The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of the 2026 Oscar Nominations

The Oscar nominations were announced this morning, so I figured I’d provide my quick thoughts on this year’s batch of nominees. While I appreciate the argument that there’s no such thing as a “snub” (the Academy doesn’t purposely deny anyone in particular a nomination as much as there are only so many slots, and some choices are more popular than others), we do need some kind of recognition for when it looked like a film or a performer were headed for a nomination only to be outside looking in.

But honestly, there wasn’t much in the way of snubs, especially if you look at films by studio. For example, Weapons, despite its critical and commercial success, was always going to be an uphill battle because it’s a horror film, and then you compound it by being a Warner Bros. movie in a year where loads of nominations are going to fellow WB pictures Sinners and One Battle After Another. That’s just how it shakes out.

With all that in mind, here are my thoughts on this year’s nominees.

The Good

A lot of great first-time nominees in here, with the top of the list being longtime favorite Delroy Lindo. I felt like Lindo should have been recognized back in 2020 for his incredible lead performance in Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods, but better late than never. Lindo’s nomination is also part of the Sinners freight train, as the movie set the record for nominations at 16 (the previous high being 14 for All About Eve, Titanic, and La La Land). That meant nominations in the new Best Casting category as well as recognition for the outstanding Wunmi Mosaku and Michael B. Jordan. Also, for all the talk of “awards season,” being in the fall, Sinners is now the second movie of the past five years to get a spring release and be an Oscar frontrunner (the other being Everything Everywhere All at Once, which went on to win Best Picture). 

Other terrific nominations included Nick Cave for Best Song, Kate Hudson netting her first nomination in 25 years for Song Sung Blue, Ethan Hawke being recognized for Blue Moon, Rose Byrne becoming an Oscar nominee (and in close competition with Jessie Buckley for the Best Actress frontrunner), and Amy Madigan nabbing a nod for the iconic Aunt Gladys (although sadly that was Weapons only nomination).

The Bad