Once I spoke to Delroy Lindo final week, I requested the “Sinners” star the way it felt to be the shock of Oscar nomination morning. He responded with a query of his personal.
“Why, in your thoughts, was I a shock?” he requested me. “That’s not a trick query. I’m curious when it comes to how the method rolls out and what your notion, as knowledgeable, as a journalist, your notion of that course of is.”
I need to admit, it was a scary option to begin an interview. I by no means wish to upset or offend somebody proper out of the gate. Whereas Lindo and I had a stunning dialog about his nomination and profession, I did fear I’d began us off on the incorrect foot.
However in journalism, it’s a must to give to get. I can’t ask somebody a query with out being prepared to reply certainly one of my very own. His was an excellent one, and I’d prefer to dig into it right here.
Earlier than we get began, you should definitely comply with me on my socials beneath for the most recent awards season protection.
The no-nomination nominees
I instructed Lindo the reality. I’m a stats nerd, and his nomination defied the percentages. He bought into Greatest Supporting Actor with out getting nominated on the Golden Globes, BAFTAs, Actor Awards or Critics Selection. Solely 5% of Greatest Supporting Actor nominees (and 4% of appearing nominees basically) this century achieved what Lindo achieved.
Being labeled a shock has nothing to do with high quality, I stated, or how a lot you “deserve” to be in a lineup. It’s merely an acknowledgement that one awards ceremony acknowledged someone the place others didn’t. When rubber stamping is the norm, divergence turns into sudden.
The final performer to do what Lindo did was Andrea Riseborough (“To Leslie”), whose grass-roots marketing campaign introduced her a Greatest Actress upset on nomination morning in 2023. Lengthy-shot nominees make the minimize each few years — on this yr’s case, making for a nice shock.
“It’s typically a self-fulfilling prophecy,” I instructed Lindo. “Individuals get swayed by narratives, they usually make up their thoughts early on: ‘Nicely, that is an Oscars factor, and this isn’t.’”
Lindo appeared happy, and we shortly pivoted to the joyous second that was his first Oscar nomination (in case you haven’t heard, his son bought to provide him the excellent news). However this dialog did get me fascinated about the character of surprises in awards season.
We love a shock
Our Awards Tracker works underneath the belief that these ceremonies are, figuratively, in dialog with each other. Critics Selection, the Golden Globes, the Actor Awards and the BAFTAs all find yourself having comparable nominees, and that offers us an concept of who’s getting an Oscar nomination.
However the prolonged awards season turns into reasonably tedious when ceremony after ceremony acknowledges the identical lineup. One of the crucial boring races this yr — at the least, on the nomination entrance — was really Greatest Supporting Actor, which for the longest time felt set in stone. Mescal, Elordi, Penn, del Toroand Skarsgård gave the impression to be locks, with names like Caton and Sandler often stepping in.
At its worst, that’s what awards season seems like: an extended march towards inevitability. No various style, simply repetitive coronation. A mixture of the anticipated and the unpredictable is most well-liked. One of many good issues concerning the BAFTAs and the WGA Awards final week was that they introduced in some recent nominees, even when they did announce their lineups post-Academy.
Seeing somebody like Lindo, who gave certainly one of my private favourite performances this yr, break right into a class that different organizations froze him out of breathed new life into the Supporting Actor lineup.
So right here’s to the very best shock to this point this season. Could others quickly comply with.
Sundance on the Oscars
No sooner did I return from Sundance 2026 than I used to be requested the age-old query: What’s going to be in subsequent yr’s Oscar lineup?
Hear, I really like way-too-early predictions as a lot as the following man. It may be good, innocent enjoyable to take a look at the stuff you love and fancast them as future nominees.
However predicting the correlation between Sundance films and awards season movies is a crapshoot at greatest and a idiot’s errand at worst.
Take a look at final yr’s slate. The most important contender on the 2026 Oscars that premiered at Sundance 2025 is “Practice Desires,” Clint Bentley’s gorgeous meditation on the passage of time.
I keep in mind listening to rave critiques about this movie all the best way again in Jan. 2025. However there have been a number of factors all through the season the place I wavered over what above-the-line recognition it will get.
Its eventual 4 nominations (Image, Tailored Screenplay, Cinematography and Unique Music) weren’t completely shocking, however it will be fairly arduous to guess even just some months again. I keep in mind some people at Sundance ’25 predicting that lead actor Joel Edgerton can be the one a part of “Practice Desires” to make it into the nominations. As a substitute, he was in all probability the movie’s largest omission.
One other massive Sundance inclusion this yr, Rose Byrne’s critically acclaimed efficiency in “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You,” carried her from a January ‘25 premiere to a January ’26 Greatest Actress nomination. Once I noticed the film ultimately yr’s pageant, the most typical factor I heard was “Rose is outstanding, however this film is simply too abrasive for Oscar voters.” I used to be inclined to agree.
Clearly, that’s not the case.
We even have “The Ugly Stepsister,” a physique horror spin on the Cinderella story, in Greatest Make-up & Hairstyling after its Sundance debut. The quantity of people that positioned this on their Oscar bingo card final January was precisely zero — but I’m delighted to see it cross the end line.
Earlier this week, I bought to talk with the make-up and hairstyling group, so be looking out for that interview in TheWrap’s remaining Oscars journal. They despatched me what I can solely describe because the grossest BTS images I’ve ever been given.
Your greatest wager when drawing Oscar predictions from Sundance will all the time be the documentary lineup. This yr, all 5 movies nominated for Greatest Documentary Function premiered at Sundance, with 9 of the 15 shortlisted docs popping out of the pageant.
We simply noticed two new documentary gross sales on Thursday: “The Final First: Winter K2” (purchased by Apple) and “As soon as Upon a Time in Harlem” (purchased by Neon).
Even then, final yr’s U.S. Documentary winner (“Seeds”) didn’t get the Oscar nomination, whereas the World Documentary winner (“Slicing By Rocks”) did. So perhaps “Nuisance Bear” and “To Maintain a Mountain” make it into subsequent yr’s lineup, however I wouldn’t precisely name it a secure wager this early on.
Beth of Araújo’s “Josephine,” one of many buzziest titles I noticed on the pageant, undeniably bought an enormous increase when it gained each the Grand Jury and Viewers prizes for the U.S. Dramatic Competitors. The final movie to attain this was Greatest Image winner “CODA,” and the one earlier than that was Greatest Image nominee “Minari.”
Nonetheless, remember the fact that some movies have gotten the double crown at Sundance with no single Oscar nomination to match. Ryan Coogler’s “Fruitvale Station” as soon as picked up the Grand Jury and Viewers prizes, and an Oscar nominee it isn’t.
