A new YouGov survey on this year’s Oscar nominees for Best Picture finds that the movie Americans are most likely to say will win (and most likely to say should win) is “Sinners.”

19% of Americans think “Sinners” should win Best Picture and 17% say it will win. “Frankenstein” and "F1" are the next most common preferred winners (7% and 6%, respectively), but far behind "Sinners." Similar shares say these two movies will win Best Picture (6% and 5%, respectively). 4% say “One Battle After Another” should win and 7% expect it to win.

Public opinion about which movie will win Best Picture doesn’t always reflect what the Academy ultimately decides. In 2025, only 2% of Americans predicted "Anora" would win Best Picture. In 2024, 24% correctly guessed "Oppenheimer" would win.

The 2026 Best Picture contenders Americans are most likely to have seen are “Sinners” (28% have seen it) and “Frankenstein” (25%), followed by “F1” (14%), “One Battle After Another” (14%), and “The Secret Agent” (12%). No more than 8% have seen each of the other five nominees. About half (48%) of Americans say they’ve seen one or more of this year’s nominees. Between 20% and 29% say they haven't seen each of the nominees but want to see it.

60% have not seen “Marty Supreme” and don’t want to; 59% say the same about each of “Bugonia” and “Sentimental Value.”

Democrats are more likely than Republicans to have seen “Sinners” (37% vs. 23%). 28% of Democrats and 47% of Republicans say they haven't seen it and don’t want to.

As was the case in 2025 and in 2024, Americans who have seen each movie are more likely than the general population to say it should win Best Picture. 44% of Americans who have seen "Sinners" say it should win, compared with 19% of Americans overall. There is also a large gap between viewers and the general population on "F1" (29% vs. 6%).

Overwhelming majorities of Americans have positive opinions of the Best Picture nominees they’ve seen. Among people who saw “Sinners,” 56% loved it and 36% liked it.

This year’s survey also asked Americans what they thought of last year’s slate of Best Picture nominees. Public opinion has shifted slightly on several of the 2025 nominees, though the percentages who say they’ve seen these films has not changed much since February 2025. (The one exception is "Wicked," which 27% say they’ve seen; only 18% had seen it as of February 2025).

Americans are much more likely now than they were last year to say they love "A Complete Unknown" (51%, up from 39%). They’re less likely to say they love "Dune: Part 2" (43%, down from 53%).

A year from now, it seems likely that many Americans will not remember which movie won Best Picture at the 2026 Oscars. In 2026, only 10% correctly remember that “Anora” won Best Picture in 2025. About one-quarter guessed that it was one of the other nominees, and 66% say they are not sure. In February 2025, 58% were not sure which movie won Best Picture in 2024 and only 29% correctly remembered that it was “Oppenheimer.” And in 2024, only one-quarter (24%) of Americans correctly identified 2023's Best Picture winner as “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”

How many Americans will be tuning in to watch the Academy Awards on March 15? 31% of Americans say they’ll watch some (21%) or all (10%) of it. About half (52%) of Americans say they strongly or somewhat approve of the choice to have Conan O’Brien host the Oscars; 12% disapprove and 36% are not sure. (It's his second year in a row as host.) Among people who plan to watch the Oscars, 79% approve of the choice to have O’Brien host.

Related:

See the results for this YouGov survey

— Carl Bialik contributed to this article

Methodology: This article includes results from an online survey conducted on March 3 - 5, 2026 among 1,090 U.S. adult citizens. Respondents were selected from YouGov’s opt-in panel to be representative of adult U.S. citizens. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, 2024 presidential vote, 2020 election turnout and presidential vote, baseline party identification, and current voter registration status. 2024 presidential vote, at time of weighting, was estimated to be 48% Harris and 50% Trump. Demographic weighting targets come from the 2019 American Community Survey. Baseline party identification is the respondent’s most recent answer given around November 8, 2024, and is weighted to the estimated distribution at that time (31% Democratic, 33% Republican). The margin of error for the overall sample is approximately 4 percentage points.

Image: Getty (Monica Schipper / Staff)

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