It may only have been a few weeks since Anora was the big winner of the night at the 2025 Academy Awards, but already speculation is growing about who will be in contention next year.
It looks like being a vintage year for films, with new releases from some of the biggest hitters of the movie business including Paul Thomas Anderson, Yorgos Lanthimos, James Cameron, Spike Lee and Guillermo del Toro.
Here are the early favourites for Hollywood’s biggest award in 2026.
1. The Ballad of a Small Player
The current favourite for Best Picture is the new film from director Edward Berger (pictured). 'The Ballad of a Small Player' is a Netflix psychological thriller starring Colin Farrell and Tilda Swinton for Netflix. It is based on the 2014 novel by Lawrence Osborne and is about an English conman pretending to be a Lord in the Chinese region of Macau. It's priced at 15/2. | Getty Images
2. Hamnet
Joint favourite for the Oscar, also priced at 15/2 is Academy Award winner (for Nomadland) Chloé Zhao's adaptation of Maggie O'Farrell's 2020 novel 'Hamnet'. Starring Jessie Buckley (pictured), Paul Mescal, Joe Alwyn and Emily Watson, it's a fictional story about William Shakespeare and his wife Agnes suffering the death of their 11-year-old son (the titular Hamnet). | Getty Images
3. Frankenstein
Largely filmed in Scotland, Guillermo del Toro's (pictured) new adaptation of Mary Shelley's classic horror Frankenstein is priced at 10/1 for best picture. It stars Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth, Lars Mikkelsen, David Bradley and Christoph Waltz. | Getty Images for American Cinema
4. Avatar: Fire and Ash
The third in James Cameron's money-spinning 'Avatar' series of films is 10/1 to win the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2026. A win for 'Avatar: Fire and Ash' would add to the three Oscars the Canadian filmmaher won for Titanic. The film stars Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Stephen Lang, Sigourney Weaver, Kate Winslet and Edie Falco. | Contributed