Nominees: “Bugonia,” “F1,” “Frankenstein,” “Hamnet,” “Marty Supreme,” “One Battle After Another,” “The Secret Agent,” “Sentimental Value,” “Sinners,” “Train Dreams”

The narrative: With Hollywood — and the world at large — bristling under existential threat, the main contenders are all carefully crafted, politically charged, big-studio throwbacks. In other words, they’re the kinds of movies “they” don’t make anymore. And, depending on the impact of the Warner Bros. sale and the rise of A.I., the kind “they” might never make again.

I’m going against the grain here, and against history. “One Battle After Another” has been lauded by so many critics’ organizations and craft guilds that experts and prediction markets alike still have it as the easy favourite. And yet: Ryan Coogler’s fearless vampire thriller was such an across-the-board success — raking in more than $400 million at the global box office amid all those admiring reviews — that it may overwhelm “One Battle” by sheer dint of accessibility. Juxtapose that populist leverage against an anxious social moment and lurking critiques of Paul Thomas Anderson’s muddled radical/racial politics, and a race that’s been hair’s-breadth close for the entire awards season may finally break for “Sinners.”

“Sinners” is a terrific movie, and so, for that matter, is “One Battle After Another.” Both are insightful about the relationship between popular culture and politics. Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho’s late-’70s period piece is more than that: it’s brilliant. The story of a mild-mannered intellectual trying to go underground below the noses of local authoritarian thugs is simultaneously transporting and sobering. Filho re-creates his country’s past in such granular, tactile detail that the film feels like a time machine even as its depiction of state violence and principled resistance feels as up-to-the-minute as our collective social media feed.

Danny Boyle’s future-shock zombie thriller is formally wild, brutally violent and genuinely perceptive as a post-Brexit allegory. In a year when “Sinners” shook off the stigma that the motion picture academy tends to associate with genre cinema, “28 Years Later” was at least as deserving of celebration. That it wasn’t pegged suggests that the Oscars have only gotten so adventurous in the years since “Parasite.” Check back in 10 or 20 years to see which of 2026’s major releases have aged the best, and chances are it’ll be on the list (provided we all haven’t been infected by the Rage Virus by then).

Should have been left out: “Hamnet”

If you don’t have anything nice to say, it’s better to keep quiet. With this in mind, I have no comment on several of this year’s best picture nominees. But if we’re talking about an inverse ratio between perceived award-worthiness and actual quality, it’s hard to top Chloé Zhao’s sentimental Shakespeare-in-grief fanfic, a mealy piece of organic, farm-to-table Oscar bait designed to jerk tears by any means necessary.

Nominees: Paul Thomas Anderson, Ryan Coogler, Josh Safdie, Joachim Trier, Chloé Zhao

The narrative: Paul Thomas Anderson is due — isn’t he?

Will win: Paul Thomas Anderson

The case for PTA as the great 21st-century American auteur is already rock solid, and “One Battle After Another”’s pedal-to-the-metal style broadens his appeal into the blockbuster arena. It’s never been a question of whether this particular filmmaker would hoist a statuette as when, and the idea that he’d spend his proverbial blank check on a movie that puts anti-establishment themes front and centre accelerates the urgency of official recognition.

Should win: Paul Thomas Anderson

Beyond the career narrative, “One Battle” is superbly well-made from first frame to last: a virtuoso exercise in technique that yokes moody character study to action-movie propulsion, all under the absurdist sign of Thomas Pynchon. It’s telling that the other most technically accomplished film in the category, “Marty Supreme,” has plenty of PTA in its DNA. Anderson is a supremely influential modern filmmaker: remember last year’s hype for “The Brutalist,” which felt like “There Will Be Blood” cosplay? At 55, Anderson is a lot younger than Martin Scorsese was when he got his de facto lifetime achievement award for “The Departed.” The timing seems right to reward him in his prime.

“The Mastermind” is a perfectly calibrated dark comedy about a would-be thief who’s not as smart as he thinks he is. As usual, Reichardt — another great director, albeit one working on a fraction of the commercial scale as Anderson (or Safdie, or Ryan Coogler) — blends intimacy and distance. She’s such a funny, trenchant, observant filmmaker that you have to figure she’ll eventually make her way onto the academy’s radar, although it’s not as if she’s angling for approval. Part of her appeal is her determination to keep working on her own ornery, idiosyncratic terms.

Should have been left out: Joachim Trier

I didn’t like “Hamnet,” but Zhao certainly directs the hell out of whatever she’s got. However, the measured, quiet tone of Trier’s work on “Sentimental Value” — while admirable in its own right — simply pales in comparison to the other contenders. The problem isn’t subtlety, exactly. Rather, it’s the oscillation between strained self-effacement and formal gimmicks that just don’t work, like a foray into face-morphing special effects that belongs in a different film. Just because Trier is exceptionally savvy about checking off various middlebrow art-house boxes doesn’t mean he needs to be rewarded for it.

Nominees: Timothée Chalamet, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ethan Hawke, Michael B. Jordan, Wagner Moura

The narrative: Are people sick of Timmy yet?

Will win: Michael B. Jordan

Another late-breaking development, but Jordan’s work in “Sinners” picked up steam after being hailed by his peers in the Screen Actors Guild, while Chalamet’s onscreen tour-de-force is in danger of being cancelled out by his over-the-top awards-season shtick. Jordan is a big star, and his dual performance is flashy without seeming like a stunt. If, as bettors are indicating, the Oscar that’s seemingly been Chalamet’s to lose since September is up for grabs, he’s got the best chance to seize it.

Should win: Wagner Moura or Ethan Hawke

This is a hellaciously competitive category, and it’s hard to decide between Hawke’s high-pitched histrionics and Moura’s low-key charisma. Both are essential to setting and maintaining the tones of the movies around them. In the spirit of generosity — and making things interesting — let’s call it a tie: the first one of its kind since Barbra Streisand and Katharine Hepburn in 1969.

Should have been left out: No one

That said, Chalamet’s jumpy, funny, entertaining performance doesn’t hold up as well in memory as DiCaprio’s shell-shocked Girl Dad, which, in another year, would have been a cinch to win.

No actor chewed his dialogue — or the scenery — with more lips-smacking joy than Washington in Spike Lee’s bonkers Akira Kurosawa riff. Watching an icon take so many kamikaze risks as he enters his 70s is exhilarating.

Nominees: Jessie Buckley, Rose Byrne, Kate Hudson, Renate Reinsve, Emma Stone

The narrative: Will anybody other than Jessie Buckley bother writing an acceptance speech?

Buckley is a powerhouse actress in a part that comes fully drenched in the kinds of bodily fluids deemed precious by awards voters: blood, sweat, tears and more. Whatever emotional heft there is in “Hamnet” resides in its star’s willingness to take her acting over the top and possibly beyond; every gesture and line reading seems to have been submitted for our consideration.

Maternal anxieties loom large in this category, and Byrne’s performance trumps Buckley’s because so much of it is torqued for dark, relatable, cringe-coded comedy — call it slapstick psychodrama. Byrne is in basically every frame of “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You,” and carries the film on her put-upon character’s slumping shoulders and buckling legs.

Should have been nominated: Amanda Seyfried

Mona Fastvold’s all-singing, all-dancing Shaker-heroine biopic, “The Testament of Ann Lee,” was done dirty by its distributor. There’s no reason Seyfried — a musical-comedy ace with serious dramatic chops — shouldn’t have been a serious contender. Her amazing, gravity-defying performance as 18th-century religious agitator Ann Lee keeps pushing a movie that’s threatening to become ridiculous into the realm of the sublime.

Should have been left out: Renate Reinsve

An admission: I haven’t yet seen “Song Sung Blue,” so I can’t say if Kate Hudson is as much of an outlier as she seems. Another admission: I just don’t get Renate Reinsve yet. Not in “The Worst Person in the World,” where she was convincing, in the wrong way, as an indecisive dilettante, nor in “Sentimental Value,” as a moody, mercurial actress. Yet another admission: everybody I know thinks I’m wrong on this one.

Nominees: Benicio del Toro, Jacob Elordi, Delroy Lindo, Stellan Skarsgård, Sean Penn

The narrative: Will “One Battle After Another”’s dual nominees cancel each other out?

Lindo is 73, with a legacy of superlative supporting performances across multiple eras, and his role in “Sinners” as a veteran bluesman is showy and soulful enough to push him into the winner’s circle.

Should win: Benicio del Toro

It should be said that if Lindo loses, it’ll likely be to Sean Penn as the wack job Colonel Lockjaw in “One Battle After Another” — this even though del Toro’s work in the same film, as a self-described “Latino Harriet Tubman,” displays exponentially more finesse. Del Toro is one of those rare actors who changes the temperature of the movies he’s in; this is the coolest he’s ever been on screen.

The pairing in “Friendship” of Apatow-era avatar Rudd opposite niche-comedy genius Tim Robinson is one of those conceptual casting coups that makes you shake your head in admiration. The pleasure of seeing Rudd liberated from his recent day job as the wackiest Avenger can’t be overstated.

Should have been left out: Jacob Elordi

Elordi’s doe-eyed exquisite corpse is the best thing about “Frankenstein,” but the movie sells him out; there’s no real menace in Guillermo del Toro’s too-sacred monster, and, as a result, no truly complex humanity, either.

Nominees: Elle Fanning, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Amy Madigan, Wunmi Mosaku, Teyana Taylor

The narrative: Is Amy Madigan’s candy-coloured crone act in “Weapons” the best chance in years for a truly left-field winner?

There’s been plenty of criticism of the character of trigger-happy activist Perfidia Beverly Hills in “One Battle After Another,” much of it justified. Whatever the role’s contradictions, however, it’s widely agreed that Taylor inhabits them fully.

Should win: Teyana Taylor

It’d be fun to pick Madigan here, since she’s clearly the not-so-secret-weapon in “Weapons.” Her suburban enchantress put her in the canon of great recent horror-movie villains. Taylor’s role, however, has the higher degree of difficulty.

Should have been nominated: Diane Kruger for “The Shrouds”

I restrained myself from picking David Cronenberg’s late-style masterpiece in other categories because it’s simply not the sort of movie that gets Oscar nominations — c’est la vie. Still, Kruger’s compartmentalized performance as a series of three women — one living, one dead, one digital — is so amazing that I’ve thrown plausibility to the winds.

Should have been left out: No one

Everybody in this category did very good work. Honestly, no notes.