2027 Oscars Predictions: Early Best Picture Race Frontrunners

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By TRH Entertainment Desk

Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” leads a crowded early field, with sci-fi epic “Project Hail Mary” close behind — but US awards trackers warn the race is far from settled

Mumbai, August 14, 2026 — The 2026-2027 awards season is barely underway, nominations are still five months out, and the industry’s prediction machine is already running at full speed. With the 99th Academy Awards set for March 14, 2027, US entertainment outlets are staking out early positions on who’s leading the Best Picture pack — and, as usual this early, the consensus is thinner than the hype suggests.

The Odyssey is the name everyone keeps coming back to. Christopher Nolan’s follow-up to his Best Picture and Best Director win is treated as the season’s presumptive frontrunner across the board. Variety’s awards team, in commentary updated in early August, frames the film as the buzziest of the season, positioning it alongside Steven Spielberg’s “Disclosure Day” as one of the fall’s marquee studio contenders. Awards Daily’s Sasha Stone went further, suggesting the film’s scale gives it a real shot at sweeping the industry’s precursor awards the way Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” once did.

Project Hail Mary is the closest thing to a genuine rival right now. A Substack tracker of the early race, “An Extremely Early Analysis of the 2027 Oscar Race,” names the sci-fi adaptation alongside “The Odyssey” as the season’s two clear frontrunners, with titles like “Obsession” and “The Invite” rounding out the current conversation.

Beyond those two, the field is wide open. Gold Derby notes that its Best Picture predictions center launched with nearly 70 potential contenders, a number the outlet says will be narrowed weekly as studios lock release dates and campaigns take shape. The Ringer’s early preview is similarly hedged, describing several of its picks — including Boots Riley’s latest and David Lowery’s “Mother Mary” — as long shots more likely to land on critics’ year-end lists than an actual nomination slate, while flagging Anne Hathaway’s supporting turn in “The Odyssey” as a possible acting nod to watch.

Key dates: Per Variety’s awards desk, the Oscars shortlist voting runs December 7-11, with nominations voting from January 11-15, 2027, and the official nominees announced January 21, 2027, ahead of the March 14 ceremony hosted by Conan O’Brien.

With five-plus months of festivals, fall releases and campaign spending still to come, US awards watchers are largely in agreement on one thing — it’s too soon to call anything but “The Odyssey” a lock, and even that comes with the usual caveat that Oscar seasons are won and lost in the details, not in August.

(This is an early-season predictions roundup and will be updated as the race develops through fall festivals and nominations voting.)