2026 Oscars: Frontrunners and Challengers - The Critics and the Golden Globes Choose a Frontrunner

Hollywood is at a crossroads in many ways, but one major one is its use of AI. It is here, whether they are ready or not. In this year’s Oscar race, some films and documentaries use AI. We don’t know how the industry voters will react to those movies. We also talk about the Narnia trailer, the new Daily Wire movies, and more.

Sasha Stone, Scott Kernen, and Jeremy Jentzen discuss the current Oscar race as shaped by the pundits and bloggers (there is no THERE there yet). I think Tom Cruise is still in play, but Scott and Jeremy disagree. We talk about The Social Reckoning, Artificial, and what the Best Picture race looks like. Lots of spicy gossip too.

Sasha Stone, Scott Kernen, and Jeremy Jentzen discuss the Digger reception. Mixed, divisive- what does that mean for Oscar? Can identity-driven stories be enough? The Odyssey remains the strong frontrunner that, so far, no film has matched or challenged. The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth trailer drops, and boy does it look good. Then we try to suss out who took Digger out of their predictions after the screening. What happened to the Social Reckoning? The Invite remains one of the best of the year. For the Emmy Sidebar: the absolutely terrible Netflix show, Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story.

Sasha Stone, Jeremy Jentzen, and Scott Kernen address the bizarre controversy on X involving us and others who used to work at Awards Daily. Then we talk about the film festivals and how they’ve changed the races. Who are the frontrunners in each category?

Sasha Stone, Scott Kernen, and Jeremy Jentzen catch up on everything that happened at the Telluride Film Festival and the Best Actor shakeup - John Malkovich drops out of play in Israel, the Digger trailer drops, but will Andrew Scott just win the whole thing anyway?