The 2026 Oscar nominations dropped on January 22, 2026. Within minutes, social media erupted. A horror movie just shattered a decades-old Academy record, and the surprises don’t end there.
The 2026 Oscar nominations rewarded both returning icons and fresh-faced newcomers who cemented their places in Hollywood. But many of the surprises don’t lie with who made the cut, they lie with who didn’t. Some films were snubbed completely, while others didn’t land the nominations many expected they would. The 98th Academy Awards ceremony arrives March 15 at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, but the real conversation starts now. Let’s break down the biggest surprises for the 2026 Oscar nominations.
‘Wicked: For Good’ Completely Shut Out from the 2026 Oscars
Wicked was a massive box office smash that stormed at awards season, earning 10 Oscar nominations and two wins. The 2026 Oscars flipped the script and shut Wicked: For Good out entirely. Perhaps the biggest talking point around this is Arianna Grande‘s snub for Best Supporting Actress. Her journey from pop star to legitimate actress reached new heights in this film, where she brought deeper emotional complexity and dramatic gravitas to Glinda’s arc. To be nominated the year before only to be snubbed for a more mature performance perhaps says more about the movie in general than Grande’s performance.
If we look deeper, what’s most perplexing is how the film wasn’t nominated in the categories that the first movie won: Best Achievement in Costume Design and Best Achievement in Production Design. The same creative teams returned for the sequel, building upon the visual foundation they’d already established and expanding Oz’s world with even more elaborate sets and costumes that critics praised as surpassing the original. To reward their work once, only to ignore its evolution and refinement, is what is most baffling about this major snub.
Zero Oscar Nominations for Jay Kelly
Adam Sandler being snubbed by the voters at the Academy Awards is nothing new. Despite delivering powerful dramatic performances time and time again, he receives praise elsewhere but the Oscars always appear unimpressed. His role in Jay Kelly is perhaps the greatest melding of comedy and drama he has ever delivered. He serves up subtle humor in the right moments, but his rendition is underscored with a fragile sensitivity from his first moment on screen. This makes for perhaps his most nuanced role to date.
Initially, Jay Kelly was talked about as a front runner after its first screening was glistened with heaps of praise. Not only was Sandler snubbed for Best Supporting Actor, George Clooney was overlooked for Best Actor, and the whole film was shut out altogether. However, the absence of these megastars did make way for 11 first-time nominees including Teyana Taylor, Michael B. Jordan, Jacob Elordi, and Rose Byrne.
‘Sinners’ Makes Oscar History
The Oscars have been around for nearly a century, and during that time, only 8 horror movies have been nominated for Best Motion Picture of the Year. Ryan Coogler‘s genre-blending Sinners is the eighth movie to land such a feat. However, what’s more remarkable is the movie’s sheer dominance this year. With a staggering 16 Oscar nominations, this epic vampire flick has become the most nominated movie in Academy Awards history.
With this wealth of nominations, Sinners has boldly surpassed the long-standing record of 14 nominations held by All About Eve (1950), Titanic (1997) and La La Land (2016). This isn’t surprising in the sense that it is undeserved, it’s surprising in that the Oscars have stepped up their game massively when it comes to their acceptance of horror. The film’s success is even more astonishing considering it’s an original story in an era dominated by franchises – becoming the highest-grossing original film domestically in 15 years. With his nod for Best Director, Coogler has become the seventh Black filmmaker ever to be nominated for the best director prize.
Kate Hudson Makes a Comeback
As the daughter of iconic actress Goldie Hawn, Kate Hudson has spent a great deal of her career steering the complex space between Hollywood legacy and hard-earned credibility. After her Oscar-nominated breakout in Almost Famous (2001) established her as a commendable thespian, she spent the next two decades largely in romantic comedies – commercially successful but critically overlooked work that kept her in the public eye while distancing her from prestige projects. Her surprise nomination for Song Sung Blue, where she portrays a real-life Neil Diamond tribute artist disabled in a tragic accident, marks a dramatic return to Oscar’s embrace and proves she can still anchor the kind of transformative, dramatic performance that first earned the Academy’s attention.
As a star who has woven in and out of critical acclaim, Hudson’s nod for the 2026 Oscars has surprised those who expected a newcomer to take the spot. When the Oscar nominations were announced, the absence of Chase Infiniti for One Battle After Another had social media alight with shock and upset. While Hudson was on the radar, the film’s lack of hype left many to believe her performance would be pushed to the wayside. However, this was its strongest factor. Hudson commands the screen with every segment. With a tour-de-force rendition, Song Sung Blue is her movie, elevating her from outlier to frontrunner.
Amy Madigan Takes ‘Weapons’ to the 2026 Oscars
2025 saw some truly original movies hit our screens. With its non-linear narrative and mind-bending genre blending, Weapons was the perfect follower to Sinners – proving audiences still have a strong taste for horror. With its critical acclaim to match, it’s a major surprise that the film only landed one nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
Amy Madigan‘s twisted role is both mesmerizing and terrifying. As a former nominee, her nod this year isn’t so surprising. Instead, the biggest shock is the total snub of Zach Cregger‘s original screenplay. The contrast between Sinners‘ historic 16 nominations and Weapons‘ single nod reveals the Academy’s complicated relationship with horror. Sinners likely broke through because it transcended genre boundaries – seamlessly melding vampire mythology with musical elements, cultural commentary, and sweeping historical drama. Weapons, despite its innovation and critical praise, remained more purely rooted in horror’s unsettling traditions.
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