Skip to main content

Could we see a major upset at this year’s Academy Awards? 

The 2026 Oscars will be held Sunday, March 15 in Los Angeles. As usual, predictions are flying about who will go home with a statuette. Some categories seem locked up, such as best actress, where Jessie Buckley is widely favored to win for her role in Hamnet. But others are more in flux. 

One of the more surprising up-in-air categories is best actor. Heading into awards season, Timothée Chalamet was the favorite to win thanks to his high-energy performance in Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme. But the race has tightened in recent weeks as his rivals have taken home trophies at other major award ceremonies. 

Who is nominated for best actor at the 98th Academy Awards?

Related

Timothée Chalamet Called Out for Showing ‘Annoyance’ After Losing Award to Michael B. Jordan

Chalamet is competing with four other actors for the best actor honor at this year’s Oscars. The other nominees are Leonardo DiCaprio for One Battle After Another, Ethan Hawke for Blue Moon, Michael B. Jordan for Sinners, and Wagner Moura for The Secret Agent.

Chalamet has won several of the key precursor awards heading into the 2026 Oscars, including the Critics Choice Award and Best Male Actor in a Musical or Comedy at the Golden Globes. (Moura took home the best actor award in the drama category at the Golden Globes.)

But Chalamet went home empty-handed at the BAFTA’s, where Robert Aramayo won for I Swear. (I Swear hasn’t yet been released in the U.S., so it’s not eligible for this year’s Oscars.) He also lost to Michael B. Jordan at the Actor Awards. Those losses have shaken up the race, with Chalamet’s odds of going home an Oscar winner now seeming less secure. 

Ethan Hawke will win Best Actor, according to this prediction

At this point, many Hollywood insiders see the best actor race as a contest between Chalamet and Jordan. But when the team at social casino website McLuck ran an analysis that looked at  winner trends going back to 1929, including age, acting credits, previous nominations, box office figures, reviews, and genres, they came up with a surprising prediction. 

Hawke could sweep in and push out both Chalamet and Jordan, they say. After Hawke, the second most likely winner according to McLuck is DiCaprio with a 30% chance. Chalamet is in third place with a 15% chance of winning. 

The Reality Bites actor, who has a 35% chance of winning the award for his performance as Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart, could be a beneficiary of the “overdue” effect. Hawke has been nominated at the Oscars four times before, though never in the best actor category. His previous nods best supporting actor for Training Day and Boyhood, as well as screenwriting nominations for the Before Sunset and Before Midnight. He failed to get a best actor nomination for 2018’s First Reformed, which many considered a major snub. 

In addition, best actor Oscar winners are typically middle-aged, between their late 30s and mid 50s, with a career spanning two or three decades. Hawke is 55 and has been acting since the mid-1980s. At 30, Chalamet – who has already been nominated twice, for Call Me By Your Name and A Complete Unknown –- would be the second-youngest winner after Adrien Brody, who was 29 when he won for The Pianist.  

Repeat Oscar wins are also slightly less common for men than women, which could put DiCaprio at a disadvantage. He won in 2016 for The Revenant. But he’s also lost best actor four times and best supporting actor one. However, a decade after his first acting win, the Academy may decide he’s due for another award. 

Michael B. Jordan new Oscars frontrunner

While McLuck is putting their money on Hawke, if he does win, it would be a major surprise. Many other predictions put his odds in the single digits, particularly because he has not won any major awards for Blue Moon. (He has won several critics association awards.) 

Chalamet’s odds of winning are still high, though some experts say that his unconventional Oscar campaign could hurt his odds with Academy voters. And publications like Variety and Entertainment Weekly now predict Jordan will get his first Oscar for Sinners. At this point, only one thing is certain – this year’s Oscars will be unpredictable.  

For more​​ news and exclusive interviews, follow Showbiz Cheat Sheet’s Instagram.

Best in News