It’s so soon after this year’s Oscars ceremony that there may still be parties going on and with Anora, a film largely set in the sauced early hours, being the big winner, they might be going on until next weekend.

But as foolish as it may seem, here we are making our annual too-soon predictions of who might be playing a part this time next year. Place your bets early but please don’t blame us come 2026 …

Jeremy Allen White

While Adrien Brody might have beaten Timothée Chalamet to the best actor Oscar, it was likely by a whisker with the latter having won the Screen Actors Guild award the Sunday before. Chalamet’s performance as Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown was the latest in a long line of music biopic transformations that sparked the interest of voters (previous winners have included Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury, Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles and Renée Zellweger as Judy Garland) and almost as if it were made to be released as part of a boxset, here comes the similarly pitched Bruce Springsteen version. The Bear’s awards magnet Jeremy Allen White will play the Boss in Deliver Me from Nowhere, also from Disney and also focused on just one short chapter in the singer’s life (the creation of 1982’s Nebraska). While White might not look all that much like Springsteen, there’s reason to assume big things: it comes from Scott Cooper, who previously directed Jeff Bridges to an Oscar in 2009’s Crazy Heart and co-stars the recent Oscar nominee Jeremy Strong as Jon Landau as well as the British favourite Stephen Graham as the musician’s father.

Julia Roberts

One-time winner and three-time nominee Julia Roberts hasn’t been in the awards conversation for over a decade but she’s already receiving early buzz for her work in After the Hunt, a provocative new #MeToo thriller from Luca Guadagnino. She’ll star as a college professor who has to grapple with the fallout from a sexual assault accusation made towards a colleague, played by Andrew Garfield. It’s been given a prime release date in October with murmurs of a Venice film festival premiere (Guadagnino has released Suspiria, Queer, A Bigger Splash, I Am Love and Bones and All there previously) and reactions from a recent test screening suggest it will be a major conversation-starter.

Regina Hall

There’s only one film in Paul Thomas Anderson’s credits that didn’t receive a single Oscar nomination – Punch-Drunk Love, unfairly I would add – so it’s safe to assume that whatever he makes, however low key it might be (even Licorice Pizza received a best picture nod), the Academy will take notice. His next is his unfathomably biggest to date, the $130m-budget chase comedy One Battle After Another, which releases everywhere, including Imax, this summer, an uncharacteristic gambit for the writer-director. He has recruited Oscar winners Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn and Benicio del Toro but also, most intriguingly, Regina Hall. The frequently underused comedic talent, best known for the Scary Movie and Best Man franchises, will play the female lead, reportedly the ex-love interest of Penn’s deranged white supremacist and new beau of DiCaprio’s lead, and while it’s been likened to the high-energy antics of Something Wild, after the success of Anora, another crowd-pleasing pursuit comedy, don’t count this out. Hall has long shown herself to be not just extremely funny but also extremely charming (check out 2018’s indie darling Support the Girls) so this could be the leveling up she deserves.

Colin Farrell

Colin Farrell was close to scoring his first win from his first ever Oscar nomination when he lost to The Whale’s Brendan Fraser in 2023 (he’d already won the Golden Globe) but in the time since, he’s become a surprise TV darling. For his performance in critically approved DC hit The Penguin, he’s won multiple awards and his charming onstage speeches may very well be a preview of what we could expect next year. He’s leading Netflix’s The Ballad of a Small Player, a Lawrence Osborne adaptation from Edward Berger, the German director of All Quiet on the Western Front and Conclave. His last two films have amassed a mammoth four wins and 13 nominations and his latest, about a gambler and a con artist which also stars Oscar winner Tilda Swinton, sounds like more may follow.

Spike Lee

While it’s possible that this could be closer to Inside Man, another genre collaboration for Spike Lee and Denzel Washington that was more of a commercial play (the 2006 thriller is Lee’s highest-grossing film), there’s reason to believe that Highest 2 Lowest could also be in the awards conversation. The A24 and Apple film is a loose remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 thriller High and Low, a crime story about wealth and morality, and while two-time winner and eight-time nominee Washington may figure into the best supporting actor category, it’s reportedly A$AP Rocky who is playing lead, the rapper coming off strong reviews for his endearing supporting turn in Sundance hit If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. A summer release could lead to a Cannes premiere and after a record showing for the festival at this year’s Oscars, that could lead all the way to the Dolby Theatre …

Amy Adams

Her role in the poorly received dark comedy Nightbitch might not have propelled her into this most recent Oscar race (although she did receive a Golden Globe nod) but with six Oscar nominations under her belt, Amy Adams remains a safe bet for more. She has two films that could be contenders this year, both from directors who have previously netted their female actors nominations. First it’s Taika Waititi’s adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s dystopian sci-fi novel Klara and the Sun, in which Adams will star alongside Jenna Ortega and Natasha Lyonne. Then there’s the more conventionally Oscar-friendly At the Sea, from Pieces of a Woman director Kornél Mundruczó, in which Adams will play a woman who has just left rehab.

Noah Baumbach

There are many reasons to be concerned about an auteur deciding to partner with Netflix but with 2019’s Marriage Story, Noah Baumbach’s sad and spiky divorce saga, we saw one of the upsides. The film, which despite the presence of Scarlett Johansson would have remained a boutique release elsewhere, was suddenly everywhere, the subject of countless gifs and memes but most importantly watched by millions. It also became Baumbach’s most rewarded film and after further recognition for his work on Barbie, he’s made his true follow-up, the star-studded comedy Jay Kelly. Like many of his best films, it’s described as a “heartbreaking comedy” about friends struggling to grow up and features one of the most exciting casts of the year – George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Jim Broadbent, Laura Dern, Billy Crudup, Riley Keough, Greta Gerwig, Patrick Wilson, Eve Hewson, Stacy Keach, Isla Fisher and co-writer Emily Mortimer. Baumbach doesn’t really miss and so this would seem like one of the surer things here.

Dwayne Johnson

It’s often when an A-lister’s star is truly on the wane that their most interesting gambles are made: think of Sandler delving deeper into his dark side in Uncut Gems or Jennifer Lopez reaching a new career high with Hustlers. Hoping for that same boost of late-career respect he has yet to be afforded, Dwayne Johnson is following his junky Amazon Christmas movie Red One with a role in the A24-backed MMA drama The Smashing Machine. Like Uncut Gems, it has at least one Safdie involved (this time just Benny as writer-director without brother Josh) and it follows the ups and downs of real-life fighter Mark Kerr, who struggled with a painkiller addiction. His Jungle Cruise co-star, and recent Oscar nominee, Emily Blunt, also stars. Johnson has said he is at the point in his career where he wants to “make films that matter” and while the Academy has turned its nose up at a number of recent loosely similar dramas (The Fire Inside and Unstoppable from last year), the Safdie of it all suggests something a little grittier.

Chloé Zhao

The groundbreaking victory of Chloé Zhao back in 2021, when she became the first woman of colour to win the best director Oscar for Nomadland, was dampened slightly with her follow-up, the drab Marvel dud Eternals, a depressing next step for someone who had so much more to offer. It’s likely we’ll be given a better idea of just what that might be with her next, an adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s award-winning novel Hamnet. It’s a fictional tale of Shakespeare and his wife following the death of their 11-year-old son, believed to have provided some inspiration for Hamlet. It stars Oscar nominees Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley and comes with Oscar winners Sam Mendes and Steven Spielberg as producers, pushing it to the very top of likely contenders.

Andrew Scott

He was cruelly ignored for All of Us Strangers (by the Baftas too, a criminal overlook) and his recent awards run for Ripley was overshadowed by both Richard Gadd and Colin Farrell, but Andrew Scott’s continued career ascendency still seems like it will include a Oscar nod along the way. It might come from his lead performance in the very awards-friendly package of Pressure, a British historical suspense drama from Working Title. Based on the acclaimed play by David Haig, it tells the story of Scott’s meteorologist, who must determine the feasibility of the weather for the planned D-day attack. The Australian director Anthony Maras knows a thing a two about suspense, having made 2018’s seat-edge thriller Hotel Mumbai, and knowing the Academy’s love for anything second world war, this could be a firm favourite.