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OSCAR PICKS www.postmagazine.com 18 POST JAN/FEB 2026 Oscar Picks Sinners, One Battle After Another and Avatar: Fire and Ash stand as frontrunners heading into the 98th Annual Academy Awards BY IAIN BLAIR W ith the ongoing decline in pro- duction and theatre attendance, as well as the mounting threats from streamers and AI, 2025 was another trying year for the movie business. But Hollywood has always been resilient, the 98th Academy Awards are almost here, the nomina- tions are in and despite all the challenges, last year turned out to be a great year for movies. Case in point? The huge box-office smash Sinners, which racked up a record-breaking 16 nominations, in- cluding for Best Picture and Best Director. Yes, Hollywood is still awash in sequels, but it's notable that Ryan Coogler's original and entertain- ing vampire horror/thriller left them all in the dust. Even such heavyweight sequels as Avatar: Fire and Ash and Jurassic World: Rebirth only managed three nominations between them, and while last year's blockbuster Wicked earned ten nominations, this year's Wicked: For Good sequel and the super- hero films scored zero. Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another was close behind with 13 nominations, including ones for Best Picture and Best Director, and other Best Picture nods went to such diverse films as Hamnet, F1, Frankenstein, Bugonia, Marty Supreme, Sentimental Value, Train Dreams and The Secret Agent. It's also notable that while streaming giant Netflix, which has rocked the Hollywood ecosys- tem with its latest $80-billion-plus all-cash bid to buy Warner Bros., earned 18 nominations, including nine for Frankenstein and four for Train Dreams. That score was matched by tiny indie Neon for its acclaimed foreign language films Sentimental Value and The Secret Agent. With all that in mind, we now present our annual look at some of the nominees. BEST PICTURE/ BEST DIRECTOR At press time the leading contenders for the top awards have gradually solidified their positions; Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another still looks like the one to beat in both categories, but Ryan Coogler's Sinners is close behind thanks to its record-busting 16-nomination haul. And if Coogler also ends up winning Best Director, he will become the first ever black filmmaker to win the Oscar in that category — a truly historic achievement after nearly 100 years of Academy Awards. Close behind them are Chloe Zhao's Hamnet, Josh Safdie's Marty Supreme and Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value. One Battle After Another "is the first film I've made in a long time that is contemporary, and that's very freeing," says Anderson. "It was a lot of fun because we could kind of go wild and just shoot what we wanted to shoot when we wanted to shoot it." That included shooting in real locations, and allowing the cast to do many of their own stunts. While the film does use visual effects, they were mostly used for de-aging Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn for the prologue. There was no green- screen work, and all the car chase scenes were real and done practically, either using a camera car or by attaching the camera to the side of the car. In terms of post challenges, One Battle After Another was more like "One Format After Another," notes longtime Anderson editor Andy Jurgensen, who is also Oscar nominated for his work on the film. Avatar: Fire and Ash is the frontrunner in the Visual Effects category.