The 2026 Oscar nominations are officially here and the Academy has certainly made some choices! In this episode of The Movie Dweeb Podcast, me and Niall Gray are diving headfirst into the 98th Academy Award shortlists to figure out who is actually taking home a statue and who was brutally snubbed.

The conversation gets chaotic immediately as Niall Gray attempts the impossible task of "winging it" through a series of films he has quite literally never heard of. You won’t want to miss his improvised plot summaries for the indie darling Train Dreams or the wonderfully titled If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.

Beyond the comedy of errors, we get serious about the frontrunners. We break down the massive momentum behind Timothée Chalamet and discuss whether Sinners is the juggernaut everyone thinks it is. From Best Picture locks to the dark horses that could steal the show, we’re laying out our full winner predictions.

Finally, we turn our attention to the ceremony itself with a segment on how we would actually fix the Oscars. We pitch our dream hosts for 2026, debate the best ways to keep the show under four hours, and suggest some truly devious music choices to play people off stage when their speeches start to drag. It’s a deep dive into everything that makes the Academy Awards both brilliant and frustrating.

Who do you think was the biggest snub this year? Let us know your picks in the comments and don't forget to subscribe for more movie deep dives.