‘Sinners’ is Americans’ top pick for Best Picture at the 2026 Oscars

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.

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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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