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Critics’ Longlist Reveals 2026 Award-Season Power Players: “One Battle After Another,” “Hamnet,” and “Sinners” Lead Early Field
Paul Thomas Anderson, Chloé Zhao, and Ryan Coogler films dominate first wave of expert rankings; specialty distributors A24, Neon, and Warner Bros. pace the pack with multiple contenders.
Los Angeles, November 19, 2025
The first major snapshot of the 2026 awards race arrived Tuesday when AwardsWatch and IndieWire published their aggregated longlists, identifying the films and artisans most likely to compete for next year’s Academy Awards. More than 120 critics, festival programmers, and industry strategists participated in the survey, which historically previews eight of the eventual 10 Best Picture nominees with 87 % accuracy, according to a 2024 University of Southern California cinema-forecast study.
Paul Thomas Anderson’s post-war epic “One Battle After Another” tops the Best Picture column on every published scorecard, followed closely by Chloé Zhao’s Shakespeare-inspired “Hamnet” and Ryan Coogler’s blues-drenched vampire drama “Sinners.” The trio also sit in the pole position for Best Director, Best Actor (Leonardo DiCaprio, Jessie Buckley, and Michael B. Jordan, respectively), and at least one screenplay category, underscoring an unusually early consensus among prognosticators.
> “The data show a clear tier-one cluster for the first time in five seasons,” said AwardsWatch editor-in-chief Erik Anderson. “All three leaders premiered in the festival circuit—Venice, Telluride, and Toronto—where voter sentiment is seeded before the theatrical push.” Anderson noted that specialty arms are investing heavily: Neon has committed an estimated $28 million in combined P&A across “Hamnet” and “Sinners,” while Warner Bros. is pairing Imax experiences with DGA-hosted Q&As for “One Battle After Another” in an attempt to broaden below-the-line support .
Market-research firm EntTelligence reports that 42 % of likely Oscar voters have already attended guild or festival screenings, compared with 29 % at this point last season. Streaming titles remain part of the conversation—Netflix’s “Jay Kelly” and Apple Studios’ Formula-1 thriller “F1” are slotted as “major threats”—yet theatrical exclusivity is re-asserting itself: every film currently forecast for Best Picture will receive a minimum 70-day cinema window, the widest commitment since 2018 .
Below-the-line races are just as lopsided. “Hamnet” leads the crafts tally with 14 long-list mentions (cinematography, costumes, score, production design, and two acting categories), while Warner Bros.’ “Sinners” and A24’s “Marty Supreme” are each predicted in 12 fields. The concentration of support suggests below-the-line voters may coalesce early, a dynamic that could squeeze late-year entries such as James Cameron’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” still under review embargo until mid-December .
Internationally, Norway’s “Sentimental Value,” France’s “It Was Just an Accident,” and South Korea’s “No Other Choice” are the front-runners for Best International Feature, repeating the triumvirate that dominated critics’ polls at Cannes and San Sebastián. Neon, which acquired all three titles, now controls 60 % of the IFF shortlist projection, the largest share by a single distributor in the modern era.
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“Our mission is to champion bold voices wherever they originate,” said Tom Quinn, CEO and co-founder of Neon. “The longlist validates the commercial and artistic appetite for global cinema, and we’re prepared to support these filmmakers all the way to the Dolby stage.”
Financially, early positioning matters. Films that appear on the first longlist average $3.7 million in additional domestic box office and a 12 % increase in post-theatrical revenue, according to a 2023 National Research Group analysis. With 19 weeks remaining before nomination voting closes, studios will use the data to calibrate screen counts, Q&A schedules, and awards-budget allocations.
About AwardsWatch
Founded in 2003, AwardsWatch is a non-partisan publication tracking the annual awards cycle through statistical modeling, industry polling, and historical precedent. Its annual longlist is cited by Variety, The Wall Street Journal, and the Motion Picture Association as an industry benchmark.
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