Oscars 2026: Five Nominees In The Best Actor Race

Consecutive losses at the BAFTAs and Actor Awards seem to have dislodged Oscar frontrunner Marty Supreme star Timothée Chalamet. Last year, Chalamet came close to winning, only to be upstaged by The Brutalist’s Adrien Brody. The Academy usually avoids awarding especially young male actors. Chalamet’s chances could be nixed by this logic. There’s also been unpleasant conversation about Josh Safdie’s past unhealthy work ecosystems, coupled with Chalamet’s recent remarks on the market unviability of opera and ballet that have turned popular tide against him.

Here are the final five nominees in the Oscars 2026 race:

The Narcos star turns in a commandingly quiet, unshowy performance as a research scientist on the run in 1970s Brazil. There’s a watchfulness, a soulfulness undercutting an impulse to read and reward a performance that’s big and dramatic. Moura eschews any amplified emotional pitch to go soft, low and steadily, sharply observant. The Cannes jury presided over by Juliette Binoche deservingly bestowed him the Best Actor prize for the Kleber Mendonça Filho film. Moura has since picked up a Golden Globe, as well as a New York Film Critics Circle Best Actor award. The latter marked him as the first Latin-American winner.

With Best Actor nods in two consecutive years, Chalamet has been loudly and unapologetically paving the road for his consecration as Hollywood’s brightest star. The youngest male actor in Oscar history to land three acting nominations, he’s a spectacle of brash ambition in Josh Safdie’s film, keeping high adrenaline and frantic energy. A ping-pong athlete jostling for greatness, daring to do whatever it takes, Chalamet never lets a high-wire act waver. When his Marty Mauser finally does halt and takes stock of his new fatherhood, it’s profoundly moving. Long before winning a Golden Globe and the Critics’ Choice, the actor has firmly been at the forefront of award attention.

A surprising Actor Awards scoop launches Michael B. Jordan as the current threat to Chalamet. Leading Ryan Coogler’s supernatural period thriller, the year’s most-nominated film, Jordan bites into the dual role of criminal twins with swaggering relish. The gorgeous, boldly swinging drama is an excoriation of sin in Black America. Jordan holds its mad ambition together with bracing vigour and movie-star charisma.

It’s no shock to see the Oscar-winning actor racing through such physical comedy with verve and ease. Paul Thomas Anderson’s masterwork on the fatigue, disillusionment and relentless hope of revolutionary fighters is a tremendous ensemble, every supporting turn from a ferocious Teyana Taylor to a coolly heroic Benicio del Toro, perfectly playing into a symmetry. But it’s the father-daughter scenes DiCaprio and Chase Infiniti share that lend the film its throbbing heartbeat behind the constant hustle.

In his ninth collaboration with Richard Linklater, Hawke essays a has-been with irresistible magnetism. Playing the Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart right after his split from Richard Rodgers, Hawke plays a raconteur with delicious, zippy fluency. But the chattiness reveals deep emotional wounds, a sadness that lingers heavy in the air even as Hart buoyantly insists he holds no grudges against Rodgers for leaving him behind in career ascendancy. The actor is unafraid to be miserable and mopey, deftly straddling the fine line between projection and vulnerability. Blue Moon scripts Hawke’s fourth Oscar nom on a Linklater film.