There’s Odds-on Favourites Galore at the 98th Academy Awards

by Roy Brindley, 23 January 2026

There are 21 odds-on favourites within the 24 Academy Awards categories. Where will the 2026 Oscar upsets come from?

The stage is set, and the bookmakers are ready, for the 98th Academy Awards. © Getty Images

Key Facts:

• Nominations in all 24 categories for the 98th Academy Awards have been revealed.
• Sinners, a horror movie set in the 1930s, has garnered 16 Oscar nominations.
• Almost every Oscar category features an odds-on betting favourite.
• Sentimental Value’s Stellan Skarsgård is the bet selection for the ‘Best Supporting Actor’.

During a live presentation from the Samuel Goldwyn Theatre in Los Angeles, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences unveiled the nominees in all 24 categories for the 98th Academy Awards on Thursday.

Honouring the films released in 2025, the awards ceremony will take place on March 15, 2026, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California. Despite the two-month wait, online betting sites had every award category priced up within hours.

From the brand-new ‘Academy Award for Achievement in Casting’ to the showpiece’ Academy Award for Best Picture’, Ladbrokes and other UK bookmakers are now offering odds about the destination of all 24 Oscar statues.

‘Sinners’ Is in for One Big Battle

This year, in the ‘Best Picture’ category, 201 feature films were eligible for consideration. That number has been whittled down to a shortlist of 10. ‘Best Picture’ is the only award category that features 10 nominees. All other awards have just five nominations.

Nevertheless, the ‘Best Picture’ betting market features a long odds-on favourite: the big-budget American black comedy action thriller One Battle After Another.It stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn.

One Battle After Another has earned 13 Oscar nominations, three less than its chief rival, Sinners, a horror movie set in the 1930s that has taken four times its $100 million production cost at the box office.

Frankenstein, Marty Supreme, and Sentimental Value have garnered eight Oscar nominations. Hamlet has seven, and no other film has more than four. Punters need to be aware that a numerically strong representation does not guarantee success.

At the 95th Academy Awards, The Banshees of Inisherin and Elvis had a combined 17 nominations. They were favourites to collect Oscars in several categories but failed completely – underlining the precarious nature of awards betting.

An Oscars Stacked With Odds-on Favourites

If 2026’s betting is to be believed, the destination of most of this year’s Academy Awards is a mere formality. The 2026 Oscars betting markets are stacked with favourites trading at prohibitive odds.

Shortest Priced Academy Award Contenders

• Best Original Score: 1/25 Sinners
• Best Original Song: 1/25 Golden (KPop Demon Hunters)
• Best Visual Effects: 1/25 Avatar: Fire and Ash
• Best Adapted Screenplay: 1/20 One Battle After Another (Paul Thomas Anderson)
• Best Director: 1/20 Paul Thomas Anderson (One Battle After Another)
• Best Costume Design: 1/20 Frankenstein
• Best Makeup and Hairstyling: 1/16 Frankenstein
• Best Actress: 1/16 Jessie Buckley (Hamnet)

Short Priced Academy Award Contenders

• Best Animated Feature Film: 1/10 KPop Demon Hunters
• Best Production Design: 1/8 Frankenstein
• Best Sound: 1/6 F1
• Best Actor: 1/5 Timothée Chalamet (Marty Supreme)
• Best Picture: 1/5 One Battle After Another
• Best Documentary Feature Film: 1/4 The Perfect Neighbour
• Best Original Screenplay: 2/7 Sinners (Ryan Coogler)
• Best Film Editing: 1/3 One Battle After Another (Andy Jurgensen)

Odds On Academy Award Contenders

• Best Casting: 4/11 Sinners (Francine Maisler)
• Best Supporting Actress: 8/15 Teyana Taylor (One Battle After Another)
• Best International Feature Film: 4/7 Sentimental Value
• Best Cinematography: 4/6 Sinners
• Best Supporting Actor: 5/6 Stellan Skarsgård (Sentimental Value)

Sentimental Value Is a Value Bet

Over 20 odds-on favourites amongst 24 ‘races’ makes the 2026 Oscars initially appear an unattractive betting medium. Interestingly, the film favoured to win the ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Director’ Oscars, One Battle After Another, is unfancied in the ‘Best Actor’ or ‘Best Actress’ categories.

The betting suggests Frankensten has the best chance of collecting three or more Oscars. Sentimental Value could also claim a trio of awards if one of its two candidates in the ‘Best Supporting Actress’ category can upset the odds.

Sentimental Value is a low-budget ($8 million) Norwegian production that is not primarily English-speaking, making it the type of film that has fared exceptionally well from a limited representation at the recent Academy Awards.

Nominated for eight Golden Globes, its veteran actor, Stellan Skarsgård, won the ‘Best Supporting Actor’ award at the start of the year. It is a key piece of form, as the last three Golden Globe ‘Best Supporting Actor’ winners have doubled up at the Oscars: Kieran Culkin (2025), Robert Downey Jr. (2024), and Ke Huy Quan (2023).

Stellan Skarsgård may be 5/6 to claim the corresponding Oscar, but given the number of extremely short odds-on shots, he looks the best proposition in the early Oscars betting. Furthermore, with Academy Award voting not opening until February 26 (and closing on March 5), there is plenty of time for the price to drift out to odds-against.