Oscars 2026: Why Timothée Chalamet took an L Best Actor T...

What’s Happening

Okay so Timothée Chalamet was the front runner for Best Actor for most of awards season, but the lead of Marty Supreme went home empty handed at the Oscars.

Movies Drama Movies Oscars 2026: Why Timothée Chalamet took an L Best Actor To Michael B. Jordan By Jeremy Smith 8:45 pm EST Paramount During Paul Thomas Anderson’s acceptance speech for Best Picture at the 98th Academy Awards, he marveled at the toweringly high quality of his fellow nominees, likening the group to the world-beater 1976 selection of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” “Nashville,” “Jaws,” “Barry Lyndon,” and “Dog Day Afternoon. (it feels like chaos)

Overall, 2025 was a terrific year for movies , and an outlier given how many of the year’s top films were big-budget originals from major studios.

The Details

, Paramount, and Netflix rolled the dice on bold new visions like “One Battle After Another,” “Sinners,” “Marty Supreme,” “Weapons,” and Guillermo del Toro’s challenging, sumptuously designed take on Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein. ” As such, every single category felt cutthroat, none more so than Best Actor.

Jordan, Leonardo DiCaprio, Wagner Moura, and Ethan Hawke were all richly deserving of the top prize. It was the kind of murderer’s-row lineup where the last performance you watched before voting could well be your top choice.

Why This Matters

Unsurprisingly, it turned out to be a rollercoaster of a campaign. At the outset, there were murmurs from voters that Hawke had real dark horse potential for his equal parts funny and sad portrayal of tortured 20th-century lyricist Lorenz Hart, but the race quickly turned into a three-way contest between Chalamet, Jordan, and DiCaprio. When DiCaprio took a low-key approach to seeking his second Best Actor Oscar, it seemed clear that it would all come down to Chalamet and Jordan.

This is exactly the kind of news that gets fans excited or concerned.

Key Takeaways

• When he took an L to Jordan, dropped observers scrambled for explanations.
• How did this enormously talented star come up short?
• Not for the reasons you might be thinking.

The Bottom Line

How did this enormously talented star come up short? Not for the reasons you might be thinking.

Is this a W or an L? You decide.