Being nearly three-and-a-half months into 2026, the 2025 awards season has been much longer than usual. It is especially prevelent as awards show likes the Golden Globes and Critics’ Choice Awards that happened nearly two months ago. All will soon come to an end this Sunday, as the Academy Awards are set to livestream at 7pm EST on ABC and streaming on Hulu.

The awards season looked to be fairly predictable in the beginning, but the Actor Awards and BAFTA threw curveballs in some categories, leaving many awards up for grabs. From the acting awards to the technical categories, many are up for debate for who’s winning.

Here are my predictions for who will win each category, what I think deserves to win, and what could potentially upset.

Best Visual Effects

Who Will Win: Avatar: Fire and Ash

Who Should Win: Avatar: Fire and Ash

Who Could Upset: Sinners

There’s no denying the technical achievement of James Cameron’s work on the Avatar films, and Avatar: Fire and Ash is just as much of a feat as the prior film. Although the film is not as strong an awards player as the last two films in the series, the visual effects are too striking to ignore. Sinners could potentially upset if the Academy has an overwhelming love for the film and wants to award it in every category.

Best Editing

Who Will Win: One Battle After Another

Who Should Win: One Battle After Another

Who Could Upset: F1

This year’s awards ceremony will be a back-and-forth between Sinners and One Battle After Another, which leaves many categories up in the air. One of the awards that will not be much of a conversation about who will win is Best Editing, which will likely go to One Battle After Another. Not only has the film won the ACE Eddie Award, but won the BAFTA, which has a high correlation with the Oscar winner. The film is a feat of editing, boasting one of the fastest three-hour runtimes in recent memory due to its action/thriller subject matter. If there is an upset, F1 would be the most likely as racing movies have a track record of winning the editing category, especially ones nominated for Best Picture.

Best Costume Design

Who Will Win: Frankenstein

Who Should Win: Frankenstein

Who Could Upset: Sinners

The only film that looks to compete with One Battle After Another and Sinners in the technical categories is Frankenstein. Being a high-budget recreation of a beloved novel, Frankenstein has a lot going in its favor, winning awards, especially in the costume category. With the Critic’s Choice and BAFTA awards already in hand, it is hard to bet against Frankenstein, as its period setting and lavish costumes are bound to make a greater impression on voters than the other nominated films.

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

Who Will Win: Frankenstein

Who Should Win: Frankenstein

Who Could Upset: Sinners

Oftentimes, the Best Makeup and Hairstyling winner goes to the film with the most prosthetic work. Although films like The Ugly Stepsister are littered with practical effects, the award also goes to a film nominated for Best Picture, making Frankenstein the perfect contender. The entirety of Frankenstein’s Monster is a feat of prosthetic work, and winning the BAFTA and Critic’s Choice Award makes me all the more confident to predict it in this category.

Best Production Design

Who Will Win: Frankenstein

Who Should Win: Frankenstein

Who Could Upset: Marty Supreme

Best Production Design once again falls in line with Best Costume Design and Best Makeup and Hairstyling, with Frankenstein being favored to win. This award often goes to the film with the biggest and most showy production design, with films like Poor Things and Wicked winning over the Best Picture winners. There is no other film with sets as grand as Frankenstein’s, making it the obvious pick. Marty Supreme could be a big upset winner because Jack Fisk is such a popular and beloved production designer, and he has never won before.

Best Cinematography

Who WIll Win: One Battle After Another

Who Should Win: Sinners

Who Could Upset: Sinners

The cinematography category is once again between One Battle After Another and Sinners. Both have a great narrative, pushing the limits of IMAX filmmaking and Vistavision, and featuring two of the year’s most memorable sequences: the “I Lied to You” surreal montage and the car chase scene. Why One Battle After Another is the more likely winner is because of what it has won previously, which includes the BAFTA, the American Society of Cinematographers(ASC), and the British Society of Cinematographers(BSC). No film that has won those three awards has lost the award in the past ten years, making it the likely winner in this category.

Best Sound

Who Will Win: F1

Who Should Win: F1

Who Could Upset: Sinners

Racing movies often win Best Editing, but what is even more likely is that racing movies win Best Sound, making F1 an easy frontrunner. Once F1 received a surprise Best Picture nomination, it secured the win in this category.

Best Casting

Who Will Win: Sinners

Who Should Win: Sinners

Who Could Upset: Marty Supreme

This is a newly introduced category for the Academy, making it a more difficult category to predict. Although it is awarded directly to the casting director, there is no telling whether the Oscars will vote based on who their favorite ensemble is or which film did the best job casting and finding new talent. Sinners works as a good combination of both, and with the film winning the ensemble award at the Actors Awards, it looks to be the most likely film to win this award.

Best Original Song

Who Will Win: “Golden” from Kpop Demon Hunters

Who Should Win: “I Lied to You” from Sinners

Who Could Upset: “I Lied to You” from Sinners

The Best Original Song winner has less to do with the quality of the film, but more about the popularity of the song, and there was no other song more popular than “Golden” in 2025. Unless the Academy can’t help but vote for Sinners in every category, it’s hard to predict against the song that was nominated for Song of the Year at the Grammys.

Best Original Score

Who Will Win: Sinners

Who Should Win: Sinners

Who Could Win: One Battle After Another

Ludwig Göransson is an Oscar darling, winning two Oscars within a five-year span for Black Panther and Oppenheimer. A third award is bound to come for Göransson, as his blend of blues and rock in Sinners easily stands among the strongest of the year. Winning the Golden Globe, Critics’ Choice, and BAFTA, it is difficult to see any other film winning this category.

Best Live Action Short Film

Who Will Win: Two People Exchanging Saliva

Who Should Win: The Singers

Who Could Upset: The Singers

This year, the Academy changed its voting system, allowing members to vote for each award only if they’ve seen every film nominated in that category. With the short film categories consistently the lowest-watched among nominees, this rule change is bound to affect them the most. As someone who’s seen all five nominees, it is hard not to be swayed toward Two People Exchanging Saliva, a film dripping with originality in its production design and screenplay. Although The Singers had a major push for this award by Netflix and is my personal pick, Two People Exchanging Saliva stands as the most original and the one I believe voters will enjoy the most.

Best Animated Short

Who Will Win: Butterfly

Who Should Win: Butterfly

Who Could Upset: Retirement Plan

The short films, unlike the feature-length films, don’t have any major precursor awards to gauge what will win the category, forcing people to choose a winner based on their opinions. In my opinion, the short film category is easily one of the worst sets of nominees, with many failing to make any impact. The one that had the biggest impact on me was easily Butterfly, which uses watercolor animation to convey the life of an Olympic swimmer with tons of emotion. Retirement Plan has A-list star Domnhall Gleeson as the lead, but Butterfly‘s overall quality makes me give it the upper hand in this category.

Best Documentary Short

Who Will Win: All the Empty Rooms

Who Should Win: Perfectly a Strangeness

Who Could Upset: The Devil is Busy

All of these short films, besides Perfectly a Strangeness, are about extremely depressing yet topical subjects. With all of them being similar in quality, there isn’t much else to gauge what stands out besides their distributor, which makes me lean toward All the Empty Rooms. Netflix usually has one short film win an award each year, and with their other contender lacking in overall quality, All the Empty Rooms stands as the studio’s best chance at an award.

Best Documentary Feature

Who Will Win: The Perfect Neighbor

Who Should Win: The Perfect Neighbor

Who Could Upset: Mr. Nobody Against Putin

In recent years, the documentary winner has been about something relevant to today’s time. Not only does The Perfect Neighbor fit into this narrative, but it is also the most-watched film among the nominees, distributed by Netflix. Although Mr. Nobody Against Putin won at the BAFTA, The Perfect Neighbor is too popular of a movie for me to predict against.

Best International Feature

Who Will Win: Sentimental Value

Who Should Win: Sentimental Value

Who Could Upset: The Secret Agent

As last year, this category has the rare occasion of including two Best Picture nominees: The Secret Agent and Sentimental Value. While being the most nominated film didn’t work in favor of Emilia Perez last year, Sentimental Value has far less controversy, and receiving nominations in Best Director and Best Original Screenplay, which The Secret Agent didn’t get, makes it the overall favorite to win this award.

Best Animated Feature

Who Will Win: Kpop Demon Hunters

Who Should Win: Zootopia 2

Who Could Upset: Zootopia 2

Not only is Kpop Demon Hunters awarded in more than one category, but it is arguably the most popular film of last year, breaking both movie-theater and Netflix records. As well as being a universally beloved movies, there’s a small chance that anything else wins this award.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Who Will Win: One Battle After Another

Who Should Win: One Battle After Another

Who Could Upset: Hamnet

This is one of the rare categories where One Battle After Another and Sinners aren’t competing against each other, paving the way for Paul Thomas Anderson to win his first Oscar. Not only has he won every single major precursor for Adapted Screenplay, but he also has a strong narrative for winning an Oscar, given that he is 14 nominations deep with zero wins. If anything else wins, it would be a major shock.

Best Original Screenplay

Who Will Win: Sinners

Who Should Win: Sinners

Who Could Upset: Sentimental Value

Sinners, like One Battle After Another, has won every major precursor for original screenplay, including the WGA, Critics’ Choice, and BAFTA. As well as being a major contender for Best Picture, it would be crazy to predict anything else.

Best Supporting Actress

Who Will Win: Amy Madigan

Who Should Win: Amy Madigan

Who Could Upset: Wunmi Mosaku

Best Supporting Actress is one of the hardest categories to predict, as a different actress has won each of the major precursors. Teyona Taylor won the Golden Globe, Wumni Mosaku won the BAFTA, and Amy Madigan won the Actor and Critics’ Choice Award. I am choosing to side with Madigan because of the Actor Award win, which has a significant overlap with Academy voters. Madigan is also a previous nominee, whereas no one else in her category is. While being in a Best Picture nominee usually helps an actor in terms of winning the award, I believe Madigan has a strong enough narrative to take it.

Best Supporting Actor

Who WIll Win: Sean Penn

Who Should Win: Stellan Skarsgard

Who Could Upset: Delory Lindo

Sean Penn didn’t seem like the frontrunner for this category, but after winning the BAFTA and Actor Award, he skyrocketed to the top of my predictions. Penn makes perfect sense as a winner, though, with an extremely funny and showy performance as Colonel Lockjaw. Although he’s already won two Oscars, it’s not uncommon for the Academy to continue awarding the same actor if it feels their performance is worthy. Delroy Lindo has been running a silent campaign in recent weeks as people acknowledge his incredible career, which makes me believe he is a potential sleeper winner.

Best Actress

Who Will Win: Jessie Buckley

Who Should Win: Jessie Buckley

Who Could Upset: Rose Byrne

There’s no way around it, Buckley is winning this award with ease.

Best Actor

Who Will Win: Michael B. Jordan

Who Should Win: Timothée Chalamet

Who Could Upset: Timothée Chalamet

Timothée Chalamet seemed like the easy frontrunner for Marty Supreme, but after losing both the Actor Award and the BAFTA, the direction has pointed elsewhere, leading to Michael B. Jordan. Winning the Actor Award was a major shock to many, but after seeing the rapturous applause Jordan received for his award, people started to become convinced that Jordan is taking the award, myself included. As well as some anonymous voters feeling agitated with Timothée Chalamet’s campaign strategy, Michael B. Jordan seems like the most likely contender at this moment in time.

Best Director

Who Will Win: Paul Thomas Anderson

Who Should Win: Ryan Coogler

Who Could Upset: Ryan Coogler

Even for those who loved Sinners, there is no denying that it is Paul Thomas Anderson’s time to win Best Director. After receiving 11 nominations prior to One Battle After Another, with zero wins and the film being the highest-rated among critics in his career, it makes sense that he wins this award. He also hasn’t lost a major precursor, winning the Golden Globe, Critics’ Choice, BAFTA, and DGA award, which is an unlosable combo. Ryan Coogler, being so young in his career, is bound to receive more accolades, while now is the time to award Anderson.

Best Picture

Who Will Win: One Battle After Another

Who Should Win: Sinners

Who Could Upset: Sinners

This year’s Oscars have arguably the tightest Best Picture race this decade. While One Battle After Another won the Golden Globe, Critics’ Choice, BAFTA, and Producers’ Guild award, Sinners won the Actor Award for Best Ensemble and the WGA award. No matter what film wins, stats will be broken. The reason I am leaning more in favor of One Battle After Another is that Sinners has yet to beat One Battle After Another in a major Best Film category. Although Sinners is gaining significant momentum at the moment, One Battle After Another fits the narrative better as the Best Picture winner.

The 2026 Academy Awards will livestream this Sunday on ABC and stream on Hulu at 7pm EST