For the past decade or so we have, after each Oscar ceremony, had a stab at guessing the next year’s best-picture nominees.
It says something about the industry that we often, with almost everything unseen, scored about 50 per cent. Among the 2025 nominees, however, we got only one right.
Rather than retire in disgrace, we had another go and landed a respectable, if frustrating, four of this year’s nominated films: One Battle After Another, Hamnet, Frankenstein and (not then an obvious pick) Marty Supreme.
Where did we go wrong? Until a few weeks before nomination day, Wicked: For Good and Avatar: Fire and Ash seemed like safe bets, but neither connected with fans so strongly as previous episodes in the respective franchises.
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Celine Song’s Materialists was a sensible enough suggestion, but it proved divisive. Everyone in this game predicted Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly and Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt. So we make no apologies for not guessing both would misfire at their Venice premieres.
Then there was – and still is – the strange case of Terrence Malick’s The Way of the Wind. That biblical epic, shot six years ago, again did not turn up, and few are suggesting it will be in the upcoming Cannes programme. So we are not going to risk it in the 2027 selection. Will it ever emerge?
What should we have guessed? If the list had come a month and a bit later, it would have included Sinners. Even now, I can’t quite believe F1 made it in. There is always at least one breakout from Cannes – more influential with Oscar than at any period in its history – and Sentimental Value seemed the one to go for. But, for some stupid reason, we didn’t.
The Secret Agent, the other successful Cannes title, was, from the highbrow director Kleber Mendonça Filho, much harder to predict.
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Last year, we warned not to ignore Sundance hits and then, defying our own advice, left out Train Dreams. That mistake is not repeated below.
Yorgos Lanthimos repeatedly frustrates us. We predicted that director’s Kinds of Kindness for 2025 and then saw it fade into forgottenness. With that in mind, we stepped back from the awkward-sounding Bugonia – only for it to cruise into this year’s final 10. The Greek master has no film released in 2026. So that’s one less headache.
We are being told that Ruben Östlund’s The Entertainment System Is Down may not be ready this year. So that is relegated to second-tier possibilities at the base (with the Malick film).
In no particular order ...
The Odyssey
Directed by Christopher Nolan
“Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns ...” The man who, after the Oscar smash that was Oppenheimer, moved on to an adaptation of Homer’s epic with a cast including Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Zendaya, Robert Pattinson and a thousand more. It’s Christopher Nolan, muse. Everybody playing this game will, for obvious reasons, have it first on their list. Which is not to say it couldn’t yet go wrong. We will see all on July 17th.
Project Hail Mary
Directed by Christopher Miller and Phil Lord
The adaptation of Andy Weir’s book about an astronaut teaming up with a rock-based lifeform has received largely ecstatic reviews and looks set to please crowds. A word of caution, though. We write a few days before release, and this is the sort of film whose Oscar chances depend on box-office returns. If it underperforms it could be out. Also ...
Disclosure Day
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Is there room for two Spielbergian science-fiction flicks in the list (Project Hail Mary makes explicit reference to Close Encounters of the Third Kind)? The one that’s actually by Steven Spielberg stars Emily Blunt, Eve Hewson and Josh O’Connor in a tale of alien visitation. Let’s not be silly. Spielberg will always be in consideration for best picture. Opens June 12th.
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Wild Horse Nine
Directed by Martin McDonagh
Just look at the history. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and The Banshees of Inisherin, the writer-director’s last two films, both made it into best picture, and the new project, apparently an offbeat thriller, is packed with appropriate oddball talent: John Malkovich, Sam Rockwell, Tom Waits, Parker Posey. Opens on November 6th, which makes a premiere at Venice (where Banshees did so well) seem likely.
Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew
Directed by Greta Gerwig
Give me a good reason why not. Gerwig made it in with Barbie, Lady Bird and Little Women. If they are prepared to nominate Wicked then the more esoteric fantasies of CS Lewis will surely prove acceptable. Gerwig reverts to narrative (rather than publication) order and begins with the sixth novel in the sequence. Emma Mackey, Carey Mulligan and David McKenna, Belfast-born juvenile star of the BBC’s Lord of the Flies, feature in a Christmas release.
1949
Directed by Pawel Pawlikowski
This is a punt. Nobody seems sure when Pawlikowski’s adaptation of Colm Tóibín’s The Magician, a study of Thomas Mann, will be with audiences. Some say it will be ready for Cannes. Others that it won’t be here until 2027. Pawlikowski’s Ida won best foreign-language film in 2013, and he scored a director nomination for Cold War in 2018. So he will be in the conversation.
Josephine
Directed by Beth de Araújo
What is that we were saying about Sundance? Winner of the grand-jury prize and an audience prize at this year’s event, de Araújo’s film stars Channing Tatum and Gemma Chan as parents of a child traumatised after witnessing a murder. One concern. The film has been picked up by Sumerian Pictures, a new distributor with little experience in awards season.
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Fjord
Directed by Cristian Mungiu
Okay, this is our Cannes punt. The Palme d’Or-winning director of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days casts Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve as a couple – he is Romanian, she Norwegian – who attract unwelcome attention when they move back to the wife’s birthplace. This is Mungiu’s first feature made outside his native Romania, and it’s sure to attract critical attention. Virtually nailed down for a premiere on the Croisette.
Digger
Directed by Alejandro G Iñárritu
Yes, Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths, Iñárritu’s last feature, was insufferable, and even his better films are a bit indulgent. But Tom Cruise’s long-overdue return to auteur cinema cannot be ignored. We know little more than he plays the “most powerful man in the world” in what seems to be a black comedy. Sandra Hüller – also in 1949 and Project Hail Mary, above – co-stars. Opens October 2nd, after another likely Venice premiere.
Untitled Jesse Eisenberg musical comedy
Directed by Jesse Eisenberg
The multihyphenate’s A Real Pain won awards all over the place. So it would be foolish not to consider his still-untitled musical. It seems to star Julianne Moore as a woman who loses her bearings when cast in an amateur production of a popular show. Paul Giamatti, Halle Bailey and the Broadway great Bernadette Peters are also among the cast. No word yet on release date, but it is in the can.
Ten more strong possibilities
- Dune: Part Three
- The Social Reckoning
- The Way of the Wind
- The Entertainment System Is Down
- Paper Tigers
- The Drama
- The Adventures of Cliff Booth
- Jack of Spades
- Sense and Sensibility
- Bitter Christmas
