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An Oscar Race That Looked Like a Runaway May Be a Close Call, After All

Timothée Chalamet attends the 32nd Annual Actor Awards at Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall on March 01, 2026 in Los Angeles, California. (Getty Images/AFP)
Timothée Chalamet attends the 32nd Annual Actor Awards at Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall on March 01, 2026 in Los Angeles, California. (Getty Images/AFP)
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An Oscar Race That Looked Like a Runaway May Be a Close Call, After All

Timothée Chalamet attends the 32nd Annual Actor Awards at Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall on March 01, 2026 in Los Angeles, California. (Getty Images/AFP)
Timothée Chalamet attends the 32nd Annual Actor Awards at Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall on March 01, 2026 in Los Angeles, California. (Getty Images/AFP)

Who says to beware the Ides of March?

A March 15 Academy Awards may feel late. By then, it will be almost a year since “Sinners” sunk its teeth into moviegoers last April. Some nominees have been on the campaign trail since the Cannes Film Festival in May.

But the upside of a prolonged Oscar race has meant some unexpected late drama. Think about the same movies long enough, and minds can change. For months, Paul Thomas Anderson's “One Battle After Another” sailed through awards season, picking up prize after prize. But the wins for “Sinners” and Michael B. Jordan at Sunday's Actor Awards — along with some other recent developments — have given the Oscar race what Smoke or Stack might call fresh blood.

An Academy Awards that had looked like a runaway might be a close call, after all. With Oscar voting ending Thursday, let's survey the top categories

Best Picture

WHERE THINGS STAND

“One Battle After Another” has won at the Golden Globes, the BAFTAs, the Producers Guild and the Directors Guild. But its nearly unblemished record was shaken up at Sunday's Actor Awards (formerly the SAG Awards), where “Sinners” took the top prize. You'd have to have quite a few rounds at the “Sinners” juke joint to convince yourself that anything else has much of a chance.

WHAT HAS THE EDGE

The tea leaves are strongest for Anderson's “One Battle After Another.” The Producers Guild, which uses a preferential ballot like the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences does, is among the most predictive of bellwethers. Their winners have matched the last five years and in eight of the last 10 years.

The actors guild best ensemble prize, on the other hand, has a shaky track record. In the last 31 years, the SAG winner has matched the Oscar champ only 15 times. The win for “Sinners,” though, came right in the midst of Oscar voting. It was a good time to show out. So this race feels close to a coin flip, with a Warner Bros. movie on both sides. The awards season resume makes “One Battle After Another” the front-runner. But “Sinners,” even with a record-setting 16 Oscar nominations, gets to play the underdog.

Best Actor

WHERE THINGS STAND

This has been one of the most competitive and hard-to-call races of the season. Look at Leonardo DiCaprio. He gives one of the best performances of his career, in the best picture favorite, and he's still a long shot. Instead, Timothée Chalamet was widely perceived as in the lead after early wins at the Globes and the Critics Choice Awards for his frenetic performance in “Marty Supreme.” But the BAFTAs muddied the waters (Robert Aramayo, not in the Oscar mix, was the unexpected winner). And “Sinners” star Michael B. Jordan, much to his surprise, won at the Actor Awards.

WHO HAS THE EDGE

Chalamet's maybe meta campaign, full of swagger and braggadocio, rubbed some voters the wrong way. At the same time, many in the academy felt the 30-year-old should have won last year, for his Bob Dylan in “A Complete Unknown” — a year when he won with the actors guild but lost to Adrien Brody (“The Brutalist”) at the Oscars. Chalamet will hope the reverse happens this year. But the academy is notoriously resistant to rewarding young stars. Jordan, 39, isn't much older. But it now suddenly feels like his moment.

Best Actress

WHERE THINGS STAND

Since the fall festival launch of “Hamnet,” Jessie Buckley has been the favorite. She's won at the Globes, the BAFTAs and the Actor Awards. Her closest competition is probably Rose Byrne, who won at the Globes in the comedy/musical category for “If I Had Legs I'd Kick You.”

WHO HAS THE EDGE

This one’s easy. Fortunes have fluctuated in most of the top categories, but Buckley has been entrenched as the front-runner for months.

Best Supporting Actor

WHERE THINGS STAND

Sean Penn, a two-time Oscar winner, has done nearly no campaigning, yet he finds himself the favorite after winning at the Actor Awards and the BAFTAs. But several other nominees remain in the mix. Stellan Skarsgård (“Sentimental Value”) won at the Globes and is the kind of widely-liked veteran actor the academy likes to reward. But so is Delroy Lindo (“Sinners”), who was a surprise Oscar nominee. In the eyes of many, Lindo has quickly joined the contenders.

WHO HAS THE EDGE

Penn's recent wins put him clearly in the lead, and he might stay there. But this remains a category rife with possibilities. The academy's strong international leanings should help Skarsgård. And it wasn't an accident that when “Sinners” won best ensemble at the Actor Awards, Lindo gave the acceptance speech.

Best Supporting Actress

WHERE THINGS STAND

This category has been all over the map. Teyana Taylor (“One Battle After Another”) won at the Globes. Wunmi Mosaku (“Sinners”) won at the BAFTAs. And Amy Madigan (“Weapons”) won at both the Actor Awards and the Critics Choice Awards.

WHO HAS THE EDGE

Any of those three could win. Two of them — Taylor and Mosaku — have the benefit of co-starring in films the academy obviously loves. “Sinners” and “One Battle After Another” have 29 nominations between them, while “Weapons” has only the one. Yet the 75-year-old Madigan, another celebrated character actor who's been great for decades, has the momentum thanks to her charming Actors Award speech.

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Entertainment

Steven Spielberg on His Faith in Alien Life, the Future of the Movies and the Power of Empathy

From left, Josh O'Connor, Colman Domingo, Steven Spielberg, Emily Blunt and Wyatt Russel pose upon arrival for the premiere of the film "Disclosure Day" at the Grand Rex in Paris, Tuesday, June 2, 2026. (AP)
From left, Josh O'Connor, Colman Domingo, Steven Spielberg, Emily Blunt and Wyatt Russel pose upon arrival for the premiere of the film "Disclosure Day" at the Grand Rex in Paris, Tuesday, June 2, 2026. (AP)
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Steven Spielberg on His Faith in Alien Life, the Future of the Movies and the Power of Empathy

From left, Josh O'Connor, Colman Domingo, Steven Spielberg, Emily Blunt and Wyatt Russel pose upon arrival for the premiere of the film "Disclosure Day" at the Grand Rex in Paris, Tuesday, June 2, 2026. (AP)
From left, Josh O'Connor, Colman Domingo, Steven Spielberg, Emily Blunt and Wyatt Russel pose upon arrival for the premiere of the film "Disclosure Day" at the Grand Rex in Paris, Tuesday, June 2, 2026. (AP)

A moment early on in "Disclosure Day" will instinctively feel familiar to anyone who grew up with Steven Spielberg films. A TV weather report predicts hail. The camera pans downward, from television set to kitchen table. Plinking sounds begin. Cereal falls into a bowl.

"Those were Froot Loops," Spielberg says, smiling. "My favorite."

Spielberg’s latest, like some of his earliest and most beloved films, again concerns what might fall from above. "Disclosure Day," which Universal Pictures releases June 11, returns Hollywood’s preeminent big-screen craftsman to one of his most abiding questions: Are we alone?

Coming nearly half a century after "Close Encounters of the Third Kind,Disclosure Day" is a grand bookend for one of the most cosmically-minded moviemakers of our time, whose dreams of extraterrestrial life have shaped all of ours. It’s a distant answer to the final notes of "Close Encounters." But while Spielberg grants his 1977 film was "speculative,Disclosure Day," he insists, is the real deal.

"It’s my first film that will be considered science fiction that I do not consider to be science fiction," Spielberg said in a recent interview. "It’s much more reflective of the world as it is evolving and discoveries that are being made as we speak."

Spielberg, at 79, is trying to revive and reconsider the alien wonder that’s long lingered in his mind, from "E.T." to "War of the Worlds.Disclosure Day," Spielberg’s first summer movie in a decade, is already being hailed as one of his best in years. But this time, Spielberg is testing whether he can conjure some of his trademark movie magic less with imagination than with conviction.

"I’ve been a believer since I made ‘Close Encounters’ 50 years ago," Spielberg says. "But I would always say: Until I’ve seen a UAP or a UFO with my own eyes, I’m not going to categorically state that life from out there has come here.

"But I’ve changed that," he adds. "I’m now willing to change my mind because of the circumstantial evidence which is overwhelming."

Aliens again, but different

"Disclosure Day" stars Josh O’Connor as a cybersecurity whistleblower with government evidence, long suppressed, chronicling a history of alien encounters. Guiding him in his escape from a corporate executive (Colin Firth) trying to keep it all under wraps is the disclosure movement’s leader (Colman Domingo). Meanwhile, a meteorologist named Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) begins having a mysterious epiphany.

When he first began thinking about the movie, Spielberg called up the screenwriter David Koepp, a longtime collaborator who wrote "Jurassic Park" and "War of the Worlds."

"I said, ‘Sure, what’s it about?’" recalls Koepp. "And he said, ‘Oh, you know, aliens again. But different this time.’"

Spielberg was coming off an unusually long break by his breakneck standards. His 2022 film "The Fabelmans" pulled from his own childhood, dramatizing his parents’ painful divorce and his own origins as a filmmaker. Spielberg’s first gut-wrenchingly autobiographical movie left him unsure of what was next.

"It was the hardest question I ever had to ask myself because there was such completion in resolving so many personal issues that I had never aired in public before ‘The Fabelmans,’" Spielberg says.

"I didn’t care whether people thought ‘The Fabelmans’ was just a tale, a yarn, or if they cared that it was all true. I didn’t care about that. It was something I did for myself. I always used to say it was $40 million of therapy that I didn’t have to pay for. Universal did," he says, laughing.

But Spielberg, having long followed reports of alleged alien encounters, was inspired by the 2023 House Subcommittee on National Security hearing on UAPs: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena. Among the witnesses was whistleblower and former Air Force intelligence officer David Grusch, who testified that the government concealed a program investigating UAPs.

The Pentagon then denied it. Yet in April, President Donald Trump said the Pentagon is preparing to release some "very interesting" UFO files.

Those 2023 testimonies and others so fueled Spielberg that he produced a 50-page treatment on what would become "Disclosure Day." During the writing process with Koepp, he texted him more notes, he says, "than I’ve ever sent to anyone in my life."

"There was a period in there where I believe he re-read the script every single day for a year," Koepp says. "We’d be in different time zones and I would wake up to 30 or 35 texts from his most current reading of the script. When the leader of the project has that level of commitment, it tends to bring along everyone. You up your game."

Extraterrestrial empathy

Spielberg has long considered his filmography split in two, between the filmmaker who made "Jaws" and "E.T." and "Raiders of the Lost Ark," and the one who, after 1985’s "The Color Purple," was increasingly drawn to darker and more serious material with films like "Schindler’s List,Saving Private Ryan" and "Munich."

"Disclosure Day" is a kind of bridge between both modes of Spielberg — a thrilling chase movie filled with wonderment that’s nevertheless grounded in reality and recent history. And its most ardent message is quite earthbound. Blunt’s character’s clarity comes from looking people in the eye. As much as it’s about aliens, "Disclosure Day" is about empathy.

"I think every movie should have a great emphasis on empathy because empathy sometimes feels like it’s in short supply," Spielberg says. "We have it, sometimes we can’t use it. Sometimes it’s not allowed to be used if you want to stay aligned with your friends and your belief systems. But I think empathy is there for all of us."

"Disclosure Day" opens in a much different movie world than Spielberg's earlier alien adventures. It's one of a few big, original studio movies this summer — a moviegoing season that the "Jaws" filmmaker pioneered. But neither franchise domination, AI nor streaming make Spielberg fret for the future of movies.

"The audience gives me faith in the movies," says Spielberg. "Even though the numbers are still not pre-COVID level numbers for any films being released now, it’s more robust than it has been for many years. The audience gives me belief that people still want to congregate in a dark space in the company of strangers to share an experience of a film made by storytellers. And that gives me faith to continue making films."

Spielberg will turn 80 this December. Around the same age, Martin Scorsese began to frankly ponder how many movies he had left. Spielberg doesn’t think the same way.

"I never think about how many more I have," he says. "I’m just hopeful that I will be inspired when something comes along, as I was with ‘Disclosure Day,’ as I was with ‘Fabelmans,’ as I was with ‘West Side Story.’"

More inspiration is already on the way. Spielberg hopes that his next movie will be a Western. Despite his deep fondness for the genre and an indelible encounter with John Ford, it’s one genre that’s eluded him.

"I always feel like parts of the ‘Raiders’ adventure movies are like Westerns," he says. "Whenever Harrison (Ford) was on a horse, it made me wistful for wanting to direct a full Western, a real Western."

Margaret Fairchild in "Disclosure Day" has some echoes with another Spielberg protagonist: Richard Dreyfuss’ Roy Neary in "Close Encounters." Both are compelled by a strange force beyond their control. It’s a character type that Spielberg, a compulsive movie maker, grants he connects with. "Disclosure Day" is his 35th feature film.

"I identify with characters who aren’t afraid of mysterious things happening to them," Spielberg says, "and who are fighting for their survival by trying to discover what they don’t know."

Entertainment

Indie Horror Flicks ‘Obsession’ and ‘Backrooms’ Draw Gen Z to Cinema

This image released by A24 shows Chiwetel Ejiofor in a scene from "Backrooms." (A24 via AP)
This image released by A24 shows Chiwetel Ejiofor in a scene from "Backrooms." (A24 via AP)
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Indie Horror Flicks ‘Obsession’ and ‘Backrooms’ Draw Gen Z to Cinema

This image released by A24 shows Chiwetel Ejiofor in a scene from "Backrooms." (A24 via AP)
This image released by A24 shows Chiwetel Ejiofor in a scene from "Backrooms." (A24 via AP)

The multi-million-dollar openings of indie horror flicks "Obsession" and "Backrooms" have Hollywood buzzing about the 20-something YouTuber directors who are driving Generation Z audiences to the theater in droves.

The endless yellow hallways of A24's "Backrooms," directed by 20-year-old Kane Parsons, terrified tens of thousands of people in its opening weekend to rack up $118 million at the box office.

And Focus Features film "Obsession," directed by 26-year-old Curry Barker, has taken in $148 million worldwide in two weeks -- a smash hit for a production that cost $750,000.

"It's a huge, huge success and a real turning point for the industry, potentially," said associate editor Matthew Frank of The Ankler, a digital media company that covers Hollywood.

"They're breaking out with these films that are appealing to a younger demographic," Frank said, adding that the vast majority of ticket buyers the past couple weekends "have been under 35 and even, you know, under 25. So it's appealing to this demographic (that) normally doesn't really get spoken to."

In recent years multiplexes have faced a multi-fold decline, fueled by the rise of streaming, a lag in recovery in ticket sales since Covid, and the strikes that halted production in Hollywood in 2023.

But this year's numbers are drumming up optimism for the best year since the pandemic.

This is thanks in part to Generation Z, which boosted the box office by 25 percent last year, according to a report from the National Research Group.

Theater owners are "ecstatic about these weekends," said Ronnie Yount, owner of the Phoenix Theaters chain in the midwest.

Yount compared both films to "Lilo & Stitch" for driving box office -- which seemed unthinkable.

- Franchise fails -

The trick to tapping into the younger market is to "deliver the right films," Frank said.

"Hollywood's problem, for a while, was saying, 'oh, it's young people,' when in fact it was because they were making the 10th (installment in) pre-existing franchises that were popular for their parents."

The safe bets from studios that hoped to cash in on an endless slate of summer action hero movies turned off younger audiences.

"When you make something that's for that audience, that's when they'll come out," Frank said.

Parsons, who is known to his 3.2 million subscribers as Kane Pixels on YouTube, has racked up more than 300 million views.

The inspiration for "Backrooms" came from a photo posted to an internet forum in 2019 showing, without context, a yellow space.

Parsons, then a teenager, told AFP that he saw the image as a "vaguely nostalgic and vaguely dreamlike but also very tangible science-fiction concept."

His YouTube video of a young man lost in terrifying corridors amassed millions of views in a matter of days, and led to a contract with A24.

His endless nightmare is now on the big screen, starring Oscar-nominated actors Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve.

Barker went from an audience of 1.1 million subscribers on his channel "That's a Bad Idea" to premiering "Obsession" at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2025.

The movie follows the horrifying consequences after a young man's wish comes true, and the target of his romantic attention begins to love him more than anything else in the world.

Frank said very production company and studio in Hollywood right now is asking: "How can we replicate this?"

"Not just because they're huge successes, but they're also made for these limited budgets."

But he warned it's not just about finding successful YouTubers.

"It still requires just finding the great filmmakers, which can come anywhere."

Entertainment

Jason Momoa Says Having Best Year of His Career

Jason Momoa. (Getty Images)
Jason Momoa. (Getty Images)
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Jason Momoa Says Having Best Year of His Career

Jason Momoa. (Getty Images)
Jason Momoa. (Getty Images)

With several films yet to be released, and riding his success from the global hit "A Minecraft Movie," Hawaiian actor Jason Momoa says he is living a unique moment.

"It's probably my biggest year of my career," Momoa, 46, told AFP in an interview.

The actor said he's enjoying playing a range of roles, including Lobo, the intergalactic bounty hunter in the upcoming "Supergirl" film, which he described as "a childhood dream."

The star also appears in the film adaptation of "Street Fighter" and in the "Dune" trilogy, whose final installment hits theaters in December.

Momoa, who rose to fame thanks to "Game of Thrones," had the opportunity to work with Julian Schnabel, whom he described as his favorite director, in "In the Hand of Dante," which premieres this month on Netflix.

The actor is feeling like he's on a roll after playing a comedic role in last year's box office hit, "A Minecraft Movie," which he starred in with Jack Black.

"Minecraft really was huge, you know?" he said. "We didn't see that coming."

"I always wanted to do comedy. I mean, I've always done action my whole life," where playing superheroes felt "inevitable." But he enjoyed the opportunity to "make people laugh."

The actor said that comedic roles like those in "The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part," in which he voices a parody of Aquaman, a character he has portrayed in several productions, also allowed him to connect with a very special audience: his family.

"It was an epic moment because my kids got to see me do the looping (voiceover)," he said. While they don't seem to care much about his other roles, "when I'm involved with Lego, I'm an all-star."

The actor reconnected with the famous brick brand by debuting this Monday as "the Playmaster," the central figure in Lego's "Never Stop Playing" campaign to encourage families to dedicate more time to playing with their children, as social media and screens gain ground.

"I grew up with Lego. My children grew up with Lego," said Momoa, who sees the colorful pieces and their infinite possibilities as a tool for developing creativity and imagination.

"It's something that makes my heart smile," he said.

The unique role came with a bonus: "Being chosen by Lego to have your own little action figures... for them to make that was pretty special."