The Oscar contenders for 2026 walked the red carpet this week before taking their seats at the annual nominees luncheon that was held in Beverley Hills on Tuesday.
Word about town is that Timothée Chalamet will walk away with the Best Actor category at this year’s awards (The Oscars, as they’re affectionately called) which will be televised live from Los Angeles on Sunday March 15 (March 2026 at 1:00 am SAST).
Though it seems like a slam dunk for the actor who plays a table tennis whizz in the Josh Safdie film, Marty Supreme, an upset could be in the works.
For the last few decades, the Oscars have been working hard to remain relevant.
In fact, the show will change platforms from broadcast TV to YouTube in 2029. But for now, the long, Hollywood-dominated award season, beginning with the Golden Globes in early January, dulls the impact of the Academy Award winner announcement if the public has seen the same actor take home all the other awards in the first three months of the year.
Despite expectations, there’s always a chance of a spanner in the works. Let’s look at the best actor contenders for 2026 to see who could subvert expectations.
For the last few decades, the Oscars have been working hard to remain relevant.
Wagner Moura is the at the top of my list when it comes to actors who might steal the Oscar from Chalamet. He plays Armando Solimões in writer-director Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Brazilian thriller, The Secret Agent (O Agente Secreto).
Best known for his role as Pablo Escobar in Netflix’s Narcos, he won the Golden Globe for Best Actor — Drama, at the Globes, while Chalamet won for Best Actor — Comedy. The two will go head to head in March. While Marty Supreme is showy and kinetic, The Secret Agent, nominated for four Oscars — including best director — is quiet and deadly.
Insidious and relevant, it’s about the subversion of democracy and what happens to ordinary people when the institutions that are set up to maintain the law and individual rights gets corrupted.
It’s also about authoritarianism, and the courage it takes to raise your voice when doing so can get you and your loved ones killed.
Set in Brazil in 1977 during the military dictatorship, the film is steeped in detail that grounds the setting. Moura said: “You can almost smell the atmosphere.”
The film opens with a razor sharp scene that you would imagine happens in places where thugs are in power, have the right to take what they want and, if challenged, can scoop you up and “disappear” you. The tense scene unfolds with a dead body in the background, ignored by everything except the coyotes eyeing the corpse for their dinner.
The film lurks with tension just beyond the frame as the noose tightens on the main characters in social interactions, skirmishes with corrupt authorities, and tense urgings from the underground resistance. Information is inferred.
You have to pay attention. In a performance of quiet strength and fortitude, Moura is magnificent. If anyone could steal the Oscar, it’s him.
Moura is the first Brazilian actor nominated in this category and is outspoken in his criticism of Brazil’s infringement of human rights under the far right. He’s a father of three, with partner journalist/photographer Sandra Delgado.
Another Brazilian, Fernando Torres, took the best actress win for the political film I’m Still Here last year. Moura notes: “I really love that the world is celebrating Brazilian cinema.
The extreme right has tried to suppress the arts with lies and misinformation to try make people believe that the government shouldn’t fund culture in Brazil, which is a horrible idea and a mistake.”
Moura adds: “A country doesn’t develop without a sense of culture, without people seeing themselves reflected in their films, their theatre and their books. Brazil is a very culturally unique country.”
* No confirmed SA release date and is likely to be on streaming platforms only.
Leonardo DiCaprio has more fun than he’s had in years, playing a soft ex-revolutionary in the Paul Thomas Anderson directed One Battle After Another. The film garnered 13 nominations in all the important categories, including best picture, best director, and supporting roles.
It’s the story of a former subversive who’s living off the grid. When his daughter is kidnapped, DiCaprio’s Bob Ferguson, incompetent and frantic, runs into a bizarre and hilarious cast of characters as he tries to get her back.
This crowd pleaser is a strong contender in the big categories but I feel that just being nominated is enough of a win for DiCaprio this year. He’s been here before, and his performance is award worthy, but I suspect he won’t get it.
* Launched in South African cinemas in September 2025.
Ethan Hawke gives a knockout, can’t-look-away performance in a film that feels like a stage play. Blue Moon, directed by Richard Linklater, is based on the true story of the tragic turning point in songwriter Lorenz Hart’s career when he was dropped by his partner Richard Rogers, who went on to work with Oscar Hammerstein II.
We meet him on a night when the spotlight of success shifts its attention to the new magic duo of Rogers & Hammerstein, fresh off the premiere of their classic Broadway hit Oklahoma! His easy fame had delivered desirability and access to the gatekeepers who empower the “next big thing”.
But it all disappears and he descends into pariah status, which manifests in the course of one evening. People who were frenzied for a smile before his fall rush from him, believing that his failure might taint them.
Blue Moon is a character study that will break your heart. It makes you want to stand up and cheer for the purity of the performance, but you get the feel it’s a long shot for the Oscar.
* No confirmed SA release date and is likely to be on streaming platforms only.
Michael B. Jordan is one of our most talented actors. He portrays twins in the runaway commercial and critical success, Sinners. The film is a weird genre smash. Twin brothers return home to open a club and face vampires, racism — and there’s some really great music in the process. It received the most nominations of any film in the Academy Awards’ 98-year history: sixteen! Still, it’s a vampire movie.
At one time, Oscars went to serious fare. Given the weight of his very large talent, he could snag the Oscar, but the swell doesn’t seem to be moving in his direction.
* Released in South African cinemas in April 2025.
Timothée Chalamet missed out on last year’s Oscar for his performance in A Complete Unknown, portraying Bob Dylan. He even sang Dylan’s songs convincingly.
In Marty Supreme, Chalamet is a scrappy underdog table tennis player with a quest to win the world title. He undergoes extreme experiences to realise that dream. Chalamet also underwent a gruelling prosthetic transformation that included creating acne and wearing contact lenses to mess with his vision, then adding glasses to correct the distortions the contacts created. He had to learn complicated choreography to perform the table tennis matches (the ball was added later with VFX hand-animation).
There’s been some controversy around Marty Supreme — a sort of smear campaign against both Safdie brothers — and Chalamet has been targeted as part of this backlashvbut it still seems likely he’ll win this year.
· Launched in South African cinemas on 2 January 2026.
