The 2026 Academy Awards are months in the distance. We've barely hit festival season, as Cannes is in the rearview but Venice, Berlin, Telluride, Toronto, and New York — among others — are looming throughout the summer and fall.
As such, current betting odds to win Best Picture are imperfect and uncertain.
For now, Sentimental Value — Joachim Trier's follow-up to The Worst Person in the World — is drawing the shortest odds after receiving a rapturous response in the South of France.
Let's look at the WAY TOO EARLY Best Picture betting odds for the 98th Academy Awards, scheduled for Sunday, March 15, 2026, at 7 p.m. ET with Conan O'Brien set to return as host.
Odds to win Best Picture
| Film |  |
|---|---|
| Sentimental Value | +500 |
| After the Hunt | +700 |
| The Ballad of a Small Player | +800 |
| Hamnet | +800 |
| Sinners | +900 |
| Avatar: Fire and Ash | +1000 |
| Frankenstein | +1200 |
| The Lost Bus | +1400 |
| The Life of Chuck | +1400 |
| One Battle After Another | +1400 |
| Marty Supreme | +1400 |
| Highest 2 Lowest | +1600 |
| Bugonia | +1600 |
| The Smashing Machine | +1800 |
| Pressure | +1800 |
| Weapons | +2000 |
| Nouvelle Vague | +2000 |
| Materialists | +2000 |
| Deliver Me From Nowhere | +2000 |
| A Big Bold Beautiful Journey | +2000 |
| Wicked: For Good | +2500 |
| F1 the Movie | +2500 |
| Die My Love | +2500 |
| The History of Sound | +2800 |
| Roofman | +2800 |
Odds as of 6-29.
After Anora emerged as a bit of a surprise favorite in late 2024 — it's a fairly small movie in terms of scope and production — Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value has the early pole position coming out of Cannes.
It will have a theatrical release in early November, positioning it for a similar awards run as the Sean Baker film that won five Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress.
Sentimental Value hasn't even been released, and IndieWire has already ranked it at 21 on its "100 Best Movies of the 2020s (So Far)" list.
Will the Oscars go for another small-ish indie drama for its top honors? We don't have an Oppenheimer being released this summer — Christopher Nolan fans will need to wait until next year, when The Odyssey is released — and many of the films listed in the latest odds board are hardly blockbusters.
Of films that have already been released in 2025, Justin Coogler's vampire epic Sinners, which reportedly earned $365 million globally during its theatrical run, is drawing the shortest odds at +900.
Mike Flanagan's latest Stephen King adaptation, The Life of Chuck, is +1400, and while it flopped at the box office, it did win the audience prize at TIFF in 2024, which has long been a precursor to a Best Picture nomination, at the very least. However, that normally coincided with a same-year public release, which this didn't receive.
The three movies sandwiched between Sentimental Value and Sinners on the early board have yet to be released, and one doesn't have an official release date.
After the Hunt (+700), the latest from director Luca Guadagnino (who had two films released in 2024 — Challengers and Queer) is a thriller starring Julia Roberts as a professor dealing with an accusation of one of her colleagues. It will be released on October 10 and also stars Ayo Edebiri, Andrew Garfield, and Michael Stuhlbarg.
The Ballad of a Small Player (+800) is the latest from director Edward Berger, whose Conclave received a Best Picture nomination last year and appeared a likely alternative as a dark horse before Anora prevailed. Berger has been an Oscars darling in the last couple of years, as his remake of All Quiet on the Western Front received nine nominations and four wins, including International Feature.
This latest one is a Macau-set con artist thriller starring Colin Farrell and Tilda Swinton. However, it's a Netflix film, and the streaming giant has yet to win Best Picture at the Oscars.
The final early favorite is Hamnet, Chloe Zhao's first film since Eternals — her foray into the MCU — underperformed. Hamnet is a historical fiction about William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) and his wife, Agnes (Jessie Buckley), following the death of their 11-year-old son, Hamnet. It's set for limited release on November 27 with a wider rollout on December 12.
A lot can change in the next few months, especially as buzz filters through festival audiences and critics.
Academy Awards Odds FAQ
Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value is drawing the shortest odds at +500 after a strong response at Cannes.
Odds have yet to hit the board for Best Director.
Odds have yet to hit the board for Best Actor and Best Actress.
The 2026 Oscars are scheduled for March 2, 2026 at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.
Sean Baker's Anora won Best Picture in 2025 after emerging as a surprise frontrunner during the fall festival season.
Celebrated indie auteur Sean Baker, whose film Anora won Best Picture, took home the honors.
Mikey Madison won Best Actress for her titular role in Anora while Adrien Brody won for The Brutalist. It was Madison's first nomination while Brody previously won for The Pianist in 2003.
