The last stop on the lengthy awards season grind is the Academy Awards. It’s an event that I once adored. Yet in recent years I’ve slowly but steadily been losing interest. Awards season has gotten so homogenized with the same tiny group of nominees appearing everywhere. That’s made it extremely predictable, and never has that been more true than this year.

The 2026 Oscar nominations offered no real surprise to anyone who has even casually followed awards season. Sure, there was a handful of snubs (or surprises, depending on your perspective), but nothing that would indicate an actual diversity of thought or taste in the whole process. Yet still, as I always do, here are a few random thoughts from this year’s Academy Award nominations.

• To no one’s surprise, the Academy accomplished its goal of cramming “One Battle After Another” and “Sinners” into every category possible. It was expected, but it also led to several of the ‘snubs’ that I’ll talk about shortly.
• Mission accomplished. “Sinners” broke a record by earning 16 Oscar nominations this morning. It was something that had started circulating a few days ago. Look, “Sinners” is a good movie. But it’s not THAT good.
• Of course “One Battle After Another” remains the awards season darling and is the clear Best Picture frontrunner. Overall it earned 13 Oscar nominations and is on track to be the third subpar movie to win BP in the last four years. Congrats.
• To their credit, nine out of the Academy’s ten nominees for Best Picture are good films. And they did include the year’s best film, “Train Dreams”. It doesn’t stand a chance at winning, but it’s nice to see it rightfully included.
• It’s hard to believe “Frankenstein” received so many nominations yet nothing for Guillermo del Toro in directing. It’s a tremendous film that doesn’t get off the ground without his vision and craftsmanship. He should be the frontrunner. Instead he’s not even nominated.
• Instead Josh Safdie gets a directing nod for “Marty Supreme”, an entertaining movie but a noticeably flawed one, in large part due to Safdie’s breakneck direction.
• The Best Actress category belongs to Jessie Buckley and rightfully so. Of course the Academy remains smitten with Emma Stone so she gobbles up the last slot. But to her credit, she’s very good in “Bugonia”. Much better than her last Yorgos Lanthimos collaboration.
• Staying with Best Actress, Chase Infiniti is the absolute best thing in “One Battle After Another” by MILES yet she doesn’t get nominated. You can’t make this stuff up.
• Best Actor seems to be between Timothee Chalamet (“Marty Supreme”) and Wagner Moura (“The Secret Agent”). It’s good to see Michael B. Jordan nominated for “Sinners” but a shame that Joel Edgerton is snubbed for “Train Dreams”. Both deserve the win ahead of the frontrunners.
• It wasn’t a good morning for “Wicked: For Good”. Unlike its predecessor, this mess of a sequel was completely shut out, receiving no nominations whatsoever. File this under something the Academy got right.
• It was also great seeing “F1” among the Best Picture nominees. Again, it has no chance of winning, but the recognition is nice.
• This is hard to believe, but Stellan Skarsgard is the very first international nominee to be included in the Supporting Actor category. Either way he deserves to win. His performance in “Sentimental Value” was one of the year’s very best.
• The rest of the Supporting Actor category wasn’t as impressive. The Academy insisted on clogging it up with both Sean Penn and Benicio del Toro from “One Battle After Another”. They threw in Delroy Lindo from “Sinners” which sadly means no Paul Mescal (“Hamnet”) and no Adam Sandler (“Jay Kelley”). Whatever.
• Best Casting is the first new competitive category at the Oscars in 25 years. Meanwhile stunt performers are still asking, “What about us?”
• It’s hard to put much into this year’s awards when I think of the glaring omissions that have plagued the whole season. No Daniel Day-Lewis or Sean Bean for “Anemone”. No love for Josh O’Connor after the year he had. Nothing for “Nouvelle Vague”. Only one nomination for “Weapons”. No Russell Crowe for “Nuremberg”. Barely a mention of great films like “Warfare”, “Black Bag”, and “Eddington”. Again, there is no diversity of tastes or opinions. It’s mostly the same small pool of nominees at every stop.

And those are a few random thoughts from this year’s Oscar nominations. The 98th Academy Awards will be held Sunday, March 15th. What are your thoughts on the Academy’s crop of nominees?