by Ryan James Tobin ’26 on February 26, 2026

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A&E - Film & TV

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Awards season is not only officially upon us, but also coming to a close. With the Academy Awards coming up, some stars have made tremendous moves and pushes to take home the big one this year. Here is an overview of who I think will walk away with the gold for the biggest categories on March 15. 

Best Actor

Nominees: Timothee Chalamet (Marty Supreme), Leonardo DiCaprio (One Battle After Another), Ethan Hawke (Blue Moon), Michael B. Jordan (Sinners), and Wagner Moura (The Secret Agent).

Predicted Winner: Timothee Chalamet

Why? Chalamet has been consistently incredible since his prominent role in Lady Bird. He has also been an Academy Award staple, as this is his fourth nomination with zero wins to his name. DiCaprio is a close second in my book as he turned in my personal favorite performance of his career in a film that is likely to win him many Oscars this year. Sadly, based on how this awards season panned out, Chalamet has a very large lead in this race in comparison to the former Oscar winner. Jordan, Hawke, and Moura all turned in career-defining performances as well, and Moura also has the awards season momentum to achieve a shock win here. However, I think it’s the man who always says he is chasing greatness that finally gets to call himself one of the greats in this case.

Best Actress

Nominees: Jessie Buckley (Hamnet), Rose Byrne (If I Had Legs I’d Kick You), Kate Hudson (Song Sung Blue), Renate Reinsve (Sentimental Value), and Emma Stone (Bugonia).

Predicted Winner: Rose Byrne

Why? All five of these leading performances are unparalleled. Buckley has been the clear favorite for the longest time in this particular race, however, not every front-runner receives the statue. Byrne was If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, meaning that the entire movie rested on her shoulders, and she still delivered an awe-inspiring performance. She also has the resume and career that Oscar voters typically like to reward. Looking further down the line, Oscar darling Stone is in third for me in this particular category, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the votes between the top two contenders, Byrne and Buckley, are split so evenly that Stone ends up taking home the top prize. As for now, this writer is pulling for the Aussie.

Best Supporting Actor

Nominees: Benicio del Toro (One Battle After Another), Sean Penn (One Battle After Another), Delroy Lindo (Sinners), Stellan Skarsgård (Sentimental Value), and Jacob Elordi (Frankenstein).

Predicted Winner: Stellan Skarsgård

Why? The men’s best supporting actor race is by far the closest and most unpredictable. As aforementioned, I think Oscar voters are going to be splitting votes between two candidates in multiple fields. Del Toro and Penn were both magnificent in a star-studded One Battle After Another cast, but if I had to choose between one of them, I don’t know if I could. That leads me next to the two men who had the best awards seasons and are therefore riding a wave of momentum into the big night: Elordi and Skarsgård. Both received notable best supporting actor wins on the road to the Academy, but neither has a clear edge over the other. Furthermore, both star in movies that are absolutely stunning but for different reasons—one for cinematography, and the other for emotional experience. I mention this because I think Skarsgård takes home the top prize due to the emotional depth of the film he is representing—that is the only edge I believe is visible in this face.

Best Supporting Actress

Nominees: Elle Fanning (Sentimental Value), Inga Ibsdotter Lilleas (Sentimental Value), Amy Madigan (Weapons), Wunmi Mosaku (Sinners), and Teyana Taylor (One Battle After Another).

Predicted Winner: Teyana Taylor

Why? While my heart is telling me to go with the dark horse—Fanning—my head is telling me that Taylor simply has this in the bag. It is also worth mentioning that my original pick before the Golden Globes, Ariana Grande (Wicked: For Good), wasn’t even nominated. It may just come down to Madigan vs. Taylor, and the One Battle After Another star has had an awards season for the history books, taking home many of the top coveted prizes.

Best Director

Nominees: Chloe Zhao (Hamnet), Josh Safdie (Marty Supreme), Paul Thomas Anderson (One Battle After Another), Joachim Trier (Sentimental Value), and Ryan Coogler (Sinners).

Predicted Winner: Paul Thomas Anderson

Why? When multiple shots from your nearly three hour film are being held in such high regard that people claim “cinematic masterpiece,” “best visual art they’ve seen,” or “this needs to be taught in film schools”—you should be a shoe in. Right? Not exactly. Those remarks have been made for multiple people in this category, and this race is not very cut and dry. Anderson has nearly swept the Best Directing prize this awards season and is my pick to win it all, but it’d be incredible to see history made if Coogler were to become the first black director to win the prize, or Zhao become the first woman to win it twice.

As for the other major categories, here are my predicted winners:

Best Picture: One Battle After Another

Best Animated Feature: KPop Demon Hunters

Best Cinematography: Sinners

Costume Design: Frankenstein

Film Editing: F1

International Feature Film: The Secret Agent

Casting: One Battle After Another

Writing (Original): Sentimental Value or Sinners

Writing (Adapted): One Battle After AnotherAnd finally, Best Original Song: “Golden” from KPop Demon Hunters

by Sara Conway on May 6, 2021

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A&E - Film & TV

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Her Journey from China to Pine Ridge to Hollywood

by Grace O’Connor ’22 A&E Staff

Chloe Zhao is an impressive Chinese director, screenwriter, and producer who recently earned the Academy Award for Best Directing for the film Nomadland. After growing up in Beijing, Zhao made her way to the Pine Ridge Indian Reserve in South Dakota. According to Vulture, “Zhao wasn’t the first artist to come from outside an Indigenous community with the intention of telling a story set within it. But she was coming from far outside it, so far that she felt unconstrained by both American colonialist history and the legacy of guilt that comes with it.” 

With her background and passion for film, Zhao eventually made a name herself. She used locals in her films, giving them fictional parts that closely related to their own experiences. Zhao produced some films before Nomadland including Songs My Brother Taught Me and The Rider. Over the past four years, she has become one of the most pursued directors in Hollywood thanks to a trio of devoutly noncommercial features. By the time she started shooting Nomadland in the fall of 2018, she had attracted the attention of a major star, Frances McDormand, who co-produced the film and plays its heroine. Nomadland was not considered a typical Oscar movie, but with Zhao’s great eye and talent, the film was an inevitable success. Vulture again states that Nomadland “follows a loose collection of nomads for whom “retirement” means traveling the country for seasonal work after losing their savings in the 2008 recession or never having any to begin with. It’s an exploration of tattered safety nets, stubborn individualism, and economic decay in the heartland.” This unorthodox plot brought the story close to home for many individuals.

In the 93 years that the Academy Awards have been around, fewer than two dozen Asain performers have been recognized. Additionally, only 18% of directors working on the top 250 domestic grossing films are women. Zhao is the first woman of color in history to win the Academy Award for Best Director, both an exciting and historic achievement. 

However, not everyone is celebrating Zhao’s well-deserved win. The New York Times cautioned that although “Zhao’s success has been praised as a major step forward in representation behind the camera this awards season, efforts to celebrate these firsts appear to have been dampened in China, where reports of censorship and media silence emerged Monday.” Chinese social media sites began censoring Zhao following a comment she made in a 2013 interview, calling China “a place where there are lies everywhere.” Growing up in China, Zhao felt constrained and unable to tell the truth, which strengthened her desire to move out of the country so that she could speak her mind. These desires made her who she is today: a woman who embodies resilience, intelligence, and talent.