see coming, and snubs that I was shocked to not see show up. With that in mind, I'll be counting down what I consider the biggest snubs and surprises among the nomination list. I'll also say before I begin, I'm not too surprised that Sentimental Value got all four acting nominations it was eligible for, but it was looking like one or more of them could miss so I was thrilled to see Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgard, Elle Fanning, and Igna Ibsdotter Lilleas all nominated.
#7 Snub - No Visual Effects nominations for Frankenstein or Superman
The Academy's visual effects branch is always a bit hard to predict. Avatar: Fire and Ash is pretty obviously going to win, and I had a feeling that Michael B. Jordan's dual role in Sinners would score it a nomination, but other than that I wasn't entirely sure where things would go. One I was pretty confident in was Frankenstein, which I was genuinely shocked to not see nominated. I also thought there was enough great effects work in Superman to score it a nomination, but it seems that the Academy just doesn't care much for superhero movies nowadays.
#7 Surprise - Jurassic World: Rebirth and The Lost Bus in Visual Effects
With Frankenstein and Superman missing the Visual Effects nominations, two films had to take their places. I probably shouldn't have been too surprised that Jurassic World got in, but I honestly just assumed the world had forgotten about it. As for The Lost Bus, I was pretty shocked to see it get in. I'm assuming there's a lot more visual effects on screen than meets the eye, and while I wasn't wowed by the film, everything did look good so I don't have an issue with this nomination.
#6 Snub - Sorry, Baby in Original Screenplay
If you asked me earlier in the awards circuit I'd probably say Eva Victor's Sorry, Baby didn't have a shot at an Oscar nomination. Then it was nominated for multiple Golden Globes and had Julia Roberts singing its praises while presenting award. In a category with some uncertainty that seemed like it could give the film a push into the Screenplay category, but sadly it just missed out with Blue Moon (a pleasant surprise in its own right) taking what seemed to be the fifth slot.
#6 Surprise - Kate Hudson in Song Sung Blue
This is one surprise I won't rank too highly because part of me saw it coming. We'll get to the snub in Leading Actress in just a moment, but if you told me back in November that Kate Hudson would be an Oscar nominee this year, I don't think I'd believe you. Song Sung Blue felt like the biggest awards bait movie this season and in my opinion doesn't belong anywhere near the Oscar conversation. That being said, it seems every year something like this winds up happening, where a beloved star gets nominated seemingly on name alone over a more deserving newcomer. This year, that star is Kate Hudson, and that newcomer is...
#5 Snub - Chase Infiti in One Battle After Another
This is a nomination that most people were predicting but I thought seemed to good to be true. Chase Infiniti is no doubt the breakout star of the year with her role in One Battle After Another, and with the film looking like the Best Picture front runner it seemed to make sense that she would earn a nomination for her role. Sadly, the voters went with the one they knew, putting Kate Hudson in an otherwise VERY strong lineup and leaving Chase Infiniti on the sidelines. Her nomination would have also tied the previous record for total nominations for a film, as even without her name being called One Battle After Another clocked in with 13 nominations. Hopefully Infiniti's career takes off from here and she can hear her name called sometime in the future.
#5 - The Hair and Makeup category
Hair and Makeup is always a category that can get a little wild, as an otherwise unspectacular film with strong prosthetics like Golda or Hillbilly Elegy can sneak a nomination, a horror movie like The Substance or Bram Stoker's Dracula can take home a win, or something as dreadful as Suicide Squad can claim itself an Oscar winner. Wicked for Good seemed like a shoe in here, and I thought Sean Penn's look could give this another nomination for One Battle After Another, but the hair and makeup branch went way out of left field. Accompanying the expected nominations for Frankenstein, Sinners, and The Smashing Machine, are the Norwegian body-horror retelling of Cinderella The Ugly Stepsister, and Kokuho, a Japanese period piece that I had never heard of before this morning. I can't speak much on Kokuho, but The Ugly Stepsister is among the most fun nominations of the day.
#4 Snub - No Other Choice
It seems as though the Academy just hates Park Chan-wook, and for the life of me I don't understand why. When this first premiered back in the fall festival circuit I thought we'd be seeing it all over the awards scene. While a Korean film breaking through in acting categories still felt like a longshot, this felt like a shoe in for Best Picture, Director, Cinematography, Adapted Screenplay, and without question International Feature. Yet here it sits empty handed, one of the year's most universally loved films. Maybe Neon just pushed its other films more, but it truly feels insane to me that a movie this fantastic was completely ignored by the Academy, especially considering just a few years ago the same thing happen to Park Chan-wook with Decision to Leave.
#4 Surprise - F1 in Best Picture
I came around to this as a possibility recently, but it still doesn't quite make sense to me. F1 is a really good sports/racing movie, I won't deny it that. The editing and sound design are both great, and while formulaic it still gives you all the right feels for a movie of its ilk. When you look at this year's Best Picture lineup though, it just sticks out like a sore thumb. It feels as though people weren't really predicting F1 would show up here until very recently, so it seemingly taking the last spot was quite a surprise.
#3 Snub - It Was Just an Accident in Director and Best Picture
Unlike No Other Choice we can at least appreciate that It Was Just an Accident showed up in International Feature and Original Screenplay. It just feels like it should have gotten more. The film won the Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes Film Festival, beating out films like Sentimental Value. Director Jafar Panahi is also a pretty important filmmaker right now, with his work constantly being censored by his own government and his films landing him in jail on multiple occasions. Myself and many others assumed that Panahi would be part of the Best Director lineup, but he was passed over. It also seemed guaranteed that the film would get a Best Picture nomination, something that felt all but certain until recent weeks. I'm glad to see it got the two nominations it did, but after winning Cannes it felt like this was destined for more.
#3 Surprise - Sinners breaks the all time nomination record
In case you missed it, there's a new champion for the most nominated film of all time. The record was previously set at 14 nominations, a feat reached only by All About Eve, La La Land, and Titanic. Sinners not only topped that, but topped it by 2 as it was nominated for 16 awards. It's nominations include: Best Picture, Director (Ryan Coogler), Lead Actor (Michael B. Jordan), Supporting Actor (Delroy Lindo), Supporting Actress (Wunmi Mosaku), Cinematography, Original Screenplay, Casting (the new award added this year), Editing, Costume Design, Makeup and Hairstyling, Original Score, Original Song ("I Lied to You"), Production Design, Sound, and Visual Effects. The best thing is, I don't think you can deny any of those nominations. For any film to take home a new record like this would be exciting, but for it to be a period genre movie from a black filmmaker is all the more exciting. I don't know how many of the 16 nominations Sinners will wind up winning come Oscar night, but the film can already say it's made history.
#2 Snub - Paul Mescal in Hamnet
Maybe there's a bit of bias here, as I love Paul Mescal, but it feels crazy that he isn't a nominee this year. Hamnet seems to be one of the top films this year, and his costar Jessie Buckley appears to be in line for her first Oscar win, yet Mescal was absent from the nominations this morning. He received nominations from SAG, the Golden Globes, and the Critics Choice, and will likely be BAFTA nominated once theirs are revealed, so there was no part of me that thought he could get snubbed here. Supporting Actor on the whole seemed like the easiest category to predict, so seeing someone as noteworthy as Mescal miss the cut was quite a shock. That being said, the man who was nominated instead more than makes up for it in my opinion.
#2 Surprise - Avatar: Fire and Ash in Costume Design??
This is simply the weirdest nomination I've seen in some time. The Avatar films have been nominated in categories other than Visual Effects in the past, including Production design which I never expect due to how much of the film is crafted with digital effects. A nomination for costume design simply doesn't make a lick of sense to me. There's like one human character with a notable role in the movie, and he's essentially wearing a giant diaper the whole time, any other costumes are generic corporate/scientist looking outfits. Maybe they're including the costumes the CGI characters are wearing, but regardless this was a nomination I never in a thousand years would have predicted.
#1 Snub - Wicked: For Good
Hands down the biggest shocker to me this morning was that Wicked: For Good was completely and utterly shut out. Before the film's release people had Ariana Grande winning, not to mention nominations all over the place in the craft categories. Missing Best Picture was one thing, missing all the acting awards could have been predicted, but whiffing on every single category is crazy. Not even the original songs could crack the nomination list, and it wound up missing on what seemed like no doubters like Production Design, Costume Design, and Makeup & Hairstyling. The fact that Avatar managed a Costume Design nomination and Wicked didn't is just fascinating.
#1 Surprise - Delroy Lindo in Sinners
Some of my biggest surprises were negative ones, so I want to end things off here with hands down the most pleasant surprise of the morning. While Sinners has been all over the awards radar, Delroy Lindo hasn't gotten much of any recognition for his role. That has finally turned, as the iconic actor earned his much awaited first Oscar nomination at the ripe age of 73. This has been a long time coming, and as I mentioned before the Supporting Actor category seemed like it was pretty much set in stone. So while I'm sad Mescal missed, I couldn't be more excited that Lindo finally got his flowers. It's a well deserved nomination too, as Lindo is a scene stealer every moment he's on screen in Sinners. He should have been nominated so many times in the past, so seeing his name called honestly felt really special.
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