With the fall festival season here, that means only one thing: the Oscars and awards race is starting to heat up. As we did last year, my podcast partner at Awards Central, Benji, and I are going to ramp up our thoughts on the podcast but also via articles on our awards predictions. From Critics Choice to Golden Globes to the Oscars, we will be covering predictions all season long. Today, we share our predictions of the Best Actor race post-Venice, Telluride, and TIFF. 

We have films from Paul Thomas Anderson, Guillermo del Toro, Chloe Zhao, Kathryn Bigelow, Josh Safdie, and Ryan Coogler set to ramp up the award season. Within those films, we have some star power that could feature many first-time nominees, but also some faces of the past ready to secure another nomination. 

2026 Oscar Best Actor Predictions

Ricky’s Best Actor Predictions

1. Timothée Chalamet – Marty Supreme
2. George Clooney – Jay Clooney
3. Dwayne Johnson – The Smash Machine
4. Jeremy Allen White – Springsteen: Deliver Me From No Where
5. Leonardo DiCaprio – One Battle After Another

Benji’s Best Actor Predictions

1 – Timothée Chalamet – Marty Supreme
2 – Jeremy Allen White – Deliver Me from Nowhere
3 – Leonardo DiCaprio – One Battle After Another
4 – Daniel Day-Lewis – Anemone
5 – Dwayne Johnson – The Smashing Machine

Other Prospects: Michael B. Jordan – Sinners, Wagner Moura – The Secret Agent, Brendan Fraser – Rental Family, Jesse Plemons – Bugonia