2026 Oscar Nominations: The Biggest Snubs And Surprises

As I prepared to cover the Oscar nominations, a good friend of mine texted me to "congratulate" me on this momentous morning, pointing out that this is sort of like the NFL draft for movie nerds. He was right, and that's why I'm here to tell you about some of the biggest snubs and surprises we saw on Oscar nomination morning.

Before we get into it, I just want to say one thing: 2025 was a good year for movies, and naysayers just haven't seen enough of them. Even some of the "weaker" Oscar nods reflect this, in that the ceremony seems poised to genuinely celebrate some of the very best movies and performances of the year. Some of the big expected nominations were simply exciting to watch this morning: Paul Thomas Anderson's American masterpiece "One Battle After Another" and Ryan Coogler's genre-bending "Sinners" seem poised to duke it out for Best Picture, while Timothée Chalamet picked up his expected nomination for playing the world's worst guy in Josh Safdie's ping-pong epic "Marty Supreme."

So, what happened during the nominations announcement, led by Danielle Brooks and Lewis Pullman, that was so surprising? Some of it was pretty great, like some long overdue acting nominations ... and some of it was a bummer, because some deserving nominees were edged out. Without further ado, here are the biggest snubs and surprises we noticed during the 2026 Oscar nominations — and you can see how it all shakes out when the ceremony hosted by Conan O'Brien takes place on March 15, 2026.

Congratulations to Joseph Kosinski for his second Best Picture nominee, I suppose? After "Top Gun: Maverick" soared into the Best Picture race in 2023 (filling a requisite blockbuster spot by being a genuinely fun action flick), the director just scored big again thanks to "F1," his racing epic starring Brad Pitt as Formula One driver Sonny Hayes and his return to the sport after several decades away. Movies like "No Other Choice" (Park Chan-wook's anti-capitalist screed starring "Squid Game" standout Lee Byung-hun as a guy who can't get a job, to put it lightly), "It Was Just an Accident," and a few other movies I'll touch on in just a second were edged out of the Best Picture race in favor of "F1," and even though this ultimately feels like a strangely "safe" pick for the Academy, it's still ... very surprising.

I'm not saying "F1" is a bad movie at all — it's pretty good! Again, though, 2025 saw the release of some pretty stunning films, and it feels wild to give a spot to "F1," especially when you consider that something like "The Secret Agent," an international movie that premiered at festivals before getting a wide release pretty late in the game, is also included in this category. Frankly, "F1" is not going to win Best Picture, so it is what it is, but it's still a shock.

After all the love that Brady Corbet and his partner Mona Fastvold got last year for "The Brutalist," Oscars prognosticators probably thought that Fastvold's historical musical "The Testament of Ann Lee," which she directed and co-wrote with Corbet, was a lock for at least some nominations. At the very least, it might sneak into Best Original Song for one of its musical numbers. Unfortunately, "The Testament of Ann Lee" came up totally empty-handed on Oscar nomination morning, and the most egregious thing here is that Amanda Seyfried didn't get a nod for Best Actress for her portrayal of the titular Ann Lee, the woman who essentially created the religious movement known as Shakerism.

Seyfried is, without question or compare, one of our most talented and underrated actors. Yes, I know she has a previous Oscar nomination under her belt for "Mank" and won an Emmy for playing Elizabeth Holmes in the Hulu miniseries "The Dropout," but Seyfried's name rarely gets mentioned alongside peers like Jennifer Lawrence (who, as it happens, also missed out on an Oscar nomination for "Die My Love"). Seriously, think about Seyfried's body of work; even something as silly as "The Housemaid" is elevated by her mere presence, and even if a project isn't good, Seyfried is always good in said project. "The Testament of Ann Lee" is a completely unique and thrilling take on the musical genre anchored by Seyfried's magnetic central performance, and it's a shame that she didn't get a nod for such an outstanding turn.

Something that people tend to overlook about "Sinners" is that it's the first wholly original concept from Ryan Coogler, the writer-director behind "based on a true story" drama "Fruitvale Station," the legacy sequel "Creed," and two entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe ("Black Panther" and its sequel, "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever"). This was a gamble for Coogler, and to say it paid off handsomely is an understatement; not only did "Sinners" clean up at the box office and earn rave reviews from critics upon its release, but it's also now the most nominated movie in Oscars history, absolutely smashing the previous record of 14 nominations with a stunning 16 nods.

"Sinners" made it into several expected categories, like Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay (for Coogler), and Best Original Song (for the showstopper "I Lied to You," written by Raphel Saadiq and Ludwig Göransson, the latter of whom also got a nod for Best Original Score). The big surprises, though, came courtesy of the acting categories. I yelped when Wunmi Mosaku, who plays Hoodoo practitioner Annie, became a newly minted Oscar nominee, and I actually screamed out loud when Delroy Lindo, a man who has been turning in phenomenal performances for literal decades, also got his first-ever Oscar nod for playing blues musician Delta Slim. (My esteemed colleague BJ Colangelo's interview with the man himself about "Sinners," by the way, is now required reading.) Then, when Michael B. Jordan snagged his first-ever acting nod for playing two roles (twins Elijah "Smoke" and Elias "Stack" Moore, who return to Mississippi to open a juke joint), I realized "Sinners" was being coronated. This movie deserves all these accolades and then some, and this record-breaking number of nominations was a welcome surprise.

During the 2026 Golden Globes, Julia Roberts presented one of the final awards of the night and used her time on stage at the Beverly Hilton to give a shout-out to "Sorry, Baby," Eva Victor's wryly funny and deeply moving story of a woman learning to live again after a shattering assault. Unfortunately, even Roberts' star power couldn't help "Sorry, Baby" rise above the pack this Oscar morning; as happy as I was to see "Sinners" close out the category for Best Original Screenplay, it's a crying shame that "Sorry, Baby" didn't make the cut, because it truly has one of the best screenplays of the year.

Frankly, in a just world, Victor — who wrote, directed, and stars in "Sorry, Baby" — would earn a few Oscar nominations, and I think I could probably make a longer argument that they potentially deserved Kate Hudson's spot for "Song Sung Blue." (Sorry, Kate.) Still, Original Screenplay felt like the most realistic shot for this small independent film, and it's definitely disappointing to see such a tender, warm, and devastating script miss out on such a major honor. From a harrowing but strangely hilarious scene in a doctor's office where Victor's character, Agnes, dryly tells a doctor she'll remember not to bathe "next time" she's assaulted to the final monologue that gives the movie its title (where Agnes delivers one of the most beautiful monologues in recent cinematic memory to an actual tiny baby that will make you cry and laugh in equal measure), "Sorry, Baby" is an entirely unique and special movie thanks to its screenplay. Sadly, it couldn't beat out "Sinners," "Sentimental Value," "Marty Supreme," "It Was Just an Accident," and "Blue Moon," but with that said, it's a very good line-up, so at least there's that.

First things first: Congratulations to the incomparable Amy Madigan for her nomination for playing Aunt Gladys in "Weapons," an outcome that /Film's chief film critic Chris Evangelista predicted back when "Weapons" first hit theaters. Writer-director Zach Cregger's sophomore film, which centers around a fictional Pennsylvania town where 17 children go missing in the middle of the night for initially unexplained reasons, is extraordinarily fun from top to bottom, but Cregger has also admitted that it wouldn't "work" without Madigan's turn as Aunt Gladys, a totally bizarre woman of indeterminate age and origin who may or may not be the cause of all the problems going on recently in the film's setting. (She is.) Apparently, the Academy agrees with Cregger that the movie doesn't "work" without Madigan's Gladys, because she's the only nominee from the massive horror blockbuster.

Anyone who's followed the Oscars for a long time knows full well that horror movies are often overlooked, so I guess I should be grateful that, after incredible scary performances like those from Toni Collette in "Hereditary" and Lupita Nyong'o in "Us" got snubbed in years past, Madigan made it into the Supporting Actress race at all. Still, it straight-up sucks that "Weapons" didn't get the "F1" spot in Best Picture, missed out on a nod for Best Original Screenplay, and didn't get any below-the-line nominations. (Best Makeup and Hairstyling would have been well-deserved for Gladys's look alone.) This was a major misfire for the Academy, but still, I'll be rooting for Madigan come Oscar night.

Once again, the 98th Academy Awards will air on March 15, 2026, on ABC and, for the first time, will stream live on Hulu.