With the 98th Academy Awards still a week away, the most revealing verdicts are not coming from critics or awards pundits. They are coming from people betting real money on the outcome.
On Polymarket, the world's largest prediction market, Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another sits at 75 cents on the dollar to win Best Picture, implying a 75% probability of victory.
Ryan Coogler's Sinners, which made history as the most-nominated film ever with 16 'nods', trails at just 22%. Every other contender, including Hamnet, Marty Supreme and Sentimental Value, has been reduced to a rounding error, trading at 1% or less.
Why prediction markets tend to get this right
The accuracy of these platforms on high-profile cultural events has become difficult to dismiss. Polymarket and its rival Kalshi, where over $9.5 million has been traded on Oscar outcomes this cycle, aggregate the views of thousands of informed participants who have a direct financial incentive to be correct. Unlike polls or pundit rankings, bad predictions cost money. That discipline tends to produce signals that track reality more closely than almost any other forecasting method.
For the Oscars specifically, the precursor trail that prediction markets absorb is formidable. Anderson won the Directors Guild Award, a prize that has correctly called the Best Picture winner 18 of the last 20 times. One Battle After Another also swept the Critics Choice and Golden Globe awards for Best Picture. No film in the modern era has won the National Board of Review, the Gotham Awards, the New York and Los Angeles critics circles, and the Golden Globes without ultimately taking home the top Oscar.
A race that was settled early
The sheer concentration of money behind one film reflects how quickly this race consolidated. Sinners dominated the nominations conversation, and the cultural weight of Coogler potentially becoming the first Black filmmaker to win Best Director was not lost on anyone. But by the time awards season reached its final stretch, the market had made its call.
Film critics covering the race broadly agree that while the two films have dominated conversation, "One Battle After Another" remains the frontrunner, with Anderson widely seen as a director the industry feels is overdue for recognition.
The envelopes open on March 15. The market, for now, has seen enough.
The 98th Academy Awards air live on ABC on Sunday, March 15, hosted by Conan O'Brien.