Sandra Hüller to Anne Hathaway and Zendaya: Hold my Oscar.
While both of those homegrown Hollywood stars are sitting atop the list of actors with multiple contending films opening in theaters during 2026, Hüller — a previous Best Actress nominee for 2023’s Anatomy of a Fall — is also booked and busy this year with four films that could return her to Oscar contention. The German actress kicked off the year by stealing scenes from Ryan Gosling in Amazon MGM’s blockbuster space odyssey Project Hail Mary and has a supporting role in another pricey movie star vehicle, Tom Cruise‘s Digger, set for release on Oct. 2.
In between those Hollywood productions, Hüller is also traveling the film festival circuit with a pair of black-and-white German-language period pieces that Mubi is taking on the road with an eye towards awards season berths. Markus Schleinzer’s Rose casts her as a medieval soldier, while Paweł Pawlikowski’s Fatherland advances the clock to 1949 for a Cold War-era father-daughter story.
Thanks to recent Oscar rules changes, actors can now be nominated in the same category for multiple films, which means that Hüller’s star turns in Rose and Fatherland could net her a pair of Best Actress nods. Meanwhile, the one-two punch of Project Hail Mary and Digger may deliver two shots at a Best Supporting Actress statuette.
Since we’ve already ranked Hathaway’s 2026 slate by Oscar potential and did the same for Zendaya as well, it’s time to give Hüller her due. Here’s our early take on where her four films will land in terms of proximity to the Oscar stage.
4. Digger
With months to go until its release, Cruise and his Digger director, two-time Oscar winner Alejandro González Iñárritu, have largely tried to keep an aura of mystery around their ambitious dark comedy. But the duo offered eager theater owners — and equally eager journalists — an early peek of the film at CinemaCon in April, screening roughly five minutes of footage that resembles a cross between Dr. Strangelove and Citizen Kane. Donning old-age makeup and a fake pot belly, Cruise plays an energy tycoon who causes a global catastrophe and then goes about trying to fix it armed with his trusty shovel.
While the CinemaCon reel included quick glimpses of co-stars like John Goodman — who plays the U.S. president that orders Digger to put things right — it notably keeps Hüller’s role under wraps, and the actress has heroically kept mum as well. That lack of detail makes Digger the wild card of the bunch, especially since the footage we did see makes it clear that this movie is very much a showcase for Cruise’s first non-action hero role in years, and its overall awards potential is likely rise or fall on the strength of his performance. (Not for nothing, but the footage also indicates that Iñárritu isn’t compromising his distinct auteurist vision despite the movie’s high price tag.) That means Hüller will either be swept along in Cruise’s wake or buried by an avalanche of mixed takes.
3. Rose
Let’s acknowledge off the top that Rose has a leg up over the competition due to the fact that it already earned its star some awards season hardware. The movie debuted at the Berlin Film Festival in February where Hüller picked up the Best Leading Performance statuette for playing the titular solider who settles down in a remote village after the Thirty Years’ War engulfed Europe and attempts to integrate into the community as a man. Early reviews have praised her performance, with The Hollywood Reporter‘s David Rooney writing: “Rose is another extraordinary showcase for her gifts and a master class in the art of acting with rigor, honesty, physicality and zero showiness.”
Rose has screened at other film festivals since Berlin — including Luxemborg and Hong Kong — though crucially not at Cannes, where Fatherland held center stage in the premieres-only competition lineup. Still, it’s easy to imagine Mubi programming it at one or more of the big fall destinations, particularly Toronto and New York, as a companion piece to its other Hüller period picture. For now, at least, Rose has a lower profile than her other contenders, but underdog status isn’t a bad thing. Just ask Olivia Colman.
2. Fatherland
Fatherland can also boast to being a festival circuit award winner, bringing Pawlikowski his second Cannes prize for Best Director after 2018’s Cold War. (Caveat: He shared this year’s win with Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, the directors behind the buzzy Netflix acquisition, The Black Ball.) It doesn’t hurt that the Polish auteur happens to be an established Academy Awards favorite, winning the Best International Feature statuette for 2015’s Ida and scoring a surprise Best Director nomination for Cold War in 2019 alongside Spike Lee and Alfonso Cuarón.
That track record gives Fatherland the edge over Rose as Hüller’s international Oscar vehicle at this stage in the game. And the largely sterling reviews off the Croisette for Hanns Zischler’s and Hüller’s double act as road-tripping author Thomas Mann and his daughter Erika, respectively, means the two of them will be hitting a lot of post-Cannes awards stops together. It’s always nice to have a traveling companion on the long road to Oscar night.
1. Project Hail Mary
While Project Hail Mary hasn’t made the leap from box office behemoth to Oscar contender yet, Amazon MGM is likely looking to make that Sinners-style pivot come the late summer. And when it comes, expect Hüller to be sitting alongside Gosling and directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller at the many, many FYC panels that will no doubt occupy L.A. and NYC event venues between September and January. The great Sinners pivot certainly benefitted Wunmi Mosaku, who ended up among the final five supporting actress contenders for her memorable role opposite eventual Best Actor winner Michael B. Jordan.
As the official tasked with enlisting Gosling’s science teacher to save Earth from a sun-starved apocalypse, Hüller provides a much-needed grounding force whenever the movie cuts away from the final frontier back to terra firma. She also scores one of the most crowd-pleasing moments in a movie that’s big on applause scenes — performing a karaoke cover of Harry Styles’ “Sign of the Times,” a track choice that Hüller has credited to her co-star. Expect voters to start singing Hüller’s tune as Project Hail Mary‘s Oscar ambitions take off in a few months.
