Oscar 2026 Nominees for Best Picture
Check out the full list below:
The term Bugonia itself stands for an ancient myth wherein it is widely believed that bees are generated from the carcass of cows. In the new English film by the same name, you can gauge its metaphorical context in its opening scene, even as a commentary acquaints the viewers with the lives of the bees.
At the heart of things, the new English film ‘F1 The Movie’ can be regarded as a typical underdog story in the purest sense. When you are first introduced to Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt), you see a poker-faced man splashing water on his face before entering a 24 hour race at the Daytona Oval. Sonny is similar to the old-rookie animated character in Cars (2006) who was once a star-driver within touching distance of glory at the Formula One Racing stage, before an unexpected crash stalled his budding career.
It is interesting on the number of parallels that you can draw between the protagonist Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) in the new English film Frankenstein with Guillermo Del Toro’s previous venture Pinocchio. Both Victor and Pinocchio are essentially the same individual in different worlds, being at the receiving end of their father’s wrath at a very young age, something that would invariably shape their future personalities.
It is incredible on how the parallels can be drawn between the English film Hamnet and the Norwegian film Sentimental Value. The common thread linking both films remains using the creative space to cope with grief. In a scene, wherein you see William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) narrating the story of Orpheus and Eurydice to Agnes (Jessie Buckley), you almost sense a subtext of a tragedy about to unfold at a certain juncture in the narrative.
In a recent podcast with Raj Shamani, the legendary Michael Phelps revealed on how he did not take a single day off for a period of over 5 years that eventually resulted in several bouts of greatness. The emphasis of his life and passion for work ‘not being rocket science’ was good enough to tell you a story about his greatness and his achievements. In the new English film Marty Supreme, the protagonist Marty Mauser (a phenomenal Timothy Chalamet) has similar seeds of the attitude of Phelps.
In a scene at about the halfway mark in the new English film One Battle After Another, you see the character of Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio) sitting on his couch and watching the film ‘The Battle Of Algiers’. It is a fleeting scene but extremely important in the context of things given how Bob identifies himself as a revolutionary who is known for guerilla style of warfare and disruption. Bob is one of the members of The French 75, known to take on the pro-right wing fringes of the state, along with his partner Perfidia (Teyana Taylor), a seducive black woman with whom he shares a steamy affair.
Somewhere in the film The Secret Agent, Brazil’s Official Submission to the Oscars of 2026, a little child is not allowed to watch the then global phenomena – Jaws (1975). Elsewhere, there is a human leg found in the mouth of a tiger shark that sparks a curiosity, wherein the human leg is turned into an urban legend known to hunt down people.
The opening reels of Sentimental Value, Norway’s Official Submission to the Oscars of 2026, acquaint you with an ancestral house presented on the back of a voiceover of a child. In the voiceover wherein the child reimagines it as a character, questioning on whether the house would feel the joy and the pain as regular humans – happier when its belly is full of life, or yelping in pain when its walls are scratched or when folks walk on its wooden flooring.
In its opening act of the new English film Sinners, you are witness to a character bloodied in gore appear in a church with a musical instrument in his hand. With swift cuts, you are faintly privy to the horrors that the character has undergone recently, until the pastor tells him to give up on his dream of creating music that is essentially a gateway to the supernatural.
Life has a beautiful irony tagged to it, of people inching towards their deaths from the time that they are born. And yet, the lifespan of an individual comprises of many ‘deaths’ – at times of grief or loss or even longing that formulates the identity of an individual. For most, it is about silently watching your life pass by while your soul is entrapped in a medium of grief – stuck in a time loop – silently wanting to move on but caught in the ordeals of the loss of a loved one.