2026 Oscar Predictions: BEST ACTOR and BEST ACTRESS (June)
With George Clooney, Leonardo DiCaprio and Julia Roberts in high profile films this season, we may be entering, or reentering, a modern classic movie star era this year, going up directly with the newer class of movie stars like Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya and Jennifer Lawrence.
Both Best Actor and Best Actress feel like they’re shaping up as we enter the post-Cannes summer but, as we learned last year, big name movie stars and previous Oscar winners that seem like locks are quite easily unlockable (I’m looking at you, Nicole Kidman and Angelina Jolie). So, while those names above are among the ‘good on paper,’ anything can happen.
Several actors are looking for first nominations this season, like Jeremy Allen White in Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere (ugh that laborious title), Wagner Moura in The Secret Agent, which won him Best Actor at Cannes for his performance last month, Dwayne Johnson in The Smashing Machine, who looks to want it more than anyone, and Michael B. Jordan in Sinners, the biggest box office story of the year so far.
Renate Reinsve remains a lock for the Cannes-winning Sentimental Value, and was probably quite close for a nom with The Worst Person in the World in 2021. Rose Byrne, having given years of great performances that go unrecognized, won Best Actress at Berlin for the A24-fronted If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, and hopefully she can make good on that win unlike when she won the Venice Volpi Cup for the 2000 film The Goddess of 1967. Nearly a lock to transfer and English-language performance there to an Oscar nom, Byrne missed the accolade.
There’s also a handful of old school winners making a play here, like Jodie Foster speaking French in Vie Privée and Jessica Lange in Long Day’s Journey Into Night, if that film ever gets released. This is literally the third season we’ve talked about Lange as a possibility in this race and still with no distributor or date in sight.
Speaking of no distributor, there’s more than a few, especially in Best Actress, still looking for a home and as we get closer to the fall festival season, tick tock. Toronto is a big pick up festival so that’s where we could see kick offs for things like Amanda Seyfried’s Ann Lee or Sydney Sweeney’s Christy Martin biopic or Amy Adams in At the Sea, but they’ll need to get it together quickly because in just a few short months most of these films will be seen and races will start to take shape and solidify and then it becomes a matter of am I fighting for the 5th spot?
Here are my 2026 Oscar nomination predictions in Best Actor and Best Actress for June.
BEST ACTOR
| 1. Jeremy Allen White – Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere (20th Century Studios) |
| 2. Timothée Chalamet – Marty Supreme (A24) |
| 3. Jesse Plemons – Bugonia (Focus Features) |
| 4. George Clooney – Jay Kelly (Netflix) |
| 5. Leonardo DiCaprio – One Battle After Another (Warner Bros) |
| 6. Wagner Moura – The Secret Agent (NEON) |
| 7. Dwayne Johnson – The Smashing Machine (A24) |
| 8. Michael B. Jordan – Sinners (Warner Bros) |
| 9. Paul Mescal – The History of Sound (MUBI) |
| 10. Will Arnett – Is This Thing On? (Searchlight Pictures) |
| 11. Daniel Day-Lewis – Anemone (Focus Features) |
| 12. Brendan Fraser – Rental Family (Searchlight Pictures) |
| 13. Matthew McConaughey – The Lost Bus (Apple Original Films) |
| 14. Colin Farrell – The Ballad of a Small Player (Netflix) |
| 15. Oscar Isaac – Frankenstein (Netflix) |
| 16. Ethan Hawke – Blue Moon (Sony Pictures Classics) |
| 17. Denzel Washington – Highest 2 Lowest (Apple Original Films/A24) |
| 18. Tonatiuh – Kiss of the Spider Woman (Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions) |
| 19. Dylan O’Brien* – Twinless (Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions) – Sundance winner |
| 20. Joel Edgerton – Train Dreams (Netflix) |
Other contenders: Murray Bartlett – At the Sea (TBD), Austin Butler – Caught Stealing (A24), Willem Dafoe – Late Flame (TBD), Benicio Del Toro – The Phoenician Scheme (Focus Features), Idris Elba* – A House of Dynamite (Netflix), Colin Farrell – A Big Bold Beautiful Journey (Sony Pictures/TriStar), Josh O’Connor – The Mastermind (MUBI), Robert Pattinson – The Drama (A24), Brad Pitt – F1: The Movie (Apple Original Films/Warner Bros), Channing Tatum – Roofman (Paramount Pictures)
*Lead or supporting? Idris Elba – A House of Dynamite (Netflix), Tom Hiddleston – The Life of Chuck (NEON), Dylan O’Brien – Twinless (Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions) – Sundance winner
2025 or 2026? Robert Pattinson – The Drama (A24)
BEST ACTRESS
| 1. Renate Reinsve – Sentimental Value (NEON) |
| 2. Julia Roberts – After the Hunt (Amazon MGM) |
| 3. Jessie Buckley – Hamnet (Focus Features) |
| 4. Cynthia Erivo – Wicked For Good (Universal Pictures) |
| 5. Jennifer Lawrence – Die, My Love (MUBI) |
| 6. Rose Byrne – If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (A24) – Berlin winner |
| 7. Amanda Seyfried – Ann Lee (TBD) |
| 8. Zendaya – The Drama (A24) |
| 9. Amy Adams – At the Sea (TBD) |
| 10. Tessa Thompson – Hedda (Amazon MGM) |
| 11. Sydney Sweeney – Untitled Christy Martin biopic (TBD) |
| 12. Jessica Lange – Long Day’s Journey Into Night (TBD) |
| 13. Anne Hathaway – Mother Mary (A24) |
| 14. Rebecca Ferguson* – A House of Dynamite (Netflix) |
| 15. June Squibb – Eleanor the Great (Sony Pictures Classics) |
| 16. Jodie Foster – Vie Privée (Sony Pictures Classics) |
| 17. Zoey Deutch* – Nouvelle Vague (Netflix) |
| 18. Helen Mirren – Switzerland (TBD) |
| 19. Emma Mackey – Ella McCay (20th Century Studios) |
| 20. Lucy Liu – Rosemead (TBD) |
Other contenders: Cate Blanchett – Father, Mother, Sister, Brother (MUBI), Jenna Ortega – Klara and the Sun (Sony Pictures), Margot Robbie – A Big Bold Beautiful Journey (Sony Pictures/TriStar)
*Lead or supporting? Emily Blunt – The Smashing Machine (A24), Laura Dern – Is This Thing On? (Searchlight Pictures), Zoey Deutch – Nouvelle Vague (Netflix), Rebecca Ferguson – A House of Dynamite (Netflix)
2025 or 2026? Zendaya – The Drama (A24)
He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.
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