This week marks the 10th anniversary of Beasts of No Nation, the first feature film to be distributed directly by Netflix. The film, directed by Cari Joji Fukunaga and starring Idris Elba, made a modest splash in that year’s awards season, with Elba winning the SAG Award for Best Supporting Actor, before ultimately falling short of any Oscar nominations. Within three years, and after making a significant investment in their publicity apparatus (hiring ace awards strategist Lisa Tayback), Netflix received their first Academy Award nomination for Best Picture, for Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma. Since then, Netflix has produced 10 Best Picture nominees and is one of only three distributors to have had at least one Best Picture nominee in the field every year since 2018.
All that sounds great except for one thing: Netflix still hasn’t won the Oscar for Best Picture. Netflix has danced around the top prize in nearly every conceivable formation: early-season favorites, Cannes sensations, late-breaking surges. Their films have been the overall nomination leader four times in seven years. But it’s yet to wield that statue, all while upstart rivals at Apple, Neon, and A24 have racked up victories. Will 2026 be different?
The Early Frontrunners
Nonetheless, Netflix’s persistent more-is-more production model — the platform distributed over 120 feature films in 2024 alone — means it will have a plethora of contenders this season, too. The parlor game becomes trying to figure out which ones will emerge at the front of the pack. Heading into 2025, the roster looked stacked with intriguing projects from a bevy of Oscar-certified filmmakers, with most awards-watchers settling on the following titles as the most promising:
➼ Frankenstein, from Oscar-winning director Guillermo Del Toro, which guaranteed high production values and some of Del Toro’s gothic horror sensibility.
➼ Jay Kelly, a star-studded comedy/drama from Noah Baumbach, whose Marriage Story earned six Oscar nominations. Jay Kelly, about a famous Hollywood actor played by George Clooney coming to terms with the choices he’s made to get where he’s gotten, felt like a big fat pitch across the plate for Oscar voters when it was announced.
➼ A House of Dynamite from Oscar-winner Kathryn Bigelow, a much-anticipated return for the director to the themes of global war and ratcheting tensions.
➼ Ballad of a Small Player, a tense character drama about a career gambler whose director (Edward Berger, of All Quiet on the Western Front and Conclave) and star (Colin Farrell, having recently broke the Oscar seal with a nomination for The Banshees of Inisherin) have both very recently been in Oscar voters’ good graces.
➼ Wake Up, Dead Man, the latest installation in the Benoit Blanc mystery franchise, for which writer/director Rian Johnson has picked up two Oscar nominations for screenplay.
➼ Nouvelle Vague, Oscar-nominee Richard Linklater’s behind-the-scenes account of the French New Wave (and the making of Breathless), which Netflix bought after its Cannes debut.
➼ Train Dreams, a warmly received drama out of Sundance from the filmmakers behind last year’s Oscar-nominated Sing Sing.
The Midseason Survivors
Standing ovation records aside, this is where things get tricky. Venice audiences favored House of Dynamite but were cool on Frankenstein and Jay Kelly. The Telluride audiences liked Jay Kelly (perhaps Hollywood proximity resulted in more sympathy for the famous, wealthy title character), while Frankenstein rebounded in Toronto as runner-up for their People Choice Award. Meanwhile, A House of Dynamite came down to earth at the New York Film Festival, at least among the press-screening attendees. Neither the Toronto nor Telluride audiences seemed to like Ballad of a Small Player at all.
But while the fall festivals played tug-of-war with the Netflix films’ Metacritic scores, Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet was moving audiences in Telluride and Toronto to tears, while Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another was premiering in wide release to rave reviews and top placements on people’s Oscar predictions. Then last week, Marty Supreme surprise-premiered at the New York Film Festival to a fever pitch of over-the-top reviews. The temperature on these movies will come down some, but those three movies — plus Sinners from earlier in the year — are beginning to solidify as this year’s films to beat for the Oscar. Netflix will need to hit the campaign trail aggressively this fall if they want to drum up the kind of momentum they missed at the festivals. Here’s where things stand now, as I see them:
➼ Jay Kelly, despite sporting a lowly Metacritic score of 62 (out of 100), still feels like the Netflix film best positioned for a Best Picture nomination, if for no other reason than the Hollywood factor. Oscar voters are historically drawn to movies about actors and performers. If you dig into the reviews, you walk away with the impression that critics were mostly disappointed that Baumbach didn’t hit harder or say something more profound about his main character. Clooney’s Jay Kelly is reflective and regretful about the choices he’s made throughout his career — choices that have left his adult children feeling abandoned and neglected — but the film seldom paints him as cruel or even all that foolish.
While critics may feel Baumbach pulling his punches, Oscar voters could appreciate that spirit of generosity towards those in the movie business. Also helping Jay Kelly’s case are the performances, in particular Clooney and Adam Sandler. Clooney hasn’t been this dialed in to a performance in over a decade, and the part could not be better suited to him. Meanwhile, the drumbeat for a long-awaited Adam Sandler nomination is as loud as it’s ever been. While his performance as Clooney’s manager is a bit more subdued than many were expecting, if award voters decide that the time has come to give Sandler his due, his role is certainly solid enough to support such a campaign.
➼ Frankenstein is a movie that ought to have rode an early wave of pure awe and spectacle. Even at their best, festivals can be full of gloomy, slow-moving, introspective dramas — setting a Guillermo Del Toro monster movie loose in those environs ought to have shaken audiences out of their seats. That’s what happened with The Shape of Water when it played the fall festivals in 2017, en route to a Best Picture win at the Oscars. Instead, Frankenstein has been met with muted reviews (“oaken in its sturdiness,” said IndieWire) and more negativity than I’d expected. Nobody seems all that thrilled with Oscar Isaac’s performance as the title character, and the visuals are impressive but don’t offer much in the way of surprises.
The one aspect that everybody seems to agree is superlative is Jacob Elordi’s performance as the monster, where the young actor managed to push through the dehumanizing makeup and frequent gore to find the soul of not just his character but the film. If Netflix can manage to keep the focus on Elordi through the precursor season and then lean on Del Toro’s proficiency in the technical categories … listen, that Best Picture lineup needs to get to 10 somehow.
➼ A House of Dynamite has been on a rollercoaster ride more than pretty much any other movie through festival season. The Venice critics — particularly the American critics — were effusive about Kathryn Bigelow’s unbearably tense take on an impending nuclear attack from the POV of the American defense apparatus. Those elevated expectations probably worked against the film when it played the New York Film Festival, as the critics in Gotham were hung up on the film’s triplicate structure and abrupt (some might say unsatisfying) ending. But Netflix is likely still banking on the movie’s ability to enthrall audiences once it makes it to streaming.
➼ Train Dreams is the movie I wish Netflix were pushing harder. For one thing, this story of a logger (Joel Edgerton) working in the mountainous West as the progress of the early 20th century rolls over like a wonder and a curse is the one movie in Netflix’s roster of Oscar hopefuls that people seem to actually love. That ardor has endured from the film’s Sundance debut through to today. Director Clint Bentley and co-writer Greg Kwedar were Oscar-nominated last year for Sing Sing, but they don’t have the name value of Del Toro, Bigelow, or Baumbach. Edgerton’s lead performance is spectacular but also quiet and introspective. Supporting Actor performances far more fleeting than William H. Macy’s have been nominated for an Oscar, but awards voters will need some prodding.
In other words, this is a movie that needs a big campaign that gets voters into screenings. But there is an underdog narrative just waiting to be written about this small, gorgeous movie if Netflix chooses to write it.
It feels safe to say that Edward Berger and The Ballad of a Small Player will be sitting out this awards season, while Nouvelle Vague will do what every Paris-set movie does and target the Costume and Production Design categories. Wake Up Dead Man awaits in December, but nobody seems to expect it to exceed Glass Onion’s Oscar ceiling of one screenplay nomination. Which is too bad considering Josh O’Connor outperforms a lot of his peers, and Glenn Close is better in this than she has been in at least her two most recent Oscar-nominated roles.
The October Standout
But there’s one more movie we haven’t discussed, and conveniently, it is far and away Netflix’s biggest success story of 2025: KPop Demon Hunters. The animated superhero pop fantasy from co-directors Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans has been a legitimate phenomenon since its June release. The songs — in particular the featured hit “Golden” — have burned up the music charts. The sing-along theatrical release in late August made $18 million. And in a year when feature animation has been frighteningly lean on hits as the studios instead pushed live-action remakes of Lilo & Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon, KPop Demon Hunters faces little competition for the year’s best animated movie.
I don’t currently have a large sum of money at my disposal, but if I did, I’d be betting it all on KPop Demon Hunters to win the Oscars for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song. Netflix has been playing the campaign pretty flawlessly so far. The KPop Demon Hunters karaoke party on the first night of the Toronto Film Festival was the best party of the festival and kept the movie in the Oscar buzz mix despite not screening at TIFF.
Last year, a candy-colored story of women finding their power and fighting the real enemy surpassed expectations en route to a Best Picture nomination and much more. We’re all kind of blithely expecting Wicked: For Good to replicate Wicked’s Oscar success. Why shouldn’t we be exploring the possibility that KPop Demon Hunters could snatch that nomination instead? It’s October. Embrace the improbable.
Best Picture
Up ⬆ Sinners
I’m a big believer that awards buzz comes largely from the genuine enthusiasm that people within the industry feel for the movies they have watched and enjoyed over the past year. But it’s also about riding the wave of PR foolishness. And one of the best ways to tell which movies are at the top of that wave is to see which ones get fake-sounding tribute awards at various regional film festivals and precursor award ceremonies. To that end, the Gotham Awards have announced that they’ll be bestowing Ryan Coogler’s Sinners with an Ensemble Tribute award.
Up ⬆ Frankenstein
Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein will also receive the prestigious Gotham Vanguard Tribute at the Gotham Awards. Let the silly season commence.
Current Predix
Bugonia, Hamnet, It Was Just an Accident, Jay Kelly, Marty Supreme, One Battle After Another, Sentimental Value, Sinners, Train Dreams, Wicked: For Good
Best Director
Up ⬆ Jafar Panahi, It Was Just an Accident
Roxana Hadadi’s profile on Iranian director, screenwriter, and editor Jafar Panahi is a great reminder of what a singular presence he is in contemporary filmmaking, a reputation which can only help boost his 2025-2026 Academy Award chances with this year’s thriller It Was Just an Accident, which already won the Palme d’Or at Cannes and is finally in American theaters this week.
Current Predix
Chloe Zhao, Hamnet; Jafar Panahi, It Was Just an Accident; Paul Thomas Anderson One Battle After Another; Joachim Trier, Sentimental Value; Ryan Coogler, Sinners
Best Actor
Down ⬇ Will Arnett, Is This Thing On?
It’s not that Will Arnett is bad in Bradley Cooper’s Is This Thing On?, which premiered at New York Film Festival late last week as the closing movie, it’s that he’s not the kind of revelatory good he’d need to be in order to jump into the mix with Leo and Timmy and George, not to mention Sinners’ Michael B. Jordan, who Slate’s Dana Stevens dubbed “a movie star in the classic Hollywood mold” and whose duel performance as twins IndieWire’s David Ehrlich called “immaculate.”
Current Predix
Timothée Chalamet, Marty Supreme; George Clooney, Jay Kelly; Leonardo DiCaprio, One Battle After Another; Michael B. Jordan, Sinners; Jeremy Allen White, Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere
Best Actress
Up ⬆ Laura Dern, Is This Thing On?
The biggest and most welcome surprise in a movie about a guy (Will Arnett) who separates from his wife and then becomes a stand-up comedian, is that it’s more about the marriage than it is about the stand-up. Dern is a proper co-lead, and she gives a grounded, complicated performance by all rights should have her in the awards conversation.
Current Predix
Jessie Buckley, Hamnet; Cynthia Erivo, Wicked: For Good; Chase Infiniti, One Battle After Another; Renate Reinsve, Sentimental Value; Emma Stone, Bugonia
Best Supporting Actor
Up ⬆ Jacob Elordi, Frankenstein
There are few things more powerful in awards season than when a bunch of people who think they’re the only one who’s planning to vote for a certain film or performance realize they’re not alone. I figured I would be the only one riding into battle for a Jacob Elordi Best Supporting Actor nomination for the yeoman’s work he puts into selling Frankenstein’s often wan dialogue. As it turns out, from talking to other folks following the Oscar race, there are dozens of us!
Down ⬇ Jeremy Strong, Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere
I wouldn’t count Jeremy Strong out of the race by any means, but I was struck by how lowkey his character — Springsteen’s loyal manager, Jon Landau — comes across in the film. They even cut out the monologue about repairing the hole in the floor from the trailer! Strong is good and admirably un-flashy, he just ends up playing variations on the same scene several times over. Makes it hard to elevate him over some of the stellar competition in this category.
Current Predix
Benicio del Toro, One Battle After Another; Delroy Lindo, Sinners; Paul Mescal, Hamnet; Sean Penn, One Battle After Another; Stellan Skarsgard, Sentimental Value
Best Supporting Actress
Up ⬆ Ariana Grande, Wicked: For Good
While I’m still skeptical that Wicked: For Good will perform as well without the low expectations we all had for the first part, it was still probably foolish of me to leave Ariana Grande out of my predictions last week. The second act of Wicked will offer her plenty of opportunities to make a run at the statue.
Up ⬆ Regina Hall, One Battle After Another
In a Supporting Actress field that is just crazy crowded, one name people keep bringing up to me is Regina Hall. For the record: I love Regina Hall. I love Regina Hall’s contributions to One Battle After Another. I still think her role is ultimately too small when stacked up against the many deserving women in this category. And yet … the fact that I keep hearing “what about Regina Hall” means that folks aren’t letting go of that performance. She’s going to have her pocket of support throughout the season, and that shouldn’t be ignored.
Current Predix
Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Sentimental Value; Amy Madigan, Weapons; Wunmi Mosaku, Sinners; Ariana Grande, Wicked: For Good; Teyana Taylor, One Battle After Another
