Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures; Courtesy of Focus Features; Warner Bros. Pictures
Aging revolutionaries, blues-loving vampire slayers, and another tragic take on Frankenstein's monster headlined the2026 Oscar nominations, a diverse and enticing array of films heavy on heartbreak and horror.
Ryan Coogler's crowd-pleasingSinnersled the pack, breaking the record for the most nominations for a single film in Oscars history with 16, including Best Picture and Best Director.
Not far behind was Paul Thomas Anderson's timelyOne Battle After Anotherwith 13 nominations. Josh Safdie's pulse-poundingMarty Supremeand Joachim Trier's poignantSentimental Valueearned nine, while Chloé Zhao's gut-wrenchingHamnetbrought in eight. And that's still just scratching the surface of this year's nominees.
You've got a lot of watching to do ahead of the Oscars' March 15 broadcast, and we're here to help. Below, see how to watch all of the 2026 Best Picture nominees, as well as the films that delivered some of the year's best performances.
Blue Moon
Sabrina Lantos/Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
Director:Richard Linklater
Ethan Hawke commands the screen as famed lyricist Lorenz Hart, who regales the crowd at New York City's Sardi's after bailing on the opening night performance ofOklahoma!on Broadway, co-written his former collaborator Richard Rodgers. We know Hart's days are numbered, and his fevered reveries resound with both humor and horror as he watches the world pass him by.
Where to watchBlue Moon: Amazon Prime (to rent)
Bugonia
Focus Features
Director:Yorgos Lanthimos
The latest from Oscar darling Yorgos Lanthimos (The Favourite, Poor Things) finds Jesse Plemons' galaxy-brained conspiracy theorist kidnapping Emma Stone's Big Pharma CEO, believing her to be an alien intent on humanity's destruction. The oddball narrative touches on class tensions, paranoia, and polarization before building to one of the year'smost memorable endings.
Where to watchBugonia: Peacock
Warner Bros
Director:Joseph Kosinski
Top Gun: Maverickdirector Joseph Kosinski linked up with Formula One and Brad Pitt for a high-octane tale about a past-his-prime racer who gets a second shot at glory with a fledgling franchise. "From a strictly visual perspective,F1has no peer in its dedication to speed, movement, and visceral excitement," readsEntertainment Weekly's review.
Where to watchF1: Apple TV
Frankenstein
Courtesy of Netflix
Director:Guillermo del Toro
After decades spent dreaming of adapting Mary Shelley'sFrankenstein, Oscar winner Guillermo del Toro finally got the opportunity to do so with the help of stars Oscar Isaac, Mia Goth, and Jacob Elordi, the latter of whom generated acclaim as the tortured Creature. In del Toro's telling, the Creature is truly the story's mangled, beating heart.
Where to watchFrankenstein: Netflix
Hamnet
Agata Grzybowska/Focus Features
Director:Chloé Zhao
Paul Mescal plays a young William Shakespeare inHamnet, but Zhao's adaptation of Maggie O'Farrell's 2020 novel is really the story of Agnes (Jessie Buckley), Shakespeare's wife and the mother of his children. Young love gives way to the frustrations of family life and artistic sacrifices, building towards a loss befit for one of the playwright's famous tragedies.
Where to watchHamnet: In theaters
Marty Supreme
Director:Josh Safdie
Timothée Chalamet has swagger to spare as Marty Mauser, a hotshot ping-pong prodigy and dedicated hustler in the early 1950s. As Marty dreams of greatness (and woosGwyneth Paltrow's retired film star), he runs afoul of a wealthy pen magnate (Kevin O'Leary), a vicious gangster (Abel Ferrara), and a Japanese rival (Koto Kawaguchi), resulting in an odyssey every bit as anxious as previous Safdie joints likeGood Time(2017) andUncut Gems(2019).
Where to watchMarty Supreme: In theaters
If I Had Legs I'd Kick You
Logan White/Courtesy of A24
Director:Mary Bronstein
Long-suffering mothers will either love or hateIf I Had Legs I'd Kick You, an emotional and claustrophobic portrait of a woman (Rose Byrne) tending to a daughter with a mysterious illness while living out of a motel room after a strangely cosmic hole opens in her apartment ceiling.
Where to watchIf I Had Legs I'd Kick You: Amazon Prime (to rent)
One Battle After Another
Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
Director:Paul Thomas Anderson
Anderson, the brilliant mind behindBoogie Nights(1997) andLicorice Pizza(2021), took inspiration from Thomas Pynchon's 1990 novelVinelandforOne Battle After Another, a tale about an aging revolutionary (Leonardo DiCaprio) who's thrust back into the underground when his daughter (Chase Infiniti) is pursued by a military stooge (Sean Penn) with a long-simmering grudge.
Where to watchOne Battle After Another: HBO Max
The Secret Agent
Director:Kleber Mendonça Filho
The exuberance of Carnival animates a country under military dictatorship in Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho'sThe Secret Agent, a movie as playful as it is disquieting. Wagner Moura is a revelation as an ordinary man just trying to live amid an authoritarian regime.
Whereto watchThe Secret Agent: In theaters
Sentimental Value
Director:Joachim Trier
Trier's follow-up to 2021's acclaimedThe Worst Person in the WorldisSentimental Value, which navigates the queasy intersection between family and art when an auteur filmmaker in the twilight of his career (Stellan Skarsgard) asks his estranged daughter (Renate Reinsve) to star in a film based on the life of his mother.
Where to watchSentimental Value: Amazon Prime (to rent)
Sinners
Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
Director:Ryan Coogler
Michael B. Jordan plays twin brothers Smoke and Stack in a horror odyssey as indebted to Steve McQueen'sLovers Rock(2020) as it is Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino'sFrom Dusk Till Dawn(1996). ButSinnersis very much its own story, with Irish vampires descending on a Black juke joint in 1932 Mississippi. (Be sure to stick around for thepost-credits scene.)
Where to watchSinners: HBO Max
Song Sung Blue
Sarah Shatz/Focus Features
Director:Craig Brewer
Based on a true story,Song Sung Bluestars Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson as mellifluous lovers who find success with a Neil Diamond tribute band before a series of tragedies puts their dreams on hold.
Where to watchSong Sung Blue: Amazon Prime (to rent)
Train Dreams
Courtesy of Netflix
Director:Clint Bentley
Adapted from Denis Johnson's 2011 novella,Train Dreamsis a lyrical portrait of Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton), a logger in the American Northwest of the early 1900s who watches the frontier fade away across decades of hard labor.
Where to watchTrain Dreams: Netflix
Weapons
Quantrell Colbert/Warner Bros. Pictures
Director:Zach Cregger
After traumatizing audiences with the nail-biting horror filmBarbarian(2022), Zach Cregger recruited Josh Brolin, Julia Garner, and Amy Madigan forWeapons, a twisted ensemble piece about a classroom of children who all disappear on the same night.
Where to watchWeapons: HBO Max
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