The 98th Academy Awards are in the books — and we've got thoughts. One Battle After Another holds on for Best Picture, Michael B. Jordan upsets Timothée Chalamet for Best Actor, and Sinners walks away with 4 wins from 16 nominations — the most losses in Oscar history. Did it get robbed? We break it all down.We also get into Conan's hosting, the ceremony's surprise technical issues, the K-pop Demon Hunters getting played off stage, Javier Bardem's Free Palestine moment, Sean Penn's no-show, and the final results of our season-long Oscars fantasy draft.This is the final episode of Oscars Outsider Season 1. Thanks for coming along for the ride.🏆 Final Fantasy Draft Score: Craig 592 – Dylan 548

It's the final reckoning. The Oscars Outsider crew is back one last time before Hollywood's biggest night to go through EVERY category and give you our ultimate predictions for the 2026 Academy Awards.

The big question: Can Sinners pull off the upset and become the first horror movie to win Best Picture? Or does One Battle After Another hold the line? We break down the Sinners surge, the late-voting wrinkle that could change everything, and why you'd have to go back to Crash 20 years ago to find a precedent for what Sinners is trying to do.

Plus: Is Timothée Chalamet actually going to lose Best Actor? Could Ethan Hawke be a spoiler? We get into the dumb scandals (Chalamet vs. ballet, Jesse Buckley vs. cats), the new Best Casting award, who's winning King or Queen of the Dead in the In Memoriam, and much more.

Featuring Dylan Ferguson, Craig Midwinter, Sean O'Rourke, and Rory Follis.

🗳️ Drop your predictions in the comments — we'll see who got the closest after Oscar night.

The SAG Awards may have just blown the Best Actor race wide open.Michael B. Jordan wins. Sinners surges. And suddenly Timothée Chalamet doesn’t look so inevitable anymore.In this episode, we break down:What Jordan’s SAG win actually means for the Oscar raceWhether “front-runner fatigue” is realIf Sinners is building unstoppable momentumWhether Best Picture is suddenly back in playAnd as part of our ongoing Best Picture deep dive series, we discuss this week’s nominee: Sentimental Value — does it have a real path to a win, or is it peaking too early?Plus: Craig faces an Oscars trivia quiz you can play along with at home.The race just got interesting.

In this episode of the Oscars Outsider Podcast, we go back to 1929 to unpack why the Academy Awards were created in the first place.The Oscars weren’t born as a pure celebration of art. They emerged during a moment of labor unrest, censorship pressure, and a rapidly changing Hollywood industry. We break down the real institutional motives behind the founding of the Academy, the first ceremony at the Roosevelt Hotel, and the strange split between Wings and Sunrise at the very first awards.Plus:– The BAFTA controversy and what it says about institutional risk– The transition from silent films to talkies– Whether The Secret Agent could be a Best Picture dark horseIf you enjoy film history, awards strategy, and looking at the Oscars as a cultural institution — this one’s for you.🎙 Subscribe for weekly Oscar race analysis and deep dives.

At the 1991 Academy Awards, Dances With Wolves beat Goodfellas for Best Picture — a decision often called one of the biggest Oscar snubs in Academy Awards history. In this episode of Oscars Outsider, we revisit the 63rd Oscars and break down why the Academy made the choice it did, how the Gulf War and early ’90s cultural climate shaped the vote, and whether this was truly an Oscar robbery.We also continue our Best Picture deep dives with a review and discussion of the F1 movie — including how it plays as blockbuster Oscar contender and what makes it work (or not) as a prestige film.If you’re tracking awards season yourself, check out CineRace.com — a web-based app that lets you follow nominations across ceremonies, compete with friends, and track how many nominated films you’ve seen.And don’t forget to visit OscarsOutsider.com to see our fantasy Oscar standings and what the Outsider Supercomputer says about this year’s race.Topics covered:• Goodfellas vs Dances With Wolves• Biggest Oscar snubs ever• 1991 Best Picture controversy• F1 movie review and Oscar chances• How cultural context shapes Academy voting

This week on The Oscars Outsider Podcast, we talk through the changes we’d make to the Academy Awards — from category structure and voting rules to the bigger philosophical question of what the Oscars are supposed to reward in the first place.We also review Best Picture nominee Frankenstein, breaking down what the film is trying to do, how it works as a Best Picture contender, and where it fits into this year’s race.Plus, we talk through the latest Oscar season news, including the recent DGA winner and what it might signal for the Best Director and Best Picture races going forward.If you love film analysis, awards season strategy, and overthinking the Academy, you’re in the right place.

This week on The Oscars Outsider Podcast, we break down the growing evidence that Oscar season might be getting messy — from tabloid stories and anonymous mass emails to trade reporting connecting the dots behind a possible smear campaign targeting Marty Supreme.

Then we shift gears to a classic Oscars gimmick: each of us reveals our Top 5 favorite Best Picture winners of all time… and, because we’re who we are, our Bottom 5 most hated Best Picture winners too.

Plus, we review and discuss Best Picture nominee Bugonia, digging into what works, what doesn’t, and where it fits into the broader race.

Along the way, we talk about what makes a great Best Picture winner, why some winners age beautifully while others evaporate, and what this year’s chaos says about the modern Oscar race.

If you love film history, awards season gossip, and overthinking the Academy, you’re in the right place.

Sinners just broke the all-time record for Oscar nominations — but what does that actually tell us?

We start by taking the temperature of the current Oscar race, digging into what the nominations and BAFTA longlists reveal about shifting momentum, category surprises, and where the major contenders stand right now.

Then, in our main feature, we trace the evolution of Best Cinematography at the Oscars — from the silent era through New Hollywood and into the modern digital age — to explore how the Academy’s idea of “great cinematography” has changed over time, and how those changing values shape what kinds of films get rewarded.

Finally, we turn to Sinners itself: not just as an awards juggernaut, but as a film. We talk about its aesthetic identity, why it’s resonating so strongly with guilds and voters, and what kind of movie it ultimately is within the larger Oscar tradition.

The Oscar nominations are finally here — and they didn’t break the way we expected.

In this episode, we react in real time to the full list of nominees, sorting through the surprises, the snubs, and the calls that completely upended our predictions. From Best Picture curveballs to category shake-ups that force a rethink of the entire race, this is our immediate read on what the Academy actually did — not what we assumed they would do.

This conversation builds directly off our final nomination predictions, revealing where we were right, where we were wrong, and what these nominations signal about the season ahead.

If you’re looking for level-headed Oscar analysis without hot-take hysteria, you’re in the right place.

With Oscar nominations just a day away, we lock in our final predictions for which films will make the Best Picture lineup, not who will win, but who will get in.We debate the strength of films like Hamnet, Frankenstein, Marty Supreme, The Secret Agent, Sentimental Value, F1, and the wild-card case for K-Pop Demon Hunters. We also break down how vote-splitting, international contenders, and late momentum could shape the final ten.Then we rewind to the 82nd Academy Awards, the first modern ten-nominee Best Picture race, and unpack why it remains one of the most chaotic and revealing Oscar years ever. From The Hurt Locker vs Avatar to the surprise inclusion of The Blind Side, we explore how the Academy struggled to redefine itself in a changing industry.Finally, we review One Battle After Another, talking through what works, what doesn’t, and where it lands in the current Oscar conversation.Plus: fantasy draft trades, nomination strategy, and the constant fear that by the time you’re watching this, we already look completely wrong.