Firstly, I am SHOCKED. Sinners not only got a lot of nominations, which I expected, but it now is the most nominated film in history. It got 16, while Titanic got 14. Insane.
By insane, I mean…it does not deserve that much praise. I liked. Saw it twice. Made my “good movie” list of 2025. But it wasn’t totally amazing or anything.
Note: I think Weapons is the best film of 2025 and deserved a lot of nominations, including Julia Garner for lead actress. Shame.
Thoughts?
Academy award nominations are out! I’ve only seen one of the nominated best pictures (Train Dreams), but I’m familiar with all of them. Any surprises for you? Snubs? What have you seen?
We were planning to watch The Secret Agent this evening, but knowing we’ll see it in March when we watch all of them at once, we’ll defer it now.
98th Academy Awards Nominations List: Nominees by Category - Oscars 2026 News | 98th Academy Awards
Some of the main categories:
Best Picture
Best Actor
Best Actress
Best Supporting Actor
Best Supporting Actress
Best Director
Well I put Sinners as my #2 film of the year behind One Battle so I am thrilled it got so much love! A horror film now being the most nominated movie of all time is an incredible achievement since typically they barely even get anything. The dance sequence is still probably the best individual scene I’ve seen this year.
Gotta say I am pleased that Wicked: For Good totally fizzled out. 0 noms. F1 took that vacated slot. Really wish that would have gone to Weapons instead.
Loved Ethan Hawke getting in for Blue Moon. Really an incredible performance.
I’ve seen every nominee in all the main categories, and most of the others save for the docs and shorts.
I wish that No Other Choice had been recognized. That was my #3 film for the year and it seemed to be doing well then kinda fell off a lot of predictions. For it to be completely snubbed is disappointing. Also would have liked It Was Just an Accident to be in Best Film, but Bugonia in its place is a nice substitute!
Marty effing Supreme?
Easy to predict, impossible to fathom.
Some quick takes:
The only Best Picture nomination that puzzles me is F1. It’s a perfectly executed traditional Hollywood racing flick, but nothing elevates it to “Best”. I would have substituted If I Had Legs I’d Kick You or Weapons.
Looks like I’ll need to see The Secret Agent and Train Dreams.
Best Adapted Screenplay is going to be a bloodbath. So much good writing!
This is the first year I’ve only seen only one of he Best International Feature nominees (Sentimental Value).
It’s the first year where I will have seen all of the Best Animated Feature nominees (Arco just opened here)
More later when I have time.
I agree. I would classify Sinners as a well-made horror film, and no more than that. I saw it once and enjoyed it, but have no particular desire to see it a second time. I’m glad to see both Bugonia and Frankenstein on the list.
Usually near Oscar time I’ve seen all or most of the Best Picture nominees. This year for whatever reason I’ve only seen 5 of the 10. I guess I should consider that a movie-watching opportunity!
ETA: Scrolling down further, I was also happy to see The Perfect Neighbor nominated for Best Documentary. I’m pretty sure I commented on this in our “Movies You’ve Seen” thread. I hope it wins. If you haven’t seen it yet, see it! It’s comprised mostly of high quality police bodycam videos but also some courtroom videos. Very well put together. In fact, it’s downright amazing that they could assemble a coherent story from this piecemeal material, but they sure did.
A bit surprised that Weapons didn’t get more.
And I agree that Sinners wasn’t all that. I enjoyed the pre-vampire parts much more, and would have preferred a whole film about building a juke joint in the Jim Crow South.
Note that Stellan Skarsgard got a Golden Globe for Best Actor, but was nominated here as a Supporting Actor.
F1’s nom was throwing a bone to the people who like big popular action films; I don’t recall any critics particularly enjoying it.
Stellan won in Supporting at the Globes. Best Actor wins were Timmy Chalamet and Wagner Moura.
D’oh.
I don’t know what this says about me, but this is the first time that not only I have I not seen any of the nominated movies, but I also haven’t even heard of any of them. I guess the baseball and football seasons distracted me this year. I need to get out more.
Well, I’m something of a movie hound, and as I mentioned, this year I’ve only seen 5 of the 10 nominees. Usually I’ve seen all or most of them by Oscar time.
Well, there’s no “them” to plan something like this. The Best Picture nominations are determined by voting by the entire eligible Academy voting population using a list of eligible films the Academy sends out.
98th_best_picture_reminder_list.pdf
For those that don’t click, its a 6 1/2 page alphabetical list of just titles, one per line. At least 200 movies.
More likely, its the result of some clever targeted lobbying by the studio in specific locations (those “For You Consideration” billboards along the 405 are not cheap).
Really? I remember it doing fairly well among critics. Looking on Rotten Tomatoes it has 82% from professional reviews (97% from the general public.)
It’s nomination wasn’t a total surprise. It had been talked about as a possibility once it became clear Wicked was unlikely to get in.
No, it was quite highly rated and I certainly enjoyed it. In fact it’s one of the nominees that I’d like to watch a second time.
Sally Hawkins for Bring Her Back is another robbery.
Agreed, it’s in my top 20. My ranked voting for Best Picture would be:
One Battle After Another
Sinners
Bugonia
The Secret Agent
Sentimental Value
Marty Supreme
F1
Hamnet
Frankenstein
Train Dreams
I really disliked Marty Supreme, but I do admit that Chamalet gave a very good performance. I just really hated his character and the overall storyline.
I would have probably given a nomination to Josh Brolin for Weapons as well. I won’t spoil, but he gets a very good character arc and Brolin really delivered.
Dhoom Dhaam should have received a Best Foreign Film nod, but I bet India didn’t put it forward, much as RRR was not put forward a couple years ago.
Amy Madigan should have received a Best Supporting nod for Weapons as well.
She did.
Two threads combined
We go out of our way to not see films that I’m guessing will be nominated, because we’ll watch them all at once in March. Of the nominees, only Train Dreams surprised me (because it’s pretty low-profile, not because I didn’t love it), and I haven’t seen any of the others (well, my wife watched F1 on her own because it seemed the most boring film ever to me). But we were literally going to watch The Secret Agent tonight, and I may or may not go ahead with that.
No real surprises on the list for me. I would have liked to see more love for Weapons, but Amy Madigan getting a nod is huge.