Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety chief awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual contender. As other formal (and informal) polls suggest, competitions are fluid and subject to change based on buzz and events.
Predictions are updated every Thursday. 2027 Academy Awards Predictions Commentary All Categories (Updated: Sept. 10, 2026): The presumed best picture front-runner will not screen for another three months. The other one has been playing since July. And then there’s everything in between.
Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” opened in the summer and has not slipped an inch since. Neither felt any need to haul itself up to any of the festivals. The movies that actually turned up in Telluride are why the race reads differently this week than it did last.
Martin McDonagh’s “Wild Horse Nine,” with John Malkovich doing the loosest, meanest work of his late career, walked out of its first screening to the kind of ovation that puts him and the movie, squarely in the thick of the race. Searchlight has made this climb before, and they have their eye on the prize. Over at Focus Features, Simon Stone’s “Elsinore” handed Andrew Scott a showcase that the awards team can build a whole campaign around.
A24’s “The Debut” had the biggest applause at the fest, and now TIFF will digest it and see if it can go even further. No documentary has ever been nominated for best picture. Not saying there haven’t been worthy entrants such as “Hoop Dreams,” “Searching for Sugar Man” and dozens of others.
Across nearly a hundred years of this ceremony, the category has kept a wall between nonfiction and the top prize and that wall has never once come down. Enter Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s “You Can See Everything,” which surprised Telluride and took the town by storm. If the film holds through the fall, the 99th Academy Awards could hand a documentary feature the first pest picture nomination in Oscar history and A24 wants it.
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