To understand the 2026 Oscars, first we must understand Hoppers. In case you are over 10 and have yet to see the latest Pixar movie, it is set in an idyllic glade where members of the animal kingdom coexist blissfully. Beavers thrive; frogs romp; bears sit in the woods. The larger beasts do eat the smaller — and yet there is a harmony. Until, of course, a new freeway threatens to crash through the middle of it.
Hoppers is not up for a prize at Sunday’s Academy Awards, but you can still make out an echo of its happy biodiversity. There in the range and depth of the nominees, we see an ecosystem. At the head of the food chain are two big, ambitious movies that will probably share most of the prizes: Sinners, Ryan Coogler’s fable of vampires and American Blackness, and One Battle After Another, the screwball political thriller from Paul Thomas Anderson.
Both were made with the old-school studio money of Warner Bros. But the new establishment is here too with Marty Supreme, the Gen Z-coded period piece from cinematic fashion house A24. From beyond the US come Norwegian family drama Sentimental Value and Brazilian freewheeler The Secret Agent. Netflix provides the meditative Train Dreams and Guillermo del Toro’s lavish Frankenstein.