It’s that time of year again where Oscar hopefuls, voters, and entertainment journalists gather around to watch the movie Superbowl of the season: The Academy Awards.
Hosted by Conan O’Brien (who is also part of the If I’d Had Legs Our Kick You cast), this Sunday at 7 p.m. on ABC, there are a litany of categories that are easy to predict and others that may end up resulting in a surprise winner, including Best Picture.
With 10 movies in the 82nd Academy Award for Best Picture category, there have been more major upsets and confusion than in any major category. The Moonlight debacle is the most prominent. With the Academy using ranked choice voting to determine the Best Picture winner, where voters are able to list all of the nominees in order of preference and the frontrunner is constantly changing depending on when a voter finally casts their ballot, nothing is permanently set in stone. I remember laughing hysterically in January when critics tossed around the idea of a Best Actress nomination for Jennifer Lopez after the premiere of Kiss of the Spider Woman. And being utterly stunned when Wicked didn’t even receive a Best Costume nomination.
Voting rules also changed, with Academy voters being required to watch all nominated films in each category to be eligible to vote. This new rule aimed to enhance the integrity of the voting process by reducing “coattail voting,” where voters support a nominee based on reputation rather than having seen the film. Early predictions showed voters favored One Battle After Another, but this reaction slowly shifted with Sinners’ winning on March 1st at The Actor Awards.
Despite this new rule, an anonymous filmmaker said they refused to watch many of the nominated films because their “time is far too valuable.” The anonymous filmmaker, described as a past major-category Oscar nominee, told Deadline they had seen “not even half of the nominated films” and had no interest in watching the rest. “My time is far too valuable to spend watching movies I know I’d never vote for,” the voter wrote in an email shared by the publication.
As seen in the video above, in celebration of the Oscars’ unpredictability, pure chaos energy, and Sinners’ eventual win for something, The Koalition’s Editor-in-Chief and Entertainment Editor got together to discuss their favorite 2026 Academy nominee movie, possible upsets, and give their predictions about who should take home the golden statuette for an Oscar season that has lasted way too long.
The 98th Annual Academy Awards will air live on ABC Sunday night at 6 p.m. CT
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