Oscars 2026: Who will win and who should win and how do I watch in NZ?

It’s that time of year again - Hollywood is ready to honour the year’s best films, actors and actresses at the 98th annual Academy Awards.

The full list of nominees was announced overnight NZ time and One Battle After Another is still the picture to beat, but the American vampire thriller Sinners may well put a stake in its heart as it smashed an all-time record by bagging a whopping 16 Oscar nominations.

Here’s our thoughts on who might win, and how to watch the Oscars and the top nominees here in New Zealand.

Like last year, Kiwis who are subscribed to Disney+ will be able to watch the Academy Awards, with returning host Conan O’Brien, live on the streamer 16 March around midday NZT.

While theatres worldwide are still recovering from the Covid pandemic slump in attendance, 2025 was a pretty great year for film - original stories like One Battle After Another, Weapons, Sinners and Marty Supreme are full of energy and many were big box office hits.

There hasn’t been any big controversy over the Oscars this year - so far, anyway - so maybe this will actually be a year when we focus on the creative excellence part of the awards and less on the gossip.

Our new resident director James Cameron’s third Avatar movie Fire And Ash picked up two nominations, for Best Costume Design and for Best Visual Effects for the work by long-time Oscar champions Wētā FX, represented by five-time Oscar winner Joe Letteri and past Oscar winners Eric Saindon and Daniel Barrett and Irish effects specialist Richard Baneham.

“This recognition belongs to every artist, technician, and collaborator who contributed to the film—from the live-action crew and performance capture teams to everyone at Wētā FX,” the nominees said in a statement.

“It is a privilege to represent the wider New Zealand film community on the world stage. Since moving to New Zealand, James Cameron has shown a long-standing commitment to making films here, investing in local talent and creative innovation, and we are immensely proud to be part of that team and that legacy.”

Another Kiwi represents in best costume design, Kate Hawley, for her work on the Netflix film Frankenstein. Hawley studied at the Wellington School of Design, before being trained at London's esteemed Motley School of Theatre Design.

Before Frankenstein, Hawley had worked for director Guillermo del Toro on Crimson Peak and Pacific Rim.

She was also a costume designer for the television series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and worked for director Peter Jackson on The Hobbit trilogy, as well as The Lovely Bones.

Last year the British Fashion Council named Hawley as its inaugural Costume Designer of the Year. She was also awarded the Special Achievement in Costume Design Award at the Middleburg Film Festival in the US and was nominated for Best Costume Design at the Astra Film Awards.

More than 1200 Wētā FX crew members contributed to Avatar.

The Jacinda Ardern documentary Prime Minister was shortlisted as a possible Best Documentary contender, but didn’t make the final cut.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s tense action comedy One Battle After Another has led critics’ lists ever since it opened in September, and that’s not likely to change. With one of the world’s biggest movie stars Leonardo DiCaprio on board, its story of pursued dissidents and blustering government agents feels ripped from the headlines. It’s suspenseful - that car chase! the phone calls! - but also bitterly funny as well, and feels like the movie that sums up 2025 more than any other. It’s mostly swept the critics awards and betting odds would be that it takes Best Picture.

However, Sinners got that remarkable record-breaking 16 nominations - breaking the record jointly held of 14 nods for the movies Titanic, All About Eve and La La Land. That showing indicates tremendous love for Ryan Coogler’s smash hit, and it might just mean that it could sneak in as the first true horror movie to win Best Picture since Silence of the Lambs in 1991.

And the Oscars can sometimes be contrary - remember that time Shakespeare In Love beat Saving Private Ryan for Best Picture? Well, this year’s far quieter and heartbreaking Shakespeare drama Hamnet took home the best drama Golden Globe and if One Battle (which won the best comedy Golden Globe) slips, once again a movie about Shakespeare might take the prize.

Will win: One Battle After Another

Could win: Hamnet

After directing some of the finest movies of the last 25 years like There Will Be Blood and Boogie Nights - and never winning an Oscar - Anderson deserves his golden guy. It feels like as close as you get to a certainty that he’ll win, but the Best Director Oscar has been known to have some surprises.

Creed and Black Panther helmer Ryan Coogler hasn’t made a bad movie yet and Sinners is his best so far, while the previous Best Director winner for Nomadland Chloe Zhao and her teary Hamnet is beloved by Academy members and her quiet, naturalistic style might play for those turned off by One Battle and Sinners' loudness.

Will win: Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another

Could win: Ryan Coogler, Sinners

Although he’s only just turned 30, Timothée Chalamet is one of the most acclaimed actors of his generation and this is already his third nomination. His very different turns as a galactic saviour in Dune, a candyman in Wonka, and Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown have shown off his versatility, but it’s his jittery table tennis star and scam artist turn in Marty Supreme that may finally net him an Oscar. He’s hilariously funny in this highly caffeinated comedy/drama, but also nails the broader tragedy of Marty, a hustler who can’t see the wreckage all around him as he tries to find his American dream.

Ethan Hawke may be a spoiler for giving one of those body-transforming performances the Academy loves playing the bald, 1.5-m tall composer Lorenz Hart in Blue Moon, or Wagner Moura, who won the Golden Globe for Brazil’s The Secret Agent, could also slip in.

Will win: Timothée Chalamet, Marty Supreme

Could win: Ethan Hawke, Blue Moon

Best Actress nominee Jessie Buckley has run the table on other awards this year, and her performance in Hamnet as Agnes Shakespeare is dazzling - heartbreaking, sincere and graceful as she navigates love, motherhood and unbearable loss. Hamnet itself is a pretty serious, dark film, but Buckley gives it the spark that makes it more than just another historical sob story.

Kate Hudson - who should’ve won for Almost Famous all those years ago - may be a sentimental back-up choice as a hard-luck singer in a Neil Diamond tribute band in Song Sung Blue, and while admittedly, Emma Stone has already won plenty of Best Actress Oscars, her brave and satirical turn in paranoid thriller Bugonia is some of her best work yet.

Will win: Jessie Buckley, Hamnet

Could win: Kate Hudson, Song Sung Blue

Sentimental Value is the little Norwegian drama/comedy that could, and while it’s not really likely to take home other big awards other than probably Best International Feature, the well-liked character actor Stellan Skarsgard will probably get his moment for his turn as a filmmaker and distant father trying to dramatise the events of his own life without his family’s cooperation.

Still, there’s other strong contenders here. Jacob Elordi’s Frankenstein monster is a real feat under pounds of makeup, delivering arguably the best portrait of the creature since Boris Karloff nearly a century ago. Both Benicio Del Toro and Sean Penn were excellent in One Battle, but might cancel each other out. But Penn’s misogynist, racist US soldier is an unforgettable villain that could see the two-time Best Actor winner awarded again - and great bad guys like Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lecter and Javier Bardem’s Anton Chigurh have won Oscars in the past.

Will win: Stellan Skarsgard, Sentimental Value

Could win: Sean Penn, One Battle After Another

Best Supporting Actress nominee Teyana Taylor is a fiery standout in One Battle as an unrepentant revolutionary, but she kind of vanishes after the opening third and the movie feels like it stops being her story. That’s where Amy Madigan, with an unrecognisable turn in Weapons as a mysterious auntie, might well sneak in - and also give the Academy a chance to nod at one of the year’s other biggest surprise box office hits.

Will win: Teyana Taylor, One Battle After Another

Could Win: Amy Madigan, Weapons

One Battle After Another, Bugonia and Weapons are available to rent on demand at Apple, You Tube, Neon Rentals, Prime Video and other view-on-demand platforms.

Sinners is also available to stream on Neon for members, while best picture nominees Frankenstein and Train Dreams are on Netflix and best picture nominee F1 on Apple TV.

Hamnet, Marty Supreme, Blue Moon, The Secret Agent and Sentimental Value are all now in theatres.