Fall 2026: The Top 10 BeMovieSeeMovie Most Anticipated Awards Contenders
Welcome to October, where the real race begins! With most of the big festivals behind us, the Oscar movies start showing up at this point in the year, going for hearts of audiences but especially Academy voters.
Dune: Part 3 would be on the top of the list, but it’s gonna make a kajillion dollars, so it’s on the popcorn movie list I released last week. This is the first time in a while I struggled with a Top 10, mostly because, well, there really isn’t a consensus at the top, as well as a lot of just OK efforts from the great directors, leading to a Wild West of new arrivals and sophomore efforts going for the top spot. In putting together the top 10, I was shocked what I was most excited for, making this year one of the more exciting ones, hopefully opening those Academy voter hearts to newer experiences, writers, and directors they haven’t considered before.
The big “Red Flag” winner: there’s a few for sure, but the bottom of the heap is The Social Reckoning, mostly because it we’ve lost two of the key figures in The Social Network, Jesse Eisenberg and David Fincher, leaving the whole big movie to Aaron Sorkin and Jeremy Strong, who can be great, but are better when they’re controlled by a strong creative visionary, which Sorkin is not.
Here’s 5 Intriguing Films that just missed my top 10 but will definitely be in the Oscar race.
Ah the beautiful French cinema. This one looks like a mixture of erotic and political thriller, a potent package. Essentially Unfaithful with a CEO, with all sorts of fun ramifications, emotional and otherwise. Reviews out of Cannes were excellent, can’t wait to see what sultry fun this one brings to the table.
Lukas Dhont wrecked my world with Close in 2022. Here’s hoping his 2026 follow up does the same. Early buzz is mostly strong; hopefully he got a bigger budget to recreate new wrinkles into World War I cinema history. Belgian cinema returns, stronger than ever!
Word from Cannes is that Pawel Pawlikowski’s latest isn’t as good as Cold War? Um, ok. All that means is it isn’t as good as one of the best movies of the 2010s. I fully expect at 82 minutes, I’m going to be wowed and awed by the director’s black and white cinematic mastery, and a simple, powerful Wild Strawberries like tale from one of the great directors of the 21st century.
Iraq’s International Feature submission looks like it’s gonna be a banger. It’s about a female sniper who’s sister gets taken by ISIS to Mosul, where the sniper then heads to on a revenge mission. This is gonna be hella tense, hella emotional, and just a damn exciting time to be at the movies.
The Palme D’Or winner is lower than you’d normally expect from my previous lists. That’s only because I know what is coming. Christian Mungiu’s melancholic drama is going to beautifully, coldly, tear my heart out, little by little, watching Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve relocate their conservative religious family to “godless” Norway, unhappily trying to assimilate with unflinching results.
I’ve been in on Nathan Fielder since Nathan For You. He’s our modern day Andy Kaufman. So watching him get his big Oscary shot by psychoanalyzing the enigmatic Elizabeth Holmes before she goes to prison has me giddy with unhinged glee. It’s gonna be a crazy battle of wills for three hours I can’t wait to behold, witness, and be deeply consumed and unsettled by.
The surprise of Cannes has shot up my board. Jordan Firstman’s feature debut buzz is sky high. The film looks like it blends old and new, as a washed up Club Promoter (new) finds a long lost son (old) on his doorstep that he never knew he had. It’s Big Daddy as Oscar film, meaning the tears and emotional catharsis through feel good bonding is going to ensue. I’m gonna love every electric minute of it.
This is where my top 10 Oscar bait gets real interesting. This Netflix animated tale sounds like a mashup I didn’t know I wanted but couldn’t be more excited to get. Brad Bird gives us animated film noir, with a futuristic detective in a world of humans and aliens. This combo has been kind of explored in Spider Noir, and Mars Express. But Bird’s version hopefully comes with the flair the director exudes, giving us something we’ve never really seen before.
If this movie doesn’t win Best Documentary, I’m gonna be pissed. William Greaves’s movie gives us a never before seen insight into the Harlem Renaissance like Questlove did with Summer of Soul. This time, it’s with the intellectuals of the era, people like Duke Ellington (the party host), Noble Sissle, Arna Bontemps, Richard Bruce Nugent, and many other incredible people who influenced entire generations of African Americans as well as American History at large. This movie will be a celebration and a necessary history lesson, the best kind of way to experience and learn from our past through movies.
So as you can see, not only is this the year of animation. No: it’s the year of stop motion animation. I Am Frankelda is already one of the best movies of my year. And on its heels is this incredible looking fable by Travis Knight and Laika Studios. I have a so-so reputation with the studio, but this movie looks truly magical, and perhaps pushes the stop motion film into new heights it has never achieved before. I can’t wait, and hopefully you won’t be able to either!
