With the Academy Awards two weeks away, the Best Picture field is officially set. From blockbuster spectacle to quiet book adaptations, the lineup includes “Bugonia,” “F1,” “Frankenstein,” “Hamnet,” “Marty Supreme,” “One Battle After Another,” “The Secret Agent,” “Sentimental Value,” “Sinners” and “Train Dreams.” On paper, the films could not look more different. Under the surface, they are fixated on the same thing.

Across the category, the characters in each movie are chasing something they can’t let go of: truth, redemption, control. Again and again, that drive bends their worlds out of shape. After 2025’s lineup experimented with identity and 2024’s worked around the myths societies tell about themselves, the 2026 Best Picture race takes a full 180, asking a question that is mirrored in nearly every nominee: What happens when belief goes too far?

Bugonia

Yorgos Lanthimos’ 10th feature film, “Bugonia,” is an English-language remake of the 2003 South Korean cult classic “Save the Green Planet!” It is also his fourth consecutive film starring Emma Stone. “Bugonia” focuses on paranoia and conspiracy spiraling out of control, when two conspiracy-obsessed cousins, played by Jesse Plemons and Aidan Delbis, kidnap the CEO of a major company, convinced that she is an alien trying to destroy planet Earth. 

What makes “Bugonia” stick out is how it turns paranoia into satire without losing its bite. Lanthimos pokes at class rage, corporate power and how easy it is to fall down a rabbit hole when you’re already hurting. The film keeps asking the same uncomfortable question: Once someone feels cornered, how far will they go to prove themselves right? It is strange, tense and darkly funny in that distinct Lanthimos way. While I still prefer his earlier Best Picture nominees “Poor Things” and “The Favourite,” “Bugonia” still carves out its own unsettling space in an already crowded field. 

Hamnet

Coming off a previous Best Picture and Best Director win with 2020’s “Nomadland,” Chloé Zhao’s return to the Oscars is nothing short of the strongest comeback this year. “Hamnet” is an adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel of the same name, which follows William Shakespeare’s wife, Agnes, and the death of their 11-year-old son, Hamnet, in 1596. The film explores grief, love and the creative process rather than just fusing into a historical biopic.

“Hamnet” is a perfect exploration of grief transforming into art. The film is rooted in the grief of a child’s death, but beneath that mourning is a gentle push for reconnection: to our feelings, to the natural world, to art and to each other. “It was the best movie I’ve ever seen, and it made me cry harder than I have before. I watched it with my younger brother, and it made me think twice about our relationship. I want to make every moment last. The movie also made me excited to read “Hamlet” in my senior year, so I can get more of the callbacks,” sophomore Ashlyn Roberts said.

Marty Supreme

After the “Safdie divorce” between the long-time directing duo — twins Benny Safdie and Josh Safdie — the film community was divided over which brother would hold up the name. After Josh Safdie’s “The Smashing Machine” and Benny Safdie’s “Marty Supreme,” it was very clear which brother had the sauce. 

The Safdies have always had one main goal: to stress the audience out. “Uncut Gems” and “Good Time” are two anxiety-inducing and fast-paced flicks that make you feel like you’re out of breath. Benny Safdie’s “Marty Supreme” doesn’t stray far from that, but this time it focuses on the central theme of ambition that no one else respects. The only biopic in this year’s lineup, “Marty Supreme,” focuses on the exaggerated life of ping pong legend Marty Mauser, and compared to the aforementioned Safdie movies, it feels more narratively-rich. You can feel how chronological the story is, with every single storyline and detail clashing in the last 45 minutes. I would be shocked to learn I didn’t form at least 10 wrinkles coming out of the theater. 

One Battle After Another

Paul Thomas Anderson is a juggernaut in the film industry, and 10 movies in, it’s no shock that a movie as urgent and visceral as “One Battle After Another” is the frontrunner for the coveted award. The film has an ensemble cast led by veteran, Oscar-winning Leonardo DiCaprio and an introductory performance from Chase Infiniti, who is nothing short of spectacular. The movie feels timely; it follows a far-left revolutionary group called “The French 75” who are trying to break out detained immigrants from a detention center. Sixteen years later, Bob (DiCaprio) lives an off-the-grid life with his only daughter, Wila (Infiniti), who is being chased by a bounty hunter.

“One Battle After Another” fits in with the others in this category because it focuses on past conflicts returning to haunt the present. Jonny Greenwood’s brilliant, tense, anxiety-riddled score sets the tone perfectly. Anderson has a gift for taking complicated themes and shaping them into something gripping without losing the story’s core. Every character matters, no one is wasted, and each has their own weight in the plot. This is how you write an ensemble film. “One Battle [After Another] so greatly shows the constant battles of the real world. It is a total adrenaline rush that provides a wake-up call for our generation,” senior Trixie Verrija said.

Sinners

Even though “One Battle After Another” seems to have a near 95% chance of winning Best Picture, my heart will always be stuck on Ryan Coogler’s fifth feature film, “Sinners.” It is the closest we will get to a spectacle in the modern day. It takes place in 1932 rural Mississippi during the Jim Crow era, and follows twin brothers Smoke and Stack, both played by Michael B. Jordan, who return home to open up a juke joint, only to be confronted by a greater, supernatural force: vampires. 

A main theme I picked up on in “Sinners” is that you can’t outrun your past. Coogler leans hard into that idea, blending his signature punchy action from “Black Panther” and “Creed” with a sweaty, old-school horror edge that is pulled from a ‘90s fever dream, reminiscent of “From Dusk till Dawn.” 

What gives the film extra weight is the thread of folklore running underneath. The story echoes the legend of Robert Johnson, who “sold his soul to the devil in the 1930s” to master the guitar, which adds a haunting, mythic texture to the film’s world. Coogler takes his time building that world, and the patience pays off. “Sinners” understands something powerful: Some stories are meant to be felt in a theater, in the dark, all at once. 

In the beginning, I was only going to talk about five of the 10 films: “The Secret Agent” had yet to receive a wide release in the States, and I was only able to catch the first 30 minutes of “Sentimental Value.” “F1” and “Frankenstein,” directed by seasoned auteurs Joseph Kosinski and Guillermo Del Toro, show technical mastery, but both ultimately struggle under the weight of their own source material. I was going to skip over Netflix’s submission, “Train Dreams,” but after watching it, I couldn’t go to bed for hours.

Train Dreams

“Train Dreams” follows a logger’s quiet life as he experiences love and loss in early-20th century America. It is undoubtedly the most visually stunning on the list, but what stays with you is the reminder that every life, no matter how quiet, carries weight. As the world shifts around him, the story keeps returning to the same ache: time keeps moving whether we are ready or not. The film understands something deeply human. Most people are just as lost as we are.

From the titular character in “Marty Supreme,” who is convinced he is the greatest ping pong player of all time, to William Shakespeare in “Hamnet,” who finds a story to tell for every moment of pain, belief is the engine driving these characters forward. But in both films, the men become so locked into what they think they must chase that the people closest to them begin to fade out of their lives. Sometimes, the thing you refuse to release is the very thing that pulls your life off course, and that’s the message that this year’s field gets across.