Now we’re all anxiously seeing how this 2025-26 award season will finish. Normally, the Oscars would be held sometime in the month of February. But this year, the Oscars decided to hold their ceremony on March 15 (which doesn’t seem like the smartest idea, in my opinion). Besides the point, this awards season has been very much up and down for me. After the unfortunate events at the BAFTAs, I was honestly thinking about skipping the Actor Awards. At the same time, I wanted to watch to see if any of the wins from the night would change my predictions for the Oscars. Let me tell you, it did exactly that. The Actor Awards were held on March 1 and streamed live on Netflix. To my surprise and enthusiasm, I was so happy to see some of the wins from the Actor Awards, and I hope those wins will carry over to the Oscars.
If you aren’t aware, the Actor Awards are an esteemed awards show presented by the guild SAG-AFTRA. This is to honor outstanding performances within film and television. The one difference is that this award show is voted on by peers or other members of the SAG guild. From this, like the BAFTAs, this award show is an influential key for Oscar voters. While it is named the Actor Awards, it was initially titled the SAG Awards, or the Screen Actors Guild Awards. Although on March 1, it was announced that the SAG Awards will now be called the Actor Awards. I think this decision doesn’t really make any sense, and even now, Oscars voters and audiences still call it the SAG Awards. Besides that, the key idea is that the SAG Awards are a major predictor for the awards season because they overlap with the Oscars’ voting deadline.
Now that you understand the history behind the awards, I wanted to talk about my favorite wins and the ones that have shaken the Oscars predictions for this year. One special win I wanted to talk about was Catherine O’Hara’s for Best Performance in a Comedy Series for her role on The Studio. Unfortunately, O’Hara passed away in late January, and just seeing her name on the screen made me tear up a bit. Not only that, but Seth Rogan’s speech honoring her was just so heartwarming and saddening to hear. O’Hara was one of the most amazing actresses of all time, and hearing her name called up for the award was so sorrowful. On the bright side, I’m happy she got a standing ovation when her name was announced. My second-favorite win of the night was the cast of Sinners winning Best Cast in a Motion Picture. This win is equivalent to the Best Picture win at the Oscars, so it could wake up some Oscar voters and change their picks to Sinners, since that film deserves the win.
Now, the win that most people have probably predicted that I was going to write about. The deserved win of Michael B. Jordan for Male Actor in a Leading Role for his performance as Smoke and Stack in Sinners. I’m pretty sure you already know what I’m going to be saying at this point: he deserved the win. Especially with the other competition that he is going up against this year, it was so saddening to see him kind of being shunned from awards for his performance. For those who haven’t yet watched Sinners (which is insane, go watch right now), Jordan doesn’t only just play one role, he plays twins. That’s right, he plays twins — the same person, acting as two different people. Even when watching the film, though it’s the same actor, it got me thinking that it had to be someone else who looked exactly like him, but no, it was Jordan just being an amazing actor. What I really loved about the win was that it was none other than the incredible Viola Davis presenting the award. Her reaction when she opened the envelope let me know that it was Jordan who won the award. Not only that, but after hearing the cheers and screams of the audience when his name was announced, you cannot tell me that he doesn’t deserve the win, and Sinners doesn’t deserve Best Picture.
All in all, I really am ecstatic for the wins and appreciation that Sinners is getting. Being the most-loved movie of 2025 is one thing, but becoming the most-nominated film in Oscars history is on another level. Hopefully, this movie will take home some of the Oscars it’s nominated for.