The long voyage to the 2026 Primetime Emmy Awards received some serious wind in its sails this week. Nominations for the 78th ceremony blew in on Wednesday, generating waves of analysis pieces and snubs and surprises round-ups leading into Phase 2, which in turn leads to Emmy night on Sept. 14, where first-time host Mariska Hargitay will show us how it’s dun–dun.
But even as awards-spotters’ eyes were glued to the small screen, there were a couple of major splashes in the 2027 Oscar race in recent days. For starters, Gold Derby launched its Oscar predictions center ahead of the July 4 weekend, giving everyone an early snapshot of where support is trending. During that same timeframe, Universal held its first screenings of The Odyssey, and the epic reaction to Christopher Nolan‘s latest epic almost certainly fueled its near-instantaneous rise to the top of our Best Picture and Best Director rankings.
So it’s smooth sailing from here to Oscar night for Matt Damon and his all-star crew, right? Maybe hold your Trojan horses for a minute — there’s still time for this worm to turn.
Picture’s up
After the last fireworks had been fired and the last pints of potato salad consumed, the Monday sun rose — or, to put it in more Homeric language, early Dawn revealed her rose-red hands — with a Los Angeles-area Imax screening of The Odyssey populated by the town’s cinematic literati.
Gold Derby joined a theater filled with outlets like Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, The Ringer, and Esquire to witness the first showing since the film played for junket press the week prior. As had been previously reported, Universal forwent the influencer screenings that increasingly precede press previews as a way for studios to exert some control over that all-important social media buzz. (Although it should be noted that the junket crowd did include select influencers or, if you prefer, independent content creators with large social followings. Consider those slightly-over-their-skis initial reports a reflection of the blurred lines between legacy and new media in the modern movie journalism landscape.)
Naturally, anticipation levels in the room were high as the lights dimmed, giving it the feel of a World Cup match where we were all collectively rooting for Team Nolan to pull off that corner kick and score the latest in a long line of goals. And while the slightly choppy and crowded opening act had us nervously eyeing the sidelines for a yellow card, the director soon righted his ship and took us on a grand adventure that filled every inch of the massive Imax screen. Soaring praise for the film’s scale filled our ears as we surveyed the crowd after the credits rolled, which should make Nolan’s own heart take flight.
As the director recently told Gold Derby, The Odyssey represents the culmination of a nearly 50-year passion he’s had for the Imax format inspired by a childhood screening of the pioneering 1976 documentary To Fly! “There’s a kind of calm and authority to the way that we try and move the camera in The Odyssey that was really inspired by films like To Fly!” he noted. “We’re not trying to thrash it around too much; we want to have a stately feel to those shots. … There’s a trust in the Imax format, and a trust in the grandeur of the images that are unfolding in those films that we tried to retain.”
Whether The Odyssey retains its current Best Picture front-runner status as more viewers — and Oscar voters — see it in the weeks and months ahead is a whole other journey. But there’s precedent for that kind of staying power: Nolan’s three previous Best Picture nominees — Inception, Dunkirk, and Oppenheimer — all opened in mid-July and survived the onslaught of fall prestige pictures to end up in contention. And in the case of Oppenheimer, his Best Picture/Best Director wins were widely seen as inevitable even as awards season went through its motions minus any challengers that could match it for size and scope.
It would likely be game over, man, if that was the case with The Odyssey, too. But wait — there is another.
Best Picture
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10.
Muad’Denis
Two days after The Odyssey screening, Gold Derby genuflected before the God Emperor of the Dune cinematic franchise, Denis Villeneuve, at an event celebrating the latest trailer for the trilogy-capping installment, Dune: Part Three. The filmmaker was joined by his Swordmaster, Timothée Chalamet, recreating a tableau from the film’s previous public hype sessions.
That dynamic duo originally assembled immediately after the Oscars in March to plug the first trailer alongside Zendaya and Robert Pattinson. Villeneuve, Chalamet, and Zendaya appeared together again at CinemaCon in April where audiences were treated to the first seven minutes of the latest movie to be made from Frank Herbert’s seminal sci-fi novels. The opening sequence features Javier Bardem’s Freman commander Stilgar leading a desperate Saving Private Ryan-esque charge on a water world — not to be confused with the one where Kevin Costner’s urine-recycling Mariner hangs out.
During this most recent trailer event, Villeneuve revealed plans for another extended sequence drop. Moviegoers fortunate enough to score a hard-to-find Imax ticket for The Odyssey will get to preview a major Dune: Part Three battle scene set in the far future before venturing back in time to Nolan’s Ancient Greece. It’s the cinematic equivalent of Villeneuve doing a Jack Nicholson-as-the-Joker impression: “Wait’ll they get a load of me.”
The previous Dune installments boast a combined 15 Oscar nods, including a pair of Best Picture nominations — but crucially not Best Director. The thinking has long been that voters would take a page out of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings series, waiting until the final chapter to shower the sands of Arrakis, and Villeneuve himself, with Oscar gold. It’s no surprise that Chalamet explicitly drew that comparison at this week’s trailer event. “I’m a huge fan of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and I’m trying to imagine the last time someone knocked out three things so consecutively,” the actor said. “I’m just very grateful to Denis, and ‘In Denis we trust.'”
Dune: Part Three may not have the Middle-earth lane to itself, though. One of the reactions we heard over and over again coming out of The Odyssey was that Nolan had made his own Lord of the Rings, populating the screen with gods, monsters, and mystical heroes. With 10 slots to fill, Gold Derby oddsmakers see room for both spectacles in the Best Picture race, but Villeneuve is currently sitting outside of the Top 5 for Best Director, a nomination he’s only secured once before for 2016’s Arrival.
And he’s not the only filmmaker with a space odyssey in the race. Those Project Hail Mary boys Phil Lord and Chris Miller are hoping to ride that movie’s blockbuster status to their first-ever directing nomination. Villeneuve also has to deal with the trilogy fatigue that seems to have set in at the Oscars in the years since Return of the King swept the 2004 ceremony. In this past cycle, for example, Avatar: Fire and Ash notably failed to follow its two predecessors to a Best Picture berth.
That makes it all the more imperative that Dune: Part Three takes the battle directly to The Odyssey in the months leading up to its Dec. 18 release opposite the Marvel Studios commercial heavyweight Avengers: Doomsday. Look for the new Dune and The Odyssey to be this year’s answer to the One Battle After Another and Sinners duopoly that dominated last year’s Oscar cycle, particularly during the season’s first phase as they seek to be voters’ de facto Imax-sized spectacle of choice. We’d tell Villeneuve not to fear, but after three stints on that desert planet, he already knows that fear is the mind killer.
Best Director
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Christopher Nolan
The Odyssey
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Alejandro G. Inarritu
Digger
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Martin McDonagh
Wild Horse Nine
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Javier Ambrossi, Javier Calvo
La Bola Negra
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Denis Villeneuve
Dune: Part Three
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Phil Lord, Christopher Miller
Project Hail Mary
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Good hunting, Matt
Just as Nolan and Villeneuve are circling each other in the Best Director race, their leading men are stepping into the Best Actor gladiatorial arena. In one corner, we have Damon, a heavyweight Hollywood veteran looking for his third Best Actor nomination after previous nods for 1997’s Good Will Hunting and 2015’s The Martian, plus a Best Supporting Actor mention for 2009’s Invictus. (How he missed out on a nomination for The Talented Mr. Ripley — perhaps his very best performance — remains a mystery for the ages.)
And in this corner, we have Chalamet, the town’s star of the moment seeking his own fourth career nomination that started with 2017’s Call Me by Your Name and third consecutive nomination after back-to-back bids for 2024’s A Complete Unknown and 2025’s Marty Supreme. Funnily enough, Chalamet was born in 1995, the same year that Damon and Ben Affleck sold the Good Will Hunting screenplay that launched their stars into the stratosphere.
The connections don’t end there. Damon and Chalamet are both playing weary, battle-hardened leaders navigating a treacherous landscape and pining for the great loves of their lives — Hathaway and Zendaya, respectively — who are removed from them by distance (for Damon) or the demands of power (for Chalamet). They’re also both competing with Project Hail Mary‘s Ryan Gosling (who bridges their two generations as an early-aughts breakout performer) to lock down the designated movie star spot among the five Best Actor finalists.
And before you say there’s room for all three of them in the Top 5, no, there really isn’t. Not when you’ve got Tom Cruise set to launch a massive campaign for his transformative star turn in Digger, plus Sebastian Stan repping the art-house contingent with the Cannes-winning Fjord, and a bevy of industry-beloved character actors like John Turturro, Ian McKellen, and John Malkovich with showy late-career leading roles.
Having seen an extended clip of Malkovich’s Oscar vehicle, Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine, at CinemaCon, Gold Derby can confirm that the twice-nominated actor’s current No. 2 placement on the leaderboard is absolutely on target. And if the rest of his performance is on par with what we were shown, Cruise’s anticipated coronation could be in Malkovich’s line of fire.
Best Actor
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John Malkovich
Wild Horse Nine
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Ryan Gosling
Project Hail Mary
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John Turturro
The Only Living Pickpocket in New York
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Robert Pattinson
Primetime
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Jeremy Strong
The Social Reckoning
A(nne) to Z(endaya)
Meanwhile, keep one Cyclops-style eye out for whether Hathaway and Zendaya opt to go lead or supporting for their respective Odyssey and Dune roles. Right now, the Supporting Actress category is a more wide-open field to the point where we might see two actresses occupy four spots thanks to new Academy rules permitting multiple performances being recognized in the same category.
The biggest beneficiaries of that change are poised to be Penélope Cruz, who is gaining serious buzz for her supporting turns in The Invite and La Bola Negra, and Sandra Hüller who supports Cruise in Digger and Gosling in Project Hail Mary. Gold Derby’s odds are favoring Hathaway for now with a No. 2 finish in Supporting Actress, which reflects our take on her six-movie field this year. Since we haven’t heard a peep from Amazon MGM about the release status of Alone at Dawn — Ron Howard’s recently completed Afghanistan War drama that pairs Hathaway with Adam Driver — she could use The Odyssey to chart a course to her second Best Actress nod instead of competing for a second Best Supporting Actress statuette.
Best Supporting Actress
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Penelope Cruz
La Bola Negra
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Anne Hathaway
The Odyssey
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Mariana Di Girolamo
Wild Horse Nine
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Parker Posey
Wild Horse Nine
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Tao Okamoto
All of a Sudden
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Sandra Huller
Project Hail Mary
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Daisy Edgar-Jones
A Place in Hell
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As for Zendaya, Dune readers already know that the source material for the threequel holds some meaty material for her Fremen alter ego, Chani. Depending on the scope of her onscreen role, Dune: Part Three is the 2026 movie most likely to provide the Emmy-winning superstar with a Golden Path to a first-ever Oscar nomination in either the Best Supporting Actress or Best Actress race.
The early leaders in the latter category include the ubiquitous Hüller for her much-praised turn in the buzzy Cannes hit Fatherland; previous nominee Renate Reinsve as Stan’s Fjord counterpart; and returning category champ Julianne Moore for Jesse Eisenberg’s The Debut. That current field potentially allows Zendaya to represent Young Hollywood in the Best Actress race by claiming what’s come to be known as the Mikey Madison spot.
Then again, we may already have our Madison for the 2027 Oscar cycle in the form of Inde Navarrette, who rocketed to fame courtesy of her multi-layered starmaking performance in Curry Barker’s horror sensation, Obsession. While Focus Features hasn’t officially confirmed whether she’ll campaign as lead or supporting, the internet is already wishing hard for Navarrette to be crowned Best Actress, and our oddsmakers currently have her ranked at No. 3 on that leaderboard. She recently told Gold Derby that she’d love to have their wishes granted… without any of the messy side effects that happen in the movie.
“That’s everybody’s dream,” Navarrette said. “What makes me feel so proud is that I really, really love Nikki and I love that other people love Nikki. To be quite honest, that’s enough for me. But of course I would be lying to you if I said that that’s not a dream, and that it’s not extremely validating and makes my heart just swell. So, yeah, it’s an honor and it just makes me really excited.”
One thing’s for sure — this Oscar odyssey is only just beginning.
Best Actress
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Inde Navarrette
Obsession
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Michelle Williams
A Place in Hell
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Mikey Madison
The Social Reckoning
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Emily Blunt
Disclosure Day
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Virginie Efira
All of a Sudden
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Ruth Madeley
Being Heumann
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Daisy Edgar-Jones
Sense and Sensibility
— Additional reporting by Marcus Errico and Scott Huver
