For much of the awards season, it appeared that Timothée Chalamet would take home the Oscar for Best Actor — but now, Michael B. Jordan is seemingly taking over.
Chalamet swept major wins along the way. In fact, the audience and critics treated his performance in Marty Supreme as the one to beat. However, after the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards, the story changed, and a result that surprised a lot of people has now pushed Michael B. Jordan’s name to the front of many prediction lists.
After SAG, Best Actor predictions now favor Michael B. Jordan over Timothée Chalamet for Oscars 2026
We are only a couple of days from the 2026 Academy Awards, and major outlets are aggressively trying to predict the winners. Vogue described SAG as the kind of late-season curveball that can change the mood of the entire Oscars race, especially with voting happening right now and Michael B. Jordan taking the lead ahead of Timothée Chalamet for Best Actor of this season.
At the ceremony, Jordan won the SAG best actor prize for Sinners, and the room’s reaction suggested actual support for him. Moreover, Vogue pointed out that SAG does not decide the Oscars, but the group’s decisions can often overlap with the Academy’s choices — at least enough for analysts to take the results seriously.
ELLE went further, reporting that betting markets and industry prediction sites have flipped in Jordan’s favor in the days since SAG. The outlet reports that Jordan now sits ahead of Chalamet across multiple trackers, with the gap depending on the platform, while noting that Chalamet still has major precursor wins on his side.
Even with that, SAG comes late, and it can shape the final conversation voters heed.
Jordan himself seemed surprised by the moment, telling the crowd, “I wasn’t expecting this at all,” during his SAG speech.
Meanwhile, The Washington Post published its own analysis, arguing that the Academy often rewards “turn-taking” in Best Actor, and suggesting that voters may have already passed on what could have been Chalamet’s obvious moment to win.
But the analyses are all speculative in nature — and with Oscar night nearing, predictions can still change. But right now, after SAG, many awards watchers see Michael B. Jordan as the candidate for Oscar’s Best Actor with the most momentum, and Timothée Chalamet as the star who might not take the Academy Award home in 2026.
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