My Golden Globes 2026 predictions with the surprising dark horses everyone’s ignoring

The 2026 awards season is truly upon us now with Sunday’s Golden Globes signalling the start of the major movie prizes.

It’s also when things start to get spicy in terms of the performances and films that might be set to dominate the cycle – or dark horse upsets that throw predictions and odds out the window.

We’ve had an embarrassment of riches when it’s come to quality movies in the past 12 months, from blockbusters like Sinners, One Battle After Another and Wicked: For Good to emotional dramas like Hamnet and Train Dreams and stunning international features like It Was Just an Accident and Sentimental Value.

There’s also been the frenetic Marty Supreme, the radical Testament of Ann Lee and the knockout If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.

It’s truly been the year with something for everyone, where long-running favourites with audiences could be pipped to the post by something reaching its critical peak at just the right time.

So is this where Jessie Buckley and Timothée Chalamet begin their ascent to first-time Academy Award glory, or could the double categories reveal a fierce contender? Read on for my predictions and dark horses…

Best motion picture – drama

With the Golden Globes’ unique double movie categories, divided by genre, there is technically twice the chance to win.

But there is so much going on with this category! While Frankenstein’s moment has probably passed, Jacob Elordi still managed a surprise win for his performance as the creature in the film at the Critics’ Choice Awards.

Sentimental Value, It Was Just an Accident and The Secret Agent bring international prowess here too – and completely different flavours as films.

However, Hamnet has everyone weeping into their handkerchiefs at just the right time and there’s always room for another take on Shakespeare – especially when it’s adapted from a best-selling novel about his real-life grief.

The headline though is surely that Sinners and One Battle After Another, two movies that have sustained full-throated support from fans since April and September respectively, as well as critical praise across the board, are separated from each other – and it seems like everyone is rooting for Sinners to be shown some awards love.

Prediction: Sinners

Dark horse: Hamnet

Best motion picture – musical or comedy

The other side of the coin shows a similar story, with quality aplenty and director Richard Linklater enjoying a two-time appearance for his 2025 films Nouvelle Vague and Blue Moon.

While they are perhaps the underdogs, they are still worthy nominees, and it would have seemed bizarre back at Venice Film Festival to also be dismissing Yorgos Lanthimos’s delightfully odd Bugonia as a winning candidate.

Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice has been much admired as well, but it’s likely down to two movies, once again.

One Battle After Another won the battle at the Critics’ Choice Awards already (in one category, against nine other films), but if Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme taught us anything it’s that we should always keep an eye on the scrappy and ruthlessly ambitious underdog.

Prediction: One Battle After Another

Dark horse: Marty Supreme

Best director

While it’s a little odd not to have Linklater in here with his films double dipping in those categories, the rest of the list is all people helming those favourites.

We have Chloé Zhao for Hamnet, Ryan Coogler for Sinners, Paul Thomas Anderson for One Battle After Another and Joachim Trier for Sentimental Value.

There’s also recognition for Guillermo del Toro after he made this 30-year dream come true with Frankenstein, but I’m not sure it will go beyond that.

Jafar Panahi, who has served time in Iranian jail for his filmmaking, directed It Was Just an Accident to Palme D’Or victory and was sentenced last month in absentia to a further year in prison and a two-year travel ban by the Tehran Islamic Revolutionary Court. No one would quibble with a Golden Globe for him.

However, there’s a sense that this is Anderson’s year after being shut out of wins a lot over his career – he only received his first (and until now, sole) Golden Globe nomination for Licorice Pizza’s screenplay in 2022.

But if if it’s his to lose, it’s Coogler’s to win, another filmmaker who, while earlier in his career, has already had a huge impact on cinema with Black Panther and Creed previously.

Prediction: Paul Thomas Anderson

Dark horse: Ryan Coogler

Best female actor in a motion picture – drama

With 12 leading actresses in contention, the Golden Globes gets the chance to introduce more performances into the awards conversation – this time Tessa Thompson in Hedda and Eva Victor in Sorry, Baby.

They’re coming up against Renate Reinsve in Sentimental Value and Julia Roberts in After the Hunt, both of whom give towering performances in their respective films – although After the Hunt’s poor show at the box office won’t be helping Roberts any.

Jennifer Lawrence is the same in Die My Love which, although it hasn’t received as much praise as expected, could still see Lawrence break through due to the bold rawness of her character Grace, as she struggles with life as a new mother.

But as all the nominations and wins so far have seemed to suggest – and with the odds increasingly (and overwhelmingly) in her favour, this is surely a slam-dunk for Jessie Buckley.

It’s hard to put a co-star like Paul Mescal in the shade, but her joy, vulnerability and rage as Agnes, William Shakespeare’s wife, is quite something to behold.

Prediction: Jessie Buckley

Dark Horse: Jennifer Lawrence

Best performance by a male actor in a motion picture – drama

There are two massively hyped – and genuinely impressive – performances in splashy films here which, in another year, could have dominated. However they ended up running out of steam: Jeremy Allen White in Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere and Dwayne Johnson in The Smashing Machine.

These biopic turns could still break free without DiCaprio or Chalamet in the category, although the same is unlikely for Oscar Isaac, whose Frankenstein performance never really received the same awards conversation attention.

Wagner Moura won the best actor prize at Cannes for The Secret Agent, so has already proven himself on an international stage, but it’s unclear if he’d break through at an American awards show yet – despite potential Oscar buzz.

For me, this is the moment Michael B. Jordan is recognised for pulling double duty as twins Smoke and Stack in the wildly popular vampire musical drama Sinners – but a beautifully nuanced and interior turn from Joel Edgerton in Train Dreams could upset the apple cart. As a Netflix film already streaming, it’s certainly one of the most accessible.

Prediction: Michael B. Jordan

Dark horse: Joel Edgerton

Best female actor in a motion picture – musical or comedy

This category hurts because every performance has so much to commend it, so it becomes more about the facts.

Chase Infiniti was brilliant in One Battle After Another, her film debut, but as a first-timer there will likely be the sense that there’s plenty more to come from her and therefore other chances to win.

Emma Stone was also wonderful in Bugonia – and as a much darker, unlikable character – but she’s now a regular on the awards season circuit (this is her tenth Golden Globe nomination, and she won most recently in 2024 for Poor Things) so she’ll almost certainly come around again.

Amanda Seyfried’s astounding turn in The Testament of Ann Lee is getting less attention that I expected, and it’s one of my personal favourites, but with the film struggling to break through for filmmaker Mona Fastvold in the same way The Brutalist did for her partner Brady Corbet, it may be too late now for Seyfried.

Cynthia Erivo stepped it up a notch in Wicked: For Good, because apparently that was still possible, but as her snubs from both the Critics’ Choice Awards and SAG’s newly-renamed Actor Awards may have indicated, the obsession is perhaps drying up a little with the sequel.

For sentimental reasons, Hudson is a true contender here after Song Sung Blue delivered her the best part she’s had in years, offering her the chance to properly demonstrate both musical and emotional range with the drama.

But If I Had Legs I’d Kick you is Rose Byrne’s best-ever part, truly showcasing her to audiences and the range she’s capable of like never before in a very brave and darkly entertaining film. This will propel her into the A-List leagues.

Prediction: Rose Byrne

Dark horse: Kate Hudson

Best male actor in a motion picture – musical or comedy

It will be hard for Lee Byung-Hun to break through here no matter how integral to No Other Choice’s success his performance is as there are so many performers getting their most juicy roles in years – like George Clooney in Noah Baumbach’s industry-set dramedy Jay Kelly.

Jesse Plemons isn’t an actor to rule out easily as I’d argue he outshone Emma Stone in Bugonia as an unhinged but truly dedicated conspiracy theorist – but I think this category really comes down to the matter of Leonardo DiCaprio and Timothée Chalamet.

As well as both giving exceptional performances in One Battle After Another and Marty Supreme that show off an impressive stamina, they are also each a matinee idol for two separate generations, and both back up their heartthrob status with major acting chops. Remarkably, it’s DiCaprio’s 15th Golden Globe acting nomination – and already Chalamet’s fifth – but the momentum behind each is so convincing it’s hard to pick.

But in case they split the vote, my wild card winner is Ethan Hawke, the energy of whose mesmerising performance as alcoholic lyricist Lorenz Hart in Blue Moon powers the whole film, reminding you he boasts true thespian prowess.

This is his third Golden Globe nomination but he’s still yet to win one of the major screen acting awards, which voters may be inclined to fix this year.

Prediction: Timothée Chalamet/Leonardo DiCaprio

Dark horse: Ethan Hawke

Best female actor in a supporting role in any motion picture

The Golden Globes could show us 2026 is actually Amy Madigan’s season for success after her surprise win at the Critics’ Choice Awards for her turn in Weapons – but I’m inclined to look elsewhere.

Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas is fabulous in Sentimental Value but realistically has less chance than her co-stars at victory – and would probably lose to Elle Fanning in this category with an American audience.

The Smashing Machine never got where it hoped in terms of awards season legitimacy after flopping at the box office – and while Emily Blunt is great, she was there to help support Dwayne Johnson’s transition to prestige drama; it’s not an award-winning kind of role.

As with co-star Erivo, Ariana Grande soared to new heights as Glinda in Wicked: For Good and might be the one place where the magic is still there for the movie. Her acting was exceptional and the emotional arc of her character deeper, with Grande still refusing to rest on her laurels – if she wins, she truly worked for it.

Otherwise, Teyana Taylor devoured the screen in One Battle After Another, more than holding her own against a trio of male movie stars decades more experienced than her and in a freshly fierce role as complex revolutionary leader Perfidia Beverly Hills.

Prediction: Ariana Grande

Dark horse: Teyana Taylor

Best male actor in a supporting role in any motion picture

As is always the risk when co-stars share a category, Benicio del Toro and Sean Penn could split the vote here for One Battle After Another although their performances are at opposite ends of the dramatic spectrum.

Elordi’s previous surprise win means he shouldn’t be completely dismissed either, although I would have done so previously, while post-Venice I would have seen Adam Sandler as a favourite given his quietly accomplished work in Jay Kelly.

But Paul Mescal is the one I think might triumph if Hamnet fever properly takes hold, with his gorgeously natural and free acting as William Shakespeare a glorious support to co-star Buckley – but watch out for Stellan Skarsgård, whose name has been on lips since Sentimental Value’s Cannes premiere.

The 74-year-old also put in a good shift on the publicity circuit, so it may merely rest on enough people having seen it.

Prediction: Paul Mescal

Dark horse: Stellan Skarsgård

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