Every year since 1929 which was the start of the great depression, at the tail end of the silent era of cinema, film makers have gotten together to celebrate the art of movie making by honoring excellence in film, by giving out little gold statues to what is considered the best films to have come out the previous year. 2026 marks the 98th Academy Awards, with two years left to go before we celebrate a century of handing out Oscars.
One could argue that the films picked are not the best. Regardless of how true or not true that really is, the reality is that the Academy Awards are the Superbowl of movies. It is the only awards ceremony I pay attention to. As a film lover and blogger, I would have loved to have seen every film nominated for an Oscar. But time, money, and energy prevent me from doing so.
Instead, I saw a handful or so of some of the nominated films I had easy access to. Here are my thoughts as a Catholic movie lover on the 2026 nominated films I did see and some other related films. I’m not going
Best Picture Expectations
When I watch a movie that is up for Best Picture, I expect to see something per excellent. I expect to see something to will blow my mind and suck me into a story for a few hours. A best picture should have
- Memorable Scenes
- Quotable Dialogue
- Should be Rewatchable
- Will be remember for years.
- Have some redeeming values
- Should appeal to a wide audience and not an elite group of cinephiles.
- Should reflect Truth, Beauty, and goodness
- Challenge you or make you smile or both
Examples of Good Best Pictures
Casablanca (1942)
Ben-Hur (1959)
Sound of Music (1965)
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Out of all the 2026 best picture nominees I did not see
I did see…
When their enemy resurfaces after 16 years, a group of ex-revolutionaries reunite to rescue the daughter of one of their own.- IMDB
I remember watching Best Picture Nominee The Power of the Dog (2021) and thinking it was a real slog of a film. But in the last 10 minutes of the film, it justified its existence by giving us a good ending that really made up for the rest of the pretty boring film up till that point. I stuck with it and it paid off. I made it through an hour of OBAA before I decided to call it quits. I knew that no matter how good the car chase was at the end, that I could never recommend any person to sit through the first part of the frustrating first part of it. I realised that it wasn’t going to get any better and that I could never recommend it to anyone. It ranks up there with Birdman (2014) of bad Best Picture movies. Although I was able to make it through the entire movie.
OBAA was annoying, tedious and gross. It had gross characters, characters I didn’t care about and characters that were simply annoying. I hated the pacing, Bad Pacing will always take away points in a film I am watching. The story was not fun or challenging to watch. It was dark and disturbing for the sake of being dark and disturbing and any point it was trying to make was lost in the crassness of the production. Why this was seen as one of the best of the year is a case that belongs on Unsolved Mysteries.
Kristin also agreed with me to shut it off after only an hour.
Two conspiracy-obsessed young men kidnap the high-powered CEO of a major company, convinced that she is an alien intent on destroying planet Earth.- IMDB
I actually paid $6 bucks to rent this. If you took characters from Napolean Dynamite, made them conspiracy theorists, darken them up a bit, throw in some ambiguity and a Twilight Zone type of conclusion you would get Bogonia. Part way through this film, I wondered if the story was going to actually go in the direction it actually went in. Like the Power of the Dog, it is a film that you got to stick with all the way through. It is the type of film where it could go in either direction as set up in the premise of the film. You are left wondering till the end of what is going to happen. The ending makes the film worth watching and talking about afterwards. Not a Best Picture necessary but a film worth watching.
Kristin also thought it had a thought-provoking ending.
A Formula One driver comes out of retirement to mentor and team up with a younger driver.- IMDB
F1 is a good-looking well-made film. Watching Brad Pitt is always a blast. If you’ve seen other sports related movies or other racing car movies, it offers you what you might expect. I happen to find the film pretty basic. Nothing bad about the film sticks out. But nothing really good sticks out either. I checked it out from the library, and it took over a week to finish it. Nothing in the plot kept me glued to the screen. I’m not going to remember anything about it as nothing stood out either way. It was still better than OBAA and had likable characters who were not crass and gross.
Kristin didn’t watch it with me.
After losing their son Hamnet to plague, Agnes and William Shakespeare grapple with grief in 16th-century England. A healer, Agnes must find strength to care for her surviving children while processing her devastating loss. – IMDB
This is another film in which I stuck it out to the end and the ending paid off. If you ever wondered how Shakespeare put together Hamlet, you will know after seeing this movie. It brings the world of Shakespeare to life. The setting and atmosphere of the film and the last act when Shakespeare’s wife is watching the play being performed after the death of her son Hamnet gives the picture it’s worth. I don’t know if I would want to watch it again, but is at least worth watching at least once.
Shakespeare is no stranger to the Oscars. Hamlet (1948) was the first British film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. It is the first sound film of the play in English.
Shakespeare in Love (1998) won best picture beating out Saving Private Ryan (1998).
What’s better SIL or Hamnet?
Let me say up front: neither Hamnet nor Shakespeare in Love is actually about William Shakespeare.
Both films are about women, both films turn on the existence of Shakespeare’s wife, and both are about the writing process (not necessarily both in that order).
I vastly prefer Shakespeare in Love, the 1998 Best Picture winner, have watched it many times and would watch it again.
As for the 2025 Hamnet, nominated for Best Picture (and other things) I liked the beginning, and I did get teary at the end. But, to be honest, I was shopping on my phone in the middle (before you yell, I was completely alone in the mezzanine of a near-empty theater).
‘Hamnet’ Vs ‘Shakespeare In Love’: Are They About The Bard? | Kate O’Hare
Kristin liked it.
Trying to leave their troubled lives behind, twin brothers return to their hometown to start again, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back. – IMDB
Sinners has a lot going for it. Not only has it been a commercial success, grossing over $370 million worldwide against a budget of $90–100 million, but it has also been a critical success with a Rotten Tomatoes of 97% of 429 critics. It has also won a plethora of award which including a record sixteen nominations at the 98th Academy Awards and two wins at the 83rd Golden Globe Awards (including Cinematic and Box Office Achievement) and even more. It’s an enjoyable period piece, crime drama, music appreciation, character study, and must of all Vampire Movie. In some way it reminds me of the world of The Lost Boys and could see it fitting into it’s universe. I can see sequels and spin off movies within this world. There is some great Irish music sung by Irish vampires in it. It lets the world know that you should be on the lookout for nasty Irish vampires. It has another ending I didn’t see coming. It is sort of crass during portions of it. With a name like Sinners that is not surprising. But unlike OBAA the characters are not annoying, gross and frustrating, but flawed but yet likable. It really is a good piece of movie making, so much so that Fr. Casey Cole has some good things to say about and was able to draw out some catechetical and spiritual lessons from it.
Kristin didn’t like it, although she did like the Irish music. They had a good rendition of The Rocky Road to Dublin.
Based on Denis Johnson’s beloved novella, Train Dreams is the moving portrait of Robert Grainier, a logger and railroad worker who leads a life of unexpected depth and beauty in the rapidly-changing America of the early 20th Century.
This is one of the most rewatchable of all the 2026 Best Picture selections. That is because it is not crass and gross. It is a character study filled with important themes about life and the people that live them. It chronicles that sad unique but simple life of a logger in the mid-west trying to earn money for his wife and daughter only to meet death and loss. In the 20th century he never owned a house with electricity or a phone. He never owned a car or had a bank account. He built his own log cabin and didn’t have any extended family he knew about. He witnessed death firsthand and it haunted him throughout the film in various places. The logger doesn’t stand out as someone grandiose and spectacular but as a simple everyday man, which is what makes him likable and worth watching. Someone less flashy than the average leaning man in a major motion picture. I can see this film being discussed in a film, philosophy or English class.
Kristin also liked it.
Guillermo del Toro‘s Frankenstein
Dr. Victor Frankenstein, a brilliant but egotistical scientist, brings a creature to life in a monstrous experiment that ultimately leads to the undoing of both the creator and his tragic creation.- IMDB
Out of all the films I saw, this one would get my vote for Best Picture. It is a great adaptation of the first Science Fiction novel ever to be written. It was a lot like a stage play I went and saw with Kristin by a local theater company in which not many people went to the performance. It was action packed, thought provoking and touched on religious, fantastical and philosophical themes worth exploring. It is rewatchable and looked good cinematically and brought you into Victorian times much like Hamnet you into Shakespearian times. It wasn’t crass like Sinners or badly crass or annoying like OBAA. It was character driven like Train Dreams and as big and flashy like F1 and thought provoking and Sci-Fiish like Begonia. I think it is more likely to be seen by a wider audience like Sinners was.
Kristin didn’t watch it with me.
Next year in 2027 the classic iconic 1931 version of Frankenstein that most people are familiar with will join the 1931 vampire classic Dracula in entering the public domain.
Non-Best Picture Nominees
– If I Had Legs I’d Kick You as Linda
Best Actress in a Leading Role Rose Byrne
While trying to manage her own life and career, a woman on the verge of a breakdown must cope with her daughter’s illness, an absent husband, a missing person, and an unusual relationship with her therapist.- IMDB
If you like atypical indie artsy films that explore the depth of the human psyche this film is for you. I appreciated it more than I actually enjoyed it. It was too something for me. I have some friends who really like this type of film, and I thought of them as I watched it. I have a friend who works in the mental health world, and I recommended it to him as it is one of the center pieces of the film. It had a surprise part way through the film that I didn’t see coming and it had a neat piece cinematic story-telling by never showing the sick daughter’s face throughout the film until the very last minute of the film. A better film then OBAA but not as good as Frankenstein or as Weapons.
Kristin liked it and actually picked it out.
Weapons as Gladys
Best Actress in a Supporting Role –Amy Madigan
When all but one child from the same class mysteriously vanish on the same night at exactly the same time, a community is left questioning who or what is behind their disappearance.- IMDB
This film continues the theme of horror films found in the 2026 nominated films. It has the most memorable scenes out of any of the movies we’ve covered so far. The film poster captures those captivating scenes. This is a movie in which it focuses on several different characters at different points in the story. Those story lines merge by the end of the film which has one of the most satisfying endings of any of these pictures. It is a effective horror movie that has a truly evil villain who gets what is coming to them, by the end of the film. Good overcomes evil in a very satisfying way.
Every year Hollywood celebrates it’s best, the Razzies celebrates its worst.
An orphaned teen hits the road with a mysterious robot to find her long-lost brother, teaming up with a smuggler and his wisecracking sidekick.- IMDB
I expect a worst picture nominee to be really really awfully terribly bad, just like I expect the best picture to be really really awfully great and wonderful. I didn’t think The Electric State was all that bad. I found it fun and entertaining. It was much better than One Battle After Another who I think is more deserving of Razzie than this film. It’s rewatchable and is charming and likable. How can you go wrong when Millie Bobby Brown (11 from Stranger Things and Chris Pratt (Star Lord from Guardians of the Galaxy) team up with some robots to save the world and directed by Avenger Movie directors Anthony and Joe Russo. It’s not the best film, but it sure isn’t the worst.
Kristin didn’t watch it with me and probably wouldn’t have liked it.
That’s It.
I ran out of time to watch more films but plan on doing another article on some of the nominated animated films of this year and yesteryear.