Award season is one of the most interesting times of year for cinephiles (film lovers). The competitive nature can turn art into something more akin to sport.
This sentiment is no better displayed than Timothee Chalamet, currently nominated for his performance as Marty Mauser in Marty Supreme.
Famously, after winning the best performance award for A Complete Unknown, the young actor proclaimed “I know we’re in a subjective business, but the truth is, I’m really in pursuit of greatness… I want to be one of the greats,”.
This year, Chalamet has a chance to progress his career by winning an academy award for best performance, but he’ll hardly be uncontested.
In fact, this year winning will be harder than ever, with established frontrunners like Leonardo DiCaprio also in the running along with fellow rising stars Jesse Plemons and Michael B. Jordan.
With that being said, let’s look at my predictions for this year’s best actor, ranking the academy award hopefuls from least to most likely to take home the prize.
After his breakout role as Todd Alquist, an antagonist in the final season of Breaking Bad (2013), Jesse Plemons has been a rising star in the entertainment industry.
Starring alongside established powerhouses like Emma Stone in Kinds of Kindness (2024), and Kirsten Dunst in A24’s Civil War (2024), has made it hard for him to emerge in the award space except for his Best Actor nod at Cannes in 2024.
Unsurprisingly, Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest work Bugonia (2025), an adaptation of the Korean cult classic Save the Green Planet (2003), again paired Plemons with star talent, this time reuniting Plemmons with fellow best actress nominee Emma Stone. What is surprising however, was Plemmons’s ability to create a truly powerful and notable performance despite the inherent comparison to Emma Stone. The notability of this achievement, and the stunning acting he displayed in this film, is certainly what earned Plemmons in his nomination.
In Bugonia, Plemmons portrayed a conspiracy theorist, Teddy Gatz, who is convinced that Emma Stone’s Michelle Fuller, a corporate CEO, is secretly an alien sent to destroy planet Earth from the inside. This conviction leads to Plemmons to kidnap, torture, and interrogate Stone.
Plemmons managed to keep the seemingly ridiculous character grounded in a real sense of paranoia that is, at times, relatable considering the uncertain point in history we are in.
Despite an award-worthy performance, I doubt that this will be Plemons’ year seeing as the competition is truly that steep. A win would be deserving, but also highly unlikely.
While I don’t think it is likely, Mchael B Jordan is the first person on this list who’s win wouldn’t surprise me. This is where the competition starts getting close.
Michael B Jordan is a two-time Emmy nominated, Golden Globe winner whose success in the movie Sinners (2025) has been one of the biggest talking points this awards season.
Sinners, Jordan’s collaboration with partner Ryan Coogler is set to break award season history for most Academy Award nominations and most wins in categories like best motion picture, best score, editing and other awards
The film, however, is not what is being judged. Fortunately for Jordan, he would still be in the running if the film was a disaster (something Sinners is far from being).
Jordan plays two brothers who, after serving in World War One, decide to go back to the Jim Crowe South. They open a bar in the community where many of the films best (and award nominated) musical numbers are set.
What begins as a realistic story eventually incorporates supernatural elements culminating in conflict with vampires.
The movies greatest strength lies in its ability to maintain a grounded emotional core and tell a meaningful story about southern African American culture post WW1 despite its more fantastical elements. While the screenplay and Coogler’s direction help, it is undeniable that Michael B. Jordan is the main contributor to this tone.
That, and the films’ financial success are surely what won him the nod at this year’s Oscars. Currently, he is a longshot to win, however it is certainly not out of the realm of possibility.
The two frontrunners for this award, Timothee Chalamet and Leonardo Dicaprio, are both deserving of this award in their own right. Truthfully, this award could go either way.
However, I think Chalamet will be narrowly beaten by the veteran who will be looking to secure his 2nd best actor Oscar. This doesn’t mean, however, that Chalamet’s performance in the film was anything to scoff at.
Chalamet’s press run leading up to the film arguably began at the Screen Actors Guild last year in his aforementioned speech claiming to be seeking greatness. After this event, a sense of youthful arrogance pervaded Chalamet in all his public appearances and marketing campaigns. Speeches from atop the Las Vegas Sphere, branded Wheaties boxes and custom windbreakers being sent to other fellow ambitious performers, athletes and celebrities all demonstrated the idea of defying the odds and going after your dreams.
It is now obvious that this persona was created, at least impart, because of Chalamet’s work on the deeply ambitious and talented Marty Mouser.
The main character of Marty Supreme (2025), is a young Jewish New Yorker who attempts to become the number one rated ping pong player in the world. To write about any details of the films’ plot would be a disservice to the winding narrative written by Josh Safdie, but it is safe to say that equally compelling to the narrative is Chalamet’s’ performance.
The one thing I can say is that Chalamet is not what you would call a likeable protagonist. In fact, his attitude through the film is borderline infuriating, as his actions seemingly act primarily to annoy, and displease those closest to him. And therein lies the strength of his performance. Chalamet publicly manifested a braggadocios public persona making his personal attitude synonymous with the character he played in the film.
Director Josh Safdie purposefully casts the roles of the film, keeping the off-screen persona of the actor in mind. This is clearly shown by the casting of Kevin O’Leary from Shark Tank as a rich jerk who Marty encounters throughout his journey who, not so subtlety, mirrors O’Leary’s performance on the show that made him famous. This effect is also employed with Chalamet whose persona is used to amplify, elevate and quickly establish the character of Marty Mouser beyond what would be conventionally possible in the films’ tight script.
I say none of this to diminish his performance inside of the film, but rather to illustrate how his fantastic performance was elevated by a genius marketing strategy. His performance is arguably the best of his career, and he is most certainly in the running for the Oscar.
With that being said, I think one actor has him beat.
While the race will be close –and Chalamet has already secured the Golden Globe and The Critics Choice Award over Leo for his performance- I suspect that the Academy will grant the veteran actor the award.
The biggest knock against DiCaprio is arguably not his acting, but rather the Academy’s perceived aversion to giving him the award.
Considering DiCaprio is one of the most celebrated actors of all time, the critical success of nearly every film he’s stared in, and the plethora of nominations he’s already recieved, it is shocking that he has only won once.
In fact, he received 5 nominations for his performance in films like What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (1994), The Aviator (2005, and The Wolf of Wallstreet (2014) before winning his harrowing performance in The Revenant (2016).
With this in consideration, it may seem silly to predict that DiCaprio will take home the award, but the quality of his performance speaks for itself.
Funnily enough, I think DiCaprio will win this award for the exact opposite reasons I advertised for Chalamet: despite his status, DiCaprio fully disappears into his role.
His character in Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another (2025) is one that I can’t imagine DiCaprio could relate too very well; an explosives specialist, and ex-revolutionary who has never owned a cellphone doesn’t sound much like Leo. Despite this, it is still often hard to look past an actor of that magnitude and see the character they are playing.
Sorry, there was an error loading this poll.
In this case, however, you can do just that. DiCaprio’s acting shines when his character is having a conversation with his daughter or a hard time talking on the phone. Throughout the film, DiCaprio’s best moments are when he works off his fellow actors. It’s no surprise that his co-stars Sean Penn, Benecio Del Toro, Chase Infiniti, and Teyanna Taylor are all up for awards themselves. DiCaprio’s chemistry with these characters, mastery of his characters mannerisms and his ability to perfectly portray a relatively normal man in contrast with his superstar status is exactly what makes this performance special.
Instead of playing into superstardom, DiCaprio’s ability to shed his Hollywood persona and fully embody his role in One Battle After Another is what makes me think he will take home the Academy Award.
Who do you think will win the award? Make sure to check out my other articles (COMING SOON) to see my predictions for some of the other major awards. And don’t forget to come back after the winners are announced to see how well my predictions turned out.
Matias Salazar • Feb 11, 2026 at 10:10 am
This really well written. In my opinion, Michael b. Jordan is most deserving, but it will be interesting to see who ends up winning.
Chris Solomos • Jan 22, 2026 at 12:11 pm
In my opinion, Michael B. Jordan is most deserving of wining the Oscar for Best Actor this year, especially when you consider how he simultaneously played and starred as two different characters in the same movie, with each one having their own dynamics and traits as well. DiCaprio and Chalamet both had very strong roles, but Jordan’s uniqueness of his roles, and extremely high caliber performances are more than enough to beat out the other nominees.