While recent trends in Best Supporting Actress have leaned towards a clean sweep for the eventual Oscar winner, with Zoe Saldana for “Emilia Pérez” and Da’Vine Joy Randolph for “The Holdovers” taking every award respectively the last two years, this year is the opposite. The 2026 race has become one of the most fractured and unpredictable acting contests in recent memory, with three major contenders splitting the biggest awards of the season.
Amy Madigan has emerged as the most recent surge candidate thanks to her chilling performance as Aunt Gladys in “Weapons.” She won both the Critics’ Choice Award and the Actor Award for Best Supporting Actress, and has led the season in overall precursor wins, putting her firmly back into the center of the conversation.
But the race is hardly over. Teyana Taylor captured the Golden Globe for her role in Best Picture-nominee “One Battle After Another,” while Wunmi Mosaku triumphed at the BAFTAs for her turn in the season’s other strong Best Picture contender, “Sinners.” With three actresses, three major precursors, and three wildly different films, the category seems like a total toss-up.
The Actor Awards are often considered the most predictive precursor for acting categories, largely because of their voting body. Actors make up the largest branch of the Academy, and SAG’s membership overlaps heavily with Oscar voters. When actors choose a performance, it can indicate broad support among the very group that decides the Academy Awards.
Madigan’s Actor Awards victory, therefore, carries significant weight. Her performance in “Weapons” has been steadily gaining momentum throughout the season. Critics embraced it early, leading to a win at the Critics’ Choice Awards, but the Actor win confirms that fellow actors are responding to the work as well. In fact, many Academy members are telling us at Next Best Picture that she has votes from both younger and older demographics for different reasons: older voters are inclined to want to reward her for such a great career, and younger voters are more positively responding to the mainstream horror movie and the now iconic character of Aunt Gladys.
Still, Actor results rarely tell the whole story. While they reflect the preferences of actors, the Academy is ultimately a much larger and more diverse voting body that includes directors, writers, craftspeople, and international members. In recent years, especially, that broader electorate has occasionally diverged from their choices, especially if the film is not nominated for Best Picture (which “Weapons” isn’t) and the performance is not a sweep across Critics Choice, Golden Globe, BAFTA, and the Actor Awards, which Madigan also isn’t.
If the Actor Awards represent the actor’s branch, the BAFTAs increasingly reflect the Academy’s international expansion. The voting overlap between BAFTA and the Academy has grown significantly in the last decade, especially after both organizations expanded and diversified their memberships. Mosaku’s BAFTA win for “Sinners” therefore carries as much importance as Madigan’s Actor win. Her performance anchors the film’s emotional center, balancing the movie’s genre elements with a grounded dramatic presence that lovers of the film have really responded to. BAFTA voters embracing the performance suggests strong support among international members of the Academy, notoriously a group that has played an increasingly influential role in Oscar outcomes, and a group where it was predicted “Sinners” would be less strong with.
Just as importantly, “Sinners” won the Actor Award for Best Ensemble Cast. Even though Mosaku didn’t win the individual Best Supporting Actress prize, the ensemble victory signals major support for the film within the acting community. Ensemble wins often indicate that multiple performers from a film are resonating with actors, and that collective enthusiasm can carry into Oscar voting.
Meanwhile, Taylor’s Golden Globe win for “One Battle After Another” represents a different kind of momentum. The Globes are often the first major televised awards show of the season, and their winners can shape the early narrative around a race. However, with both the Actor Awards and BAFTA giving Best Supporting Actor to Sean Penn and embracing the movie overall, Taylor would’ve needed one of the two industry awards to solidify herself as a stronger contender compared to the others. Had she won either one of those prizes, we’d be predicting her to win the Oscar, no question. But she didn’t, and thus, we are where we are.
Looking at recent Oscar seasons reveals just how unpredictable split precursor races can be. In 2024, the Best Actress race between Emma Stone and Lily Gladstone divided many of the same award bodies. Gladstone won the Actor Award for “Killers of the Flower Moon,” while Stone won the BAFTA for “Poor Things.” When Oscar night arrived, Stone ultimately took the Academy Award, demonstrating that a BAFTA win can be just as powerful. The year before offered another example. In the 2023 Best Actress race, Michelle Yeoh won the Actor Award for “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” while Cate Blanchett had dominated many critics’ prizes and won the BAFTA for “Tár.” Yeoh ultimately won the Oscar, but the competition remained genuinely uncertain until the final votes were counted. Even in the most recent Best Actor race, the split persisted. Timothée Chalamet won the Actor Award for “A Complete Unknown,” while Adrien Brody claimed the BAFTA for “The Brutalist.” That division again showed how the two organizations can represent different constituencies within the larger Academy voting body.
Taken together, these races highlight a consistent pattern: when the Actor Awards and BAFTA diverge, neither award alone determines the eventual Oscar winner. Instead, the final outcome often depends on which performance can unite the broadest coalition of voters across different branches and regions. And, applying that logic to Best Supporting Actress, one thing is very clear: there is no obvious frontrunner. Madigan’s Actor victory shows strong support among actors, one of the Academy’s most powerful voting blocs. Mosaku’s BAFTA win demonstrates international appeal and critical respect, while the Actor Ensemble victory for “Sinners” reinforces the film’s strength with performers and as an overall film.
In times of previous splits like this, it’s notable that the stronger film tends to win. “The Brutalist” and “Poor Things” both won other Oscars and were considered top three films, while their competitors were not, and “Everything Everywhere All at Once” was the dominant sweeper. There’s no question that “Sinners” is the stronger movie compared to “Weapons,” even being competitive for Best Picture. “Weapons,” on the other hand, is a lone Oscar nominee for Madigan, and that’s it. You can talk all day about how you think it was close to a Best Picture or Best Original Screenplay nomination, but the fact is, it didn’t receive those nominations. Instead, the overwhelming love for Madigan’s performance (as indicated by her impressive precursor haul) could triumph against the passion felt for “Sinners,” as seen in the Actor Awards, where Michael B. Jordan took home the trophy but Mosaku didn’t.
No matter what happens, the race for Best Supporting Actress is wildly up in the air. It would be reasonable to predict either Mosaku or Madigan, both giving worthy performances that are strong in their own ways, while Taylor could still upset if “One Battle After Another” proves to be even stronger than most people believe. A win for Mosaku could prove the significance of BAFTA, the international body, and the stronger film theory, while a win for Madigan could prove the importance of the acting branch, critics’ passion, and a narrative for rewarding a respectful career that, even at this stage, is willing to take risks.
Who do you think is winning Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars? Please let us know in the comments section below and on our X account, click here here for the most recent tally of awards season winners, here for Next Best Picture’s precursor tracker, and here for our current Oscar predictions.
