Oscars 2027 Odds, Picks, and Betting Updates

The 98th Academy Awards are in the rearview mirror after "One Battle After Another" came away the big winner with wins in Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay.

"Sinners," fresh off becoming the most-nominated film in Oscars history, won Best Actor (Michael B. Jordan) and Best Original Screenplay among others.

With the Cannes Film Festival starting, we're still a long way out for the 2027 Oscars, but prediction markets are already rolling out options.

The 99th Academy Awards are scheduled for Sunday, March 14, 2027. Below, we'll look at some of the early Oscars odds, but we'll refrain from making any concrete predictions until we get a better lay of the land.

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Odds to win Best Picture

Best Picture odds and trading prices

Anytime Christopher Nolan makes a movie, it's an event. That is no different with this summer's "The Odyssey," an adaptation of Homer's epic. Likely to be a box office phenomenon, it's the current front-runner to win Best Picture at next year's Academy Awards. And while "Oppenheimer" was an absolute wagon, we don't know what the overall response will be here.

However, is "Dune: Part Three" really in a position to win a la "Return of the King"? The first two entries in Denis Villeneuve's now trilogy were well received, and both received nominations for Best Picture, so this figures to be in the race. Still, a science fiction action movie might be a hard sell as an actual winner here.

Cannes is only just getting started, too, and that is where "Sentimental Value" debuted in 2025 and where "Anora" sprung from ahead of winning Best Picture the year prior. So this list could change dramatically.

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Odds to win Best Director

Best Director odds and trading prices

For one, Denis Villeneuve isn't even listed on Kalshi yet, and he should at least be in the running for "Dune : Part Three." This is why we can't give too much credence to these numbers in May.

Nolan will get a Best Director nomination at the very least, unless "The Odyssey" is a flat-out fiasco of disastrous proportions, but that seems unlikely.

A Steven Spielberg run with an old-school science fiction tale in the lineage of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" would be something else, even if early response to the trailers for "Disclosure Day" have been muted. Not from me, though. I'm thrilled, especially considering Spielberg has said they're refraining from showing anything from the third act of the movie.

Odds to win Best Actor

Best Actor odds and trading prices

John Malkovich hasn't been at the front of the Oscar race for many moons, but he's garnering early hype for his role as an aging hitman in Martin McDonagh's "Wild Horse Nine."

Also returning from the wilderness, Tom Cruise has been making "Mission: Impossible" movies for so long that something other than a pure action movie may seem foreign with him in the spotlight, but it's where he made his name. Teaming with Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Oscar-winning director of "Birdman" and "The Revenant") could be a good move for Cruise, who still has never won an Academy Award for acting (and hasn't been nominated since his Best Supporting Actor nod for "Magnolia" in 1999).

The rest feels very ethereal. Josh O'Connor in a Joel Coen movie sounds great, but we haven't seen any footage from "Jack of Spades" and a release date is unknown.

A David Fincher-directed sequel to "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" sounds made up, but it's happening for Netflix. However, the streaming giant has not had a lot of success at the Oscars. It feels more like a curiosity than a contender.

Sebastian Stan and Adam Driver are intriguing options here. Stan is starring in "Fjord," a drama helmed by Romanian director Cristian Mungiu ("4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days") alongside Renate Reinsve, his co-star from "A Different Man" who was also nominated for "Sentimental Value." 

Meanwhile, Driver is in James Gray's "Paper Tiger," a crime film co-starring Scarlett Johansson and Miles Teller. Both "Fjord" and "Paper Tiger" are debuting at Cannes, so we'll get a better idea of their chances in the coming weeks.

Odds to win Best Actress

Best Actress odds and trading prices

Reinsve has been on the rise as a potential Best Actress winner since her breakthrough in Joachim Trier's "The Worst Person in the World" and rightly received a nomination when she reunited with Trier for "Sentimental Value."

Director Cristian Mungiu hasn't had the same kind of crossover success as Trier, but he is widely respected. 

The rest of this field is very much up in the air. Most of them don't have release dates ("Prima Facie"), are Colleen Hoover adaptations ("Verity"), or may have undergone a title change ("The Ducess and I" may actually be "The Bitter End").

Or, in Scarlett Johansson's case, will she be in Best Actor as a co-lead alongside Adam Driver in "Paper Tiger" or will she ultimately consider Best Supporting Actress?

The Rest

These markets will fill out as festival season ramps up, with Venice, Telluride, Toronto, and New York (among other festivals) following throughout the summer and autumn months.

As we get a better grasp of which movies will be in legitimate contention, we'll fill out the categories for the 99th Academy Awards, complete with analysis and predictions. Until then, let's go to the movies!

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