Eight surprise takeaways from the nominations

Awards experts were surprised from the first two words spoken Thursday during the Oscar nominations.

“Elle Fanning, for Sentimental Value,” said hosts Danielle Brooks and Lewis Pullman, as they launched the nominations for Best Supporting Actress.

Fanning’s appearance got off to a spicy start early on: She had received praise for her performance in the Norwegian family drama, but few predicted a nomination.

The opening category set the tone for a series of snubs and surprises, which began to multiply. Here are eight of the big takeaways.

Although Hamnet and One Battle After Another performed well, both had a slightly softer performance than expected in the acting categories.

Paul Mescal failed to secure a supporting role for Hamnet – a surprising omission, although we’re sure it won’t have much impact on co-star Jessie Buckley’s frontrunner status for Best Actress.

Meanwhile, four major One Battle After Another actors were recognized, but its star Chase Infiniti she missed out on the best actress category despite being a hot contender.

It was certainly a competitive category. But at 25 years old and with rave reviews for her performance in the film, we’re pretty sure we haven’t heard the last of her.

Other actors who had momentum but eventually faded are included Jesse Plemons for Bugonia and Joel Edgerton for Train Rêves. But both of those films were ranked as Best Picture – so the Academy clearly liked them overall.

F1, which stars Brad Pitt as a retired racing driver, was the biggest surprise in the best picture category.

It wasn’t much of an underdog: Many awards experts expected it to earn several below-the-line nominations for its impressive technical achievements (we highly recommend watching the film in theaters or with surround sound if you can).

But the fact that it had enough momentum to propel it to Best Picture was a real show of strength – especially without other major nominations in the Best Director or Actor categories.

This shows that the Academy’s old guard still appreciates well-made traditional films that can simply be enjoyed with a bucket of popcorn.

Sinners scored a record 16 nominations, far surpassing previous co-record holders La La Land, Titanic and All About Eve, who earned 14 each.

Ryan Coogler’s vampire horror has been particularly successful in maintaining its momentum with voters, given that it was released last spring.

But it’s exactly the kind of film the Academy would want to recognize. While vampire films may not be traditional Oscar bait, Sinners was a true artistic achievement, blending genre horror with 1930s blues music against a backdrop of the Mississippi Delta.

Coogler also made headlines in Hollywood trade papers last year for the deal he negotiated with Warner Brothers, which will see ownership rights to the film returned to him after 25 years.

The first Wicked film received 10 Academy Award nominations and won two. It is therefore an extraordinary disgrace that its sequel got zero.

However, this was widely expected. Villain: for good was far less well received than its predecessor – something it shares with the original musical.

The show’s second act is widely considered weaker than the first, in part because all the big hits appear before intermission.

But it was still thought that Wicked: For Good might fit into some categories, with many predicting a Best Original Song nomination for The Girl in the Bubble, a track performed by Ariana Grande which was newly added for the film adaptation.

There was better news for another blockbuster, Avatar: Fire and Ashwhich at least managed a few technical nominations for visual effects and costume design.

Some of the most mainstream films tend to be found in the animation category. That’s where the $1.7 billion in revenue is Zootopia 2 (known as Zootropolis 2 in the UK) and viral streaming success Demon Hunters KPop.

Sinners not only got the most nominations, it also had the only two Brits nominated in the acting categories.

Wunmi Mosaku and Delroy Lindo became best actress and best actor respectively.

While Mosaku’s was widely expected, Lindo’s was more of a surprise, and his inclusion is perhaps one of the biggest indicators of the love there clearly is for sinners across the Academy.

Lindo narrowly missed out on a Best Actor nomination a few years ago for Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods. The 73-year-old’s first-ever Oscar nomination seems long overdue.

Three of the actresses nominated Thursday were the only awards their films received.

Rose Byrne was the only performance of the motherhood drama If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, while Kate Hudson managed to participate alone in the touching musical love story Song Sung Blue.

Meanwhile, the weapons star Amy Madigan was nominated for her role as an eccentric aunt who shows up in an American town just before the local schoolchildren disappear.

Madigan’s nomination is perhaps the most impressive, given that scary horror films aren’t traditional Oscar fodder.

But the 75-year-old was a passionate choice for many pundits and voters, and her fans campaigned hard for her to be recognized for her memorable (and slightly terrifying) performance.

The newly introduced casting category overlapped with many general favorites, with nominations for Marty Supreme, One Battle After Another, Hamnet, Sinners and The Secret Agent.

However, we can’t help but feel slightly perplexed that another particular film was missed.

Sentimental Value failed to secure a casting nomination despite its four main stars getting individual nominations – Stellan Skarsgård, Elle Fanning, Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas.

If this quartet was impressive enough to be nominated individually, you might have thought there was a good chance of recognition for the casting directors who brought them together – Avy Kaufman and Yngvill Kolset Haga.

During the SAG Awards last year, Timothée Chalamet spoke of his desire to eventually be considered “one of the greats of Hollywood”.

He takes a big step closer to that with the likelihood that he will win his first Oscar this year, as the best actor frontrunner for the table tennis drama Marty Supreme.

Although he has only been nominated twice before, Chalamet is popular with the Academy, having starred in eight of the Best Picture nominees.

He is also the youngest actor since Marlon Brando to receive three nominations for Best Leading Actor. Brando was 30, the same age as Chalamet, when he earned his third in 1954.

Timothée almost won last year for playing Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown, but we’re confident that 2026 will be his time to reign supreme.