Oscars 2026: Who Will Win, and Who Should Win?

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I've always wanted to ask you this question. Do film critics like yourself actually get excited about the Oscar? I have a love hate relationship with the Oscars. I mean, I've watched I think probably almost every single Oscar since I was a child. I often spend the entire time cursing at the screen and speed dialing friends. And then cheering wildly when one of my favorite movies wins something, you know. So the Oscars are terrible unless they're right, which means unless they fail.

From the New York Times, I'm Michael Babarro. The 98th Annual Academy Awards are one week from today. Of the untold hundreds of films that were released in the United States last year, some 50 or so are nominated for Oscars. And according to critics and industry insiders, Those movies are uncommonly good. Despite all the forces arrayed against Hollywood, it was kind of a magical year. Great movies were made, and audiences found them. Mostly. So, with one week to go before the Oscars,

we asked Manola Dargas, the Times chief movie critic, to come in and talk about twenty twenty five's unmissable performances and unskippable movies. So take notes, even if they're just mental notes, And plan your watching very wisely for the next seven days. It's Sunday, March eighth. Manola, welcome to the Sunday Daily. Thank you, Michael. It's nice to be here. This is our first ever conversation, you and I. Great question.

If you had to pick a single word to describe this year's Oscar nominees, what would that word be? One word? That's the exercise here. Surprising. You know, and why it's surprising on some level is that there are so many good movies that are up for awards. I mean, two of the movies are the top of my top ten, you know, centers in one battle after another. You know, and I So you and the Oscars in sync this.

What happened? I mean, yes, it's so despite all of the dire warnings and broadcasts and y articles that are out there, the movie industry is not dead and movie making and movies are certainly not dead. It's kind of like think of the ending of Carrie when the hand pops out of the grave. That is American cinema. You know, it's it's back, baby. The industry might be completely a mess, but the movies are there and they're wonderful.

Okay, so Manola, we're here to talk about some of the movies our listeners should definitely plan to watch before the Oscar ceremony next Sunday. I was thinking that the way we could do that is to talk about. some of the front runners for Oscars, and then some of the actors and the performances you personally loved this year. So basically the will win versus should win.

Tension. So let's start with the actresses competing for best actress in a leading role. Who do you think is likely to win there? Well, I think the consensus is that Jesse Buckley, who plays Agnes, uh William Shakespeare's wife in Hamnet, that she is going to win. I'm not being hasty. He needs more He needs proper work. Well man needs property. Just run away. This little name. Crush him. I think it would be very shocking. It would be probably the major upset of the evening if she did not win.

Uh what is it about her performance in Hamnet that you think makes her the front runner? Well, it's a kind of classic role. It's about the woman behind the man. In this case the man is William Shakespeare. What are you writing? Nothing. It's not a nothing. Usually the women are introduced in a movie classically and then they wave at their husband as their husband goes off and has his adventure, you know. And in this case we are seeing him through her and they fall in love.

They have children, they build a home. Part of the richness of the character is the character goes through all the feelings. You know, we have the love of the young, sexy man, Will, played by Paul Mescal, and then we have mother love. And then we have marital drama and then we have tragedy. So as an actress, Buckley is really, really has to go through every single thing. And she has to bring us along.

And she is really the character who is bringing us through all of the different emotional registers. I will not have my baby in the crowd. Yeah. There's a harrowing birth scene where she's giving birth to her twins and the scene takes you through every possible motion, you know, where you're you're like, Oh, someone's gonna give birth Oh, what's happening? She's starting again. Yeah.

You're having twins, my girl. Eliza. And the birth is very, very difficult and it seems like it may end in tragedy. Why is she not crying? Why is she not crying? And she takes us through every single moment as her face is contorting. But there is love and there is also serenity in there. Yes. And that is really beautiful to see. Mm. And then of course there is the tragedy you alluded to just a little bit ago. The grief that she embodies. And it's almost animalistic.

What the tragedy uh which I will address and if people don't wanna listen to it, they can you know. put their fingers in their ears for a moment, um, is that one of their twins, their only son, Hamnet, dies while um Will is in London working on a play. And Agnes resents him for being away, even though she was the one who encouraged him to go away. He was an aconni. Uh

I ate and he cried and he cried and he cried and his little body was racked and painted. Don't don't shush me. He was so scared and you weren't here. And just remember, the Academy loves big performances. They like really, really big emotions and they like watching other actors go through it. Right. The Academy roots for Shirley McLean in terms of endearment and it always will. Yes. As long you know, if there's snot running down your face, you probably m will get an Oscar. Okay. Yeah.

Jesse Buckley, your favorite of the nominated performances, or is there somebody else who is perhaps more deserving? I'm very fond of Renata Rensvey, who is a Norwegian actress, and she's in a movie called Sentimental Value. It's a more subtle and I think a more complicated performance than Buckley's because the character is more complicated. Lora, har ni åker? Jag tror jag är klara. Well well tell us about the character and the film.

The movie is focused on a family. The father is a filmmaker played by Stellan Skarsgard. The camera's here. On her. And this is crucial. The expression she has here. And his daughter Nora, uh played by Renata Renseve, is an up and coming theater actress. ดินินิดินิดินิดินิดินิดิน! Yeah. He wants to make a new movie and he wants her to star in it, and she does not because they have a very fraught relationship.

So instead he hires an American actress played by Elle Fanning. And over the course of the movie, the El Fanning character basically tries to turn herself into a version of the daughter. Maybe I should have a Norwegian accent like Ingrid. I I don't have an accent. Do I? And Renata Renseve is uh just a it's a Tour de Forest performance, but it is a quiet Tour de Forest. Talk us through one of these quiet moments that makes this a tour de force performance.

Uh there's a great scene when Elle Fanning's character goes to visit Renata Renseve at the theater where she's doing a play. Hey. You're so nice to meet you. Thank you. The two women are seated in the auditorium of the theater. So it's it's pretty intimate. But the director does something really interesting. He puts Elle Fanning in the foreground of the shots. So she's really close to us.

Yet she's out of focus, slightly out of focus. But the other woman, the Renata Rensving character, she's really crisp and she is listening to El Fanning talk. Just keep thinking that he made a He made a mistake. And she's talking about her struggles with the role that the Renato Renssive character should have taken but turned down. The more that I study her.

The more lost I feel trying to be her. It's like her sad as an actress, Renata Rensave has what I think of as like great emotional transparency. And we are watching her face ripple with emotions as she listens to the other woman. So you see her curiosity, her wonder, her difficulty. And because the filmmaker is not telling us what to think and how to feel, we come to that ourselves. It's a very beautiful moment, a very emotionally honest moment. Very difficult person.

So in the particulars, these two roles have a lot in common. Both films have this overlapping focus on the theater. They both have some real tragedy, but these are two very different from what you're saying performances. Right. I mean if I was gonna you know, to use an analogy, one is a kind of thundering storm of a performance and the other one is a kind of gentle

You know, mist and sometimes the rain gets a little heavy, but it's not there's no lightning and thunder. It's a slow reveal of a performance. Well Manola, we are gonna take a very quick break, and when we come back, we're gonna talk about who is likely to win and who should win when it comes to best time. This is A. O. Scott. I'm a critic at the New York Times.

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Sominola, best actors, best lead performance by a man in the last year who likely to win that Ugh, this is such a hard one because it's a really unusually great slate. I like all of the performances. Um, however, if I had to be forced to narrow it down, I would say That could be Timothy Chalamet in Marty Supreme, Michael B. Jordan for his dual roles in Sinners, or Ethan Hawk in Blue Moon.

Okay, so what you're telling us is that perhaps our will-win framework might implode a little bit here. But if that's the case, let's just talk about all three of these. Actors and their performances and where do you want to start, Manola? Well let's start with Timothy Chalamet.

And I have tremendous respect for your money and I know it's hard to believe, but I'm telling you this game it feels And it's only a matter of time before it fills Stadiums in the United States too, before I'm staring at you from the cover of a Wheaties box. Keys uh in this movie called Marty Supreme, which is about a table tennis champion. Uh it's after World War II, takes mainly takes place in New York. It's very much about someone who is.

really racing toward his American dream and he's doing it through table tennis. He's an amazing, amazing table tennis. Player. And he hustles on the side for money. He works in a shoe store, he's a nice boy, but he also hustles and he's completely ruthless. The way I treat you. How could I do this to you? कर दो कर दो कर दो Could I do this to you? How about what you're doing?

I mean, nice boy who impregnates a woman in the basement of the shoe store while he's supposed to be getting an old woman a pair of shoes short. Asterisks, man. You've got to put it with asterisk. That's what I'm saying. He's a disreputable character, as some of the most interesting characters are. I mean it's a very aggressive performance. Um and I don't know where we are in this

stage of American movie going, but people just seem to have a really hard time with characters who are spiky and barbed. This is a complicated, interesting movie about what is the American dream for this very specific person. And in one of my favorite Yes tell us about one He goes after the ultimate shiksa. I mean, you know, Gwenna Paltro. I mean, it's just like like I don't even know like what her her what her identity is, but she's less like Definitely not Jewish in this movie.

She's playing someone, you know, a retired actress who's married uh a extremely wealthy, a disgusting man. And Timothy Chalamet sees her in a hotel and just zeroes in on her. Okay. Speaking. Hey it's Marty Mauser. I'm in the Royal Suite. I saw you in the lobby yesterday. Yeah, we made eye contact, I was being interviewed. And this great scene.

He's checked himself into a hotel he cannot afford. He's trying to get someone else to pay for it. And he calls her up. He just cold calls her and starts fast talking. You know I'm something of a performer too. Are you? Yeah, you don't believe me? And we see him and he just looks absurd. He's standing on his bed in his room, wearing a bathrobe in his boxer shorts and socks. This is you. Chosen one. It's a nice picture. Pink? Well I play table tennis.

And he's just talking a mile a minute, uh trying to seduce this woman and she hangs up on him, he calls back and he manages to s to convince her you know to meet up. Here's what's gonna happen. I'm gonna make an apple. And if I do, you're gonna blow off your little ronde. I'm not agreeing to anything. I don't have to greet anything, I'm gonna do it anyway. And uh they do. Do they ever? I'll leave a ticket for you at the box office.

It's a very exuberant out there role and exuberant out there performance. It's a hard thing to play a character this unlikable and not make the movie totally unlikable. Exactly right. You really need to bring in some warmth, uh, what they call relatability. uh and charm. And I actually think that Chalamet does do all of that. Um we're just not used to such abrasive heroes in American movies at this point. But I think that he does he's absolutely charming in this uh film as well.

I have to agree with that.

Let us now turn to Michael B. Jordan and his performance in Centers. More time I spend with y'all, the less sure I am you boys are serious about it. Ain't no boys here. Just grown men. Who grown men money and grown men bullets. In Sinners, Michael B. Jordan plays identical twins um through the magic of cinema, one named Smoke and the other one named Stack. CSU. We've been going a long time, Stack. Seven years ain't long enough to forget about us. It's very seamlessly done and very beautiful.

Love you. Love you too. Be careful. I will. And they are basically gangsters and they've returned to their hometown in the Mississippi Delta and they open a juke joint. There's a lot happening in this movie. You know, it's a horror movie specifically. There's a, you know, there's a vampire, a an Irish, an ancient Irish vampire. And that vampire it really embodies kind of a white Exploitation of black culture, black cultural history, you know, everything. And so the movie is incredibly ambitious.

Thank you. And one of the things I really love about Jordan's performance, b beyond the fact that he actually is able to create two very distinct characters and make them work very compli in a very complimentary fashion, is that he really inhabits each one and gives each very specific personality and Smoke there's this great scene where Smoke visits his wife and No miseries worth complaining about. And they haven't seen each other for a while and they have really very painful, tragic history.

I ain't never follow no rules. No demons, no ghosts, no magic. Just power. And it's a basically you're watching two people rediscover each other. How you know I ain't brave? And work every route my grandmama taught me to keep you and that crazy brother yours safe every day since you've been gone. And so what you're watching is a kind of renewed courtship. You know, you're watching two people refined each other and fall in love again and then fall into each other's arms.

It hurts coming back here. And I miss you. And then it gets well, smoking hot. I mean his name is smoke, I guess, you know. Um Yeah, they have they have quite a profound amorous encounter. Yes, it's beautifully done. And just to say, that is one half of the performance because there's literally two. Two performances in this one actor's performance in this movie. Absolutely.

Okay, the last person in our potential likely to win best actor category, and he's only playing one role, is Ethan Hawk in the film Blue Moon. Okay. Best line in Casablanca. Ninguém nunca me amou. And really, who's ever been loved enough? Who's ever been loved half enough? Would you get me a- So talk about that performance. Well, this is a movie uh takes largely takes place on one night, uh very, very important evening. Uh it's march thirty first, nineteen forty-three, and we are with

the lyricist Lorenz Hart, who with the composer Richard Rogers wrote a bunch of important musicals like Pal Joey as well as the title song Blue Moon. At this point though Hart is a wreck. He's an alcoholic and Rogers has a new partner named Oscar Hammerstein the second, and they have a new musical that Hart has just walked out of. A little a little thing called Oklahoma. An exclamation point as he repeatedly says throughout the film.

In fact, any title that feels the need for an exclamation point, you want to steer clear. There's a lack of vanity here that I love in the performance because Ethan Hawk has been made to look very sad. He has a tragic combover. He's very short. They cheat his height all the time. He looks like he's in a a suit that it looks too big for him. He looks like he at times is literally shrinking before our eyes.

And that actually really almost seems to happen when he has a confrontation. It's friendly, but it's very needy and needling with Richard Rogers, played by Andrew Scott. I remember when I first heard about you. You were just Morty Roger's little brother. What you were seventeen? Sixteen. Yeah, I was twenty-three. Twelve job. Yeah, you were the wise old man in the mountain. But when I first heard you play your stuff, I knew.

We are just basically watching uh Hart kind of debase himself, groveling, and yet he's so proud. I'm right here. Right now. Ready to work. And you see these warring emotions in Hawk's performance and in his face. I don't need to go back to doctor. And I don't need a psychiatrist either. Okay. Very much whose we You see it the face harden, soften, almost collapse in and itself. I am sorry.

I don't care if somebody attacks me. He doesn't mean anything to me, but nobody can attack my work. It is It's really quite remarkable. Right. Such a profoundly sad performance because you're watching someone who believe themselves to be so great and to have such an enduring legacy recognize that he's been bested. And it's very, very tragic.

It is. Um, yet at the same time there is a a lovely kind of restraint where you're you're not hit over the head with the tragedy. You know, heart is very funny. He has a lacerating wit. He is an entertainer. He wants to entertain and seduce. So he is leading with a kind of enthusiasm and a brio. And at the same time, we can see the neediness and the desperation. So all of that, that little war is always there. Sure.

And hey, fellas, uh just for the record, the corn is as high as an elephant's eye is the stupidest lyric in the history of American songwriting. Yes, it makes perfect. Greater and much more interesting actor than he was when he was cute and didn't have as many lines on his face. Some of us, you know, we improve with age, you know? His history is in his face. The lines, the age, what he's been through as a human being.

Hawk is basically tapping into all that and then adding his interpretation of this man who is soon going to depart this earth. Right. Well, because I would like to maintain some version of the will versus should construct here. Who do you think should win of these three? I really would like it's more about what I like, um, would be Ethan Hawke. I think it's a r I think it's a magnificent performance. But I also think that Michael B. Jordan is wonderful.

I I don't you know, I it's one of these times which just again, because it's such a rich group of performances that, you know, it's very, very difficult to to do our usual binary will. Let's take a break, and when we come back, we will talk about the main event, the last award, or the second to last award of what is always an incredibly long evening.

Manola, we are now at the best picture phase of this conversation. And you had mentioned earlier that this was a year when big studios took Some big risks. and two of those risky films, which you had mentioned, One Battle After Another, and Sinners ended up being films that you really As a critic, which is pretty great, on top of the fact that both did quite well at the box office. So let's talk about.

These two films as best picture contenders. And I think because we already talked about sinners, let's start with one battle after another. I got more to the game. what the plan is. Okay. I need some direction. Be unclear. We gotta plan for it. This is a Paul Thomas Anderson experience. It follows a group of would-be revolutionaries, including Leonardo DiCaprio, who's actually wonderful in this movie, and he plays Bob.

Bob is a total burnout. You know, he's just basically drinking and getting stoned on his couch while he's raising his his daughter, Willa. How did you get home? Well with my car. You drove? So what what are you my babysitter? What what what Yeah. I I know how to drink and drive, honey. I know what I'm doing.

I I didn't know. She has a nemesis, played w also a wonderful performance, Sean Penn, who basically goes after them. And we follow Leonardo DiCaprio's character as he basically goes underground and tries You have a phone number, man? Cảm ơn các bạn đã theo dõi và hẹn gặp lại. Everybody knows she has it. Why didn't she tell me she has a phone, maybe she's a couple of things. No, no, she's not allowed to have a goddamn phone.

Well, maybe she didn't want you to get mad. I don't get mad. I don't get mad about anything anymore. It's a really shocking movie in some ways because it is about people who believe that there is a better America and are fighting for it but they're actually

Some people would call it characterize them as terrorists, other people would just call them as revolutionaries. And I think that one of the reasons that it really kind of grabbed audiences is that seem to be speaking to conflicts that we are all reading about. It's hard to count. We need to do that. The opening sequence you find ha begins with a bunch of uh revolutionaries basically rescuing some people uh who have been seized by the United States military.

And the I just remember when I first saw the movie, everyone got really, really quiet in the audience. I think everyone was shocked because it felt like you were almost watching a dramatization of something that had just happened yesterday. Familia, necesito que agarren sus hijos y sus cosas y me formen una... But for all that seriousness, it's also a rather goofy movie at times. Oh, gloriously so. I mean, it is not a solemn eat your vegetables movie, you know, it is a movie that is.

kind of suggesting that the other side of tragedy is comedy. That however tragic this can seem, it's also goofy. There's a great scene where uh DiCaprio's character is now on the run. He is trying to connect with his old comrades and he makes a phone call. Rise and shine! Yeah. Good morning. There's a series of codes and he forgets what he's supposed to tell the other person. Yeah. Aw fuck. You know I don't I don't I don't remember that part. Look, this is Bob Fruit. Can't remember, man.

Remember half of this shit and this stupid fucking hotline, which is a fucking miracle. So stop fucking with me and give you the fucking ronde. vous point. Yeah, I just can't remember. I just need And it's gloriously funny. Call us back when you have the time. Did you Did you fucking hang up on me, you fucking live old fucking prick? Okay, so that's one battle after another.

When it comes to sinners, Manola, since you've already extolled its virtues through the performance of Michael B. Jordan, I wonder if you can Talk us through a scene or a dimension of the film beyond that performance that helps people understand why it may win best picture. We fro. There is a scene in the middle of the movie that I think is a masterpiece. And I think it really displays Kougler's cinematic genius. Sure, crop from sunflower plantation.

And part of what makes this movie so moving, because it's not just that it is an entertaining movie, it's a extremely rich movie in terms of how it is dealing with history. It's a scene where we're now the ju joint is open and there's a young bluesman named Sammy and he starts to play a song. And the camera starts moving around the room as he is singing. And suddenly you hear a little bit of electric guitar.

And then you see somebody who looks like he could be out of a a nineteen seventies funk band. And then the camera just keeps on going as this blues song is is playing and you see b-boys, you see a DJ with it at a turn table, you actually see a modern ballerina. Time and space kind of collapse and you get a sense of the great arc of history that takes us from Africa.

to Mississippi and all of the culture and all of the people that have led us to this moment and are pointing us toward the future where a young filmmaker named Ryan Kugler will pick up a camera. And make one of the great American movies. It's part of what's so interesting is that Sinners and One Battle After Another are two movies that are speaking to the American experience in a way that American cinema doesn't necessarily do, particularly from the big studios. These movies

feel urgent to us, you know? I mean, they feel really urgent to me. And they really be seem to be speaking about what it is to be an American at this moment in time. And I think that's part of why audiences have been so receptive to them as well. Right. So in Both Cinners and One Battle After Another, we've been talking about films that a lot of people saw. I wonder, to end our best picture conversation, if there is a nominee that maybe wasn't as big.

of a hit, but something that you think our listeners really should see and understand.

Oh, well it's uh The Secret Agent, which is a Brazilian film from one of my favorite directors. Um and also I just wanna say former film critic, Cleber Mendoza Filho. This is a movie that opens in nineteen seventy-seven during the military dictatorship. And we are following a former professor who has basically gone underground. Mm-hmm. One of the absolute delights of this movie is that you I can guarantee you will never know what is gonna happen next, which is just absolutely

So welcome. It goes from moments of outrageous, almost kind of burlesque comedy. There is literally a severed leg jumping around and kicking people in this movie. But it's also about what is it like to live under oppression, political oppression. And it's about coming together with like minded souls in order to survive. It's very moving on that level. He is a wonderful filmmaker and people should really check this movie out.

So Manolo, when you look at this slate of movies, and particularly these movies like Sinners and One Battle After Another. What do they leave you feeling exactly about the always in jeopardy future of Hollywood? Well I think, you know, one of the things that I would hope is that movie executives would look at this lineup

And look at the success of these movies and say, gee whiz, actually, maybe people want movies that are very well made and say something about the world that we live in. Maybe actually we don't wanna watch movies. that are completely divorced from reality, the way that so many American, you know, big the big blockbusters often are. I think it would be really nice if the movie executives got in line with the movie audiences at some point.

I feel like this is gonna be the first Oscars in a very long time where you may not actually be screaming. At the television. I can always call you Michael and start yelling if you need me to I am available for speed dial anger, you know. Well I really can't wait for it. Sure. Thank you so very much.

Today's episode was produced by Alex Barron with help from Luke Vanderplueg and Tina Antellini. It was edited by Wendy Doer and engineered by Sophia Landman. It contains music by Dan Powell, Pat McConnell. Cusker and Marion Lozano. Our production manager is Franny Car Talk. That's it for the daily on Sunday. I'm Michael Mobarro. See you tomorrow.