Here is Cinephile Corner’s ranking of every 2026 Best Picture Oscar nominated movie:
10. Frankenstein
Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein hews closely to Mary Shelley, for better and for worse. It is a long running passion project, and it makes sense that he resists drastic changes to a story that already matches his gothic sensibility. After the more adventurous reworkings of Nightmare Alley, Pinocchio, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon lineage in The Shape of Water, this feels cautious. The craft is elegant, the discoveries are limited.
9. Bugonia
Whether Bugonia “counts” as an alien film is part of the gag, and I will not spoil that. What matters is that Yorgos Lanthimos uses the premise to pry at paranoia, credulity, and the way hurt curdles into certainty. The first half plays a little too straight, the second half finally swings. I liked this space for him more than his recent detours, even if the result lands in the middle of the pack.
8. Sentimental Value
Joachim Trier has earned enough goodwill at this point that even his “minor” films arrive with a sort of built-in reverence, especially after The Worst Person in the World became such an instant modern staple. Sentimental Value is a very different kind of Trier movie: less messy, less slippery, more refined, and more self-conscious about its own prestige. I liked it more the second time around, mostly because the first viewing had me fighting the weight of its reputation. It premiered in competition at Cannes with a lot of immediate hype swirling around it, and you can feel that aura baked into the framing.
7. Hamnet
Hamnet is uneven, sometimes too tidy and sometimes too hushed, yet it closes with a knockout. Jessie Buckley gives a performance that reframes everything around it, and Paul Mescal matches her once the material lets him. The last act is worth the price of admission on its own, a clean and crushing argument for how art can hold the unsayable.
6. F1
F1 The Movie is not in the same league as Top Gun: Maverick or Only the Brave, but it’s a clear step above Joseph Kosinski’s more uneven efforts like Tron: Legacy or Oblivion. It’s a little formulaic, a bit heavy-handed with its exposition, and sometimes hampered by one-note supporting characters. But when it’s in motion – when the cars are screaming down straights, weaving through chicanes, and risking it all on the final lap – it’s exactly the kind of summer movie spectacle we don’t get enough of anymore. Not a podium finish, but definitely worthy of a strong showing in the points.
5. Train Dreams
Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar keep their hot streak going with Train Dreams, a frontier drama that does not chase incident so much as it chases mood. Their collaboration on Sing Sing showed how closely they can align image and feeling, and that carries over here. The new film is not a thematic follow up, but tonally and visually it feels of a piece, quiet and attentive, full of shots that guide emotion rather than announce themselves.
4. Sinners
Ryan Coogler has made something rare with Sinners: a horror film with bite, brains, and soul. It’s a film that’s as entertaining as it is thoughtful, never content to just scare its audience without giving them something to chew on. Michael B. Jordan gives a career-high performance as twin gangsters returning to their former lives in the South.
3. Marty Supreme
Marty Supreme is Josh Safdie working at his widest canvas, a 1950s period piece about a showman who can sell anything until he sells himself short. Marty Mauser, played by Timothée Chalamet, is a ping pong phenom, a sneaker salesman for his uncle, a serial charmer who glides from city to city on other people’s dimes. The world fits neatly in his palm until it does not. Safdie’s favorite subject has always been appetite colliding with reality, and this time the arc is bookended by matches that frame a life lived at match point.
2. The Secret Agent
The Secret Agent is not tidy. It leaves loose ends. It makes choices that are more interested in texture than clarity. But the payoff is a crime epic that feels rare in the current landscape, both serious and fun, both angry and seductive, both propulsive and reflective. Kleber Mendonça Filho turns political rot into genre electricity, and Wagner Moura anchors it with one of the best leading roles this decade. It is one of the most engaging films I have seen in years, the kind of thriller that gives you images you will carry around long after it’s over.
1. One Battle After Another
Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another is a movie of firsts that never feels tentative. It is his first modern-set feature since Punch-Drunk Love, his first collaboration with Leonardo DiCaprio, and his first film of this scale, reportedly in the $130 to $175 million range. What is not new is the command. From the first explosion to the last chase, this is PTA in full control, turning a feverish political thriller into one of 2025’s most purely thrilling big-screen experiences.
READ MORE: 50 Best Movies of 2025, Last 10 Best Picture Winners Ranked
