From singing vampires to ping pong matches, 2025 was a wild year for cinema, and this awards season has been just as full of twists and turns. The Critics’ Choice and Golden Globe Awards might be over, but the Actor Awards and BAFTAs are fast approaching, and the countdown is on for the 2026 Academy Awards on March 15th. With the nominations for the 2026 Oscars announced and awards season well underway, let’s take a look at five of the biggest takeaways from this year’s Oscar nominations:

1. Sinners Makes History 

Ryan Coogler’s box office smash continues to be a heavy-hitter this season, breaking the record for most Oscar nominations of all time with a whopping 16 nods. This means that Sinners is recognized in nearly every category it was eligible for. The record was previously held by All About Eve (1950), Titanic (1997), and La La Land (2016) with 14 nominations each. 

Notably, Michael B. Jordan’s double duty as twin protagonists Smoke and Stack earns him his first Academy Award nomination. Other first-time acting nominees from Sinners include Wunmi Mosaku for Best Supporting Actress, and – in a delightful surprise – Delroy Lindo enters the Best Supporting Actor race after not receiving a single nomination at any precursor awards. Expect a win for Ludwig Göransson’s incredible score, and perhaps even the inaugural Best Casting award, which has been introduced for the first time this year. 

With such an impressive list of nominations, Sinners is putting up a fair fight against the other Best Picture frontrunner, One Battle After Another.

2. One *Award* After Another

Speaking of One Battle After Another, the Leonardo DiCaprio-led film has dominated this awards season and picked up a commendable 13 nominations, including Best Director for Paul Thomas Anderson. The director of iconic movies such as Boogie Nights (1997) and There Will Be Blood (2007) has yet to win an Oscar, but the odds seem to be in his favour this year, having already picked up numerous wins from the Critics’ Choice Awards as well as the Golden Globes. One Battle After Another seems to be following in the footsteps of Oppenheimer (2023) as another highly-acclaimed film helmed by a director seen as long overdue for recognition from the Academy, so perhaps Anderson, like Christopher Nolan before him, will lead his film to victory.

3. Chalamet and Buckley Take the Lead

Having swept the precursors thus far, Timothée Chalamet and Jessie Buckley are poised for Oscar glory, but will they be able to keep the momentum up until March? After a series of press tour shenanigans that saw Chalamet climb the Las Vegas Sphere and offer a rap verse on an EsDeeKid song, the 30-year-old movie star has garnered immense praise for his turn as a ping pong champion in Marty Supreme. With his 3rd Best Actor nomination for the role, this might be the year Chalamet’s lofty ambitions finally pay off. 

Meanwhile, with one of the most acclaimed performances of the last ten years, Jessie Buckley looks to take home a trophy for her role as Agnes, William Shakespeare’s wife in Hamnet, which won the People’s Choice Award at TIFF back in September. The Irish actress, like Chalamet, has won at both the Critics’ Choice and Golden Globes, and is very likely to also take the top spot at the Oscars. 

4. Canadian Talent Steals the Show

Much of Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein was filmed right here in Toronto, and the film has received a tremendous 9 nominations, including Best Picture. Starring Oscar Isaac and Jacob Elordi (who is up for Best Supporting Actor), Frankenstein could very well end up winning multiple below-the-line awards, such as Best Costume Design or Best Production Design. At any rate, it is always wonderful to see the hard work of hundreds of Canadians achieve such prestigious recognition. 

Del Toro is no stranger to Toronto or the Oscars, having racked up a host of nominations for Nightmare Alley (2021) and even winning the coveted Best Picture in 2018 for The Shape of Water (2017), both of which were filmed in our beloved city. Other Canadian productions that received a nomination this year include The Girl Who Cried Pearls (co-directed by Bramptonian Chris Lavis) for Best Animated Short Film, as well as Alison McAlpine’s Strangeness for Best Documentary Short Film. 

5. Oscars Go Global

Canada is not the only international presence at this year’s Oscars. Following the success of Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite in 2020, the Academy has increasingly recognized international cinema outside of its designated category. 

2026 continues this trend, as Sentimental Value, a Norwegian film from Joachim Trier, earns an impressive nine nominations, including four acting nods. Elle Fanning sneaks into the Supporting Actress lineup in a surprising double-nomination alongside Inga Ibsdotter Lileaas, while Renate Reinsve and Stellan Skarsgård are up for Best Actress and Supporting Actor, respectively.

Sentimental Value is one of two foreign-language films nominated for Best Picture, alongside The Secret Agent. Mimicking the awards season run of last year’s I’m Still Here, The Secret Agent is another Brazilian film that has garnered attention for its critically-acclaimed lead performance, this year from the excellent Wagner Moura, who received a Best Actor nomination. Other films nominated for International Film include Spain’s Sirat, Tunisia’s The Voice of Hind Rajab, and France’s It Was Just An Accident.

6. For Good or For Worse? – Surprises and Snubs

The Academy loves to throw a few curveballs every awards season, and this year is no different. 

In the Best Actress category, Kate Hudson manages to snag her second nomination for her role in Song Sung Blue, which comes 25 years after her first recognition from the Academy for Almost Famous (2000). Alongside Ethan Hawke’s Best Actor nod, Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon also receives a surprise Original Screenplay nomination for Robert Kaplow’s script. And Brad Pitt’s passion project F1 has also received a shocking Best Picture nomination alongside its nods for Best Editing, Visual Effects, and Sound. 

As for snubs, Wicked: For Good came up empty without even the anticipated nominations for Ariana Grande or Best Costuming and Song; this is especially shocking after the first film received 10 nominations and 2 wins only last year. Park Chan-wook’s critical smash, No Other Choice, also missed out on a number of nominations, including a spot in the competitive Best International Film category. 

Another key snub is that of Jafar Panahi in Best Director for It Was Just An Accident. The film earned nominations for both Original Screenplay and International Feature, but its Best Director snub is interesting given the film’s Palme d’Or win earlier this year at Cannes and its emotional narrative: a film made in secret in Iran, critiquing authoritarianism, that will result in Panahi’s imprisonment upon his return to Iran. Many anticipated a nomination for the acclaimed director given this context, but unfortunately, that did not come true. 

And lastly, other snubs that are worth mentioning include both Paul Mescal in Hamnet for Best Supporting Actor and Chase Infiniti in One Battle After Another for Best Supporting Actress, as well as Daniel Lopatin for Best Original Score for his fantastic work on Marty Supreme.