Marvel's Kevin Feige Says He Knows What Should Win Best Picture At The 2026 Oscars

When the Oscar nominations were announced on January 22, 2026, even I was surprised when Ryan Coogler's blockbuster Southern horror movie "Sinners" absolutely blew its competition out of the water. Not only did Coogler become the seventh Black director nominated in Academy history (which is both astounding and embarrassing for the Academy, frankly), but the movie broke an overall nomination record with a whopping 16 nods, including one in the brand-new casting category. It may or may not win at the actual Oscars, which are set to take place on March 15 ... but Marvel's head honcho Kevin Feige thinks it should win Best Picture just thanks to one scene.

In a profile of Coogler in The Hollywood Reporter by David Canfield, Feige — who worked with Coogler on both "Black Panther" movies — gave a specific shout-out to a sequence that happens in the film's second act. I'll circle back to the whole situation with the juke joint, but the gist is that a young musician, Sammy (Miles Caton), performs for an adoring crowd ... and his talent summons both his ancestors and descendants in an absolutely stunning sequence where musicians from all over the African and Black diaspora join him in his performance, so to speak. This is meant to indicate that Miles' music can create magic and reach through time, and Feige loved it.

"The music was incredibly meaningful to me, and I told Ryan that my jaw was on the floor," Feige told Canfield of this scene. "It should win best picture for that alone," he clarified. "The Academy doesn't always, in my opinion, recognize the movies that are most relevant for audiences today. But, boy, did they hit it with this one." Honestly, when the guy's right, he's right.

Kevin Feige is one million percent correct about this particular scene from "Sinners," but let me be clear: the rest of the movie is pretty perfect too. As it opens, we see Miles Caton's Sammy, bloodied from a then-unidentified encounter with something horrifying, return in a panic to his father's church; that's when we learn about his previous evening. Sammy's cousins — twins Elijah "Smoke" and Elias "Stack" Moore, both played by Oscar nominee and former "Black Panther" star Michael B. Jordan — whisk him away to perform at their juke joint they plan to open in a remote area of the Mississippi Delta after purchasing it from some pretty suspicious older white guys. After getting a few friends on board to help serve food and keep the joint running, Smoke, Stack, and Sammy enjoy the fruits of their labor; as far as Stack and Sammy are concerned, they also enjoy the, uh, "company" of their respective lady friends Mary (Hailee Steinfeld) and Pearline (Jayme Lawson).

That's when the vampires strike. Led by Irish vampire Remmick (Jack O'Connell), a band of bloodsuckers converges upon the juke joint — largely because they werthae "summoned" by the magic of Sammy's song. As they try to convince the crowd that they should simply get bitten and join, something absolutely major comes to light: the men who sold the building to Smoke and Stack are members of the Ku Klux Klan who plan to return and kill everybody inside.

This all ends in a bloody but ultimately satisfying way, and with "Sinners," Ryan Coogler has proven, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that he's a force to be reckoned with. So is Feige's prediction correct?

Do I agree with Kevin Feige that "Sinners" should probably win Best Picture at the Academy Awards for its now-famous musical sequence alone? Honestly, yeah — in a pretty good year for movies overall, it's one of the most memorable and phenomenal sequences I saw on the big screen. Still, it faces stiff competition from the other nine nominees in the category. Many of them — like "Train Dreams, "Bugonia," "Sentimental Value," "F1," and "Frankenstein," just straight-up don't have a shot in hell of winning unless there's some sort of incredible upset. The stiffest competition that "Sinners" faces during the ceremony, though, is "One Battle After Another."

While it would be phenomenal to watch an artist as passionate and talented as Coogler take home a directing Oscar before he turns 40 (as of this writing, the guy is 39), it is, truthfully, a safe bet that the Academy will soundly reward Paul Thomas Anderson and his 2025 film "One Battle After Another." Both of these movies, like many of 2025's best movies, are incredibly and nakedly political, making strong points about the state of the world and the beauty in resisting evil forces, however you can. They're also both really, really good, and in my estimation, either would make a truly great Best Picture winner. Still, we'll have to wait until March 15, 2026, to see if Feige's prediction pans out. 

In the meantime, "Sinners" is streaming on HBO Max, as is "One Battle After Another," if you want to put together a really fantastic double feature.