98th Academy Awards Oscars Shortlists Released

As the year comes to an end, the major entertainment awards ceremonies have released their nominations, except for the Oscars. However, they did release twelve Academy Awards Oscars shortlists, including those for soundtracks, animation, documentaries, and the new Casting category.

Please continue reading to learn more about the shortlists and when the Oscars will finally release their nomination lists.

Twenty Scores and Fifteen Songs Appear on Academy Awards Oscars Shortlists

We still must wait a month for the 2026 Oscar nominations, but at least we can now take a look at some of the short lists. That’s because the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released twelve of them yesterday, December 16, 2025.

These short lists include:

• Both Soundtrack Score and Song categories
• Both Feature and Short Documentary categories
• Both Live and Animated Short categories
• Cinematography
• Makeup and Hairstyling
• Sound
• Visual Effects
• International Feature
• The brand-new Casting category

The Oscars Shortlists are the winners of the second round of the Oscars race. These movies survived eligibility and are now moving on to the nominations round of voting.

As a film music enthusiast, I’m thrilled that the Academy graced us with both soundtrack categories. These are not the final nominations, but they show us where the entertainment is leaning.

Best Original Soundtrack Score Shortlist

For instance, twenty soundtracks are vying for Best Score, out of the 132 that were eligible. These albums also include some popular titles and genres. As such, we can presume that the Oscar will go to the soundtrack that truly deserved it.

For your convenience, here’s the short list in alphabetical order:

• Avatar: Fire and Ash
• Bugonia
• Captain America: Brave New World
• Diane Warren: Relentless
• F1
• Frankenstein
• Hamnet
• Hedda
• A House of Dynamite
• Jay Kelly
• Marty Supreme
• Nuremberg
• One Battle after Another
• Sinners
• Sirât
• Train Dreams
• Tron: Ares
• Truth and Treason
• Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
• Wicked: For Good

Best Original Soundtrack Song

However, Best Song is the more interesting of the music categories. Fifteen tracks (out of sixty-five) advanced to the nomination round, but only twelve soundtracks. That’s because Sinners and Wicked: For Good received two entries each. It also includes KPop Demon Hunters‘ “Golden”.

• “As Alive as You Need Me to Be” from Tron: Ares
• “Dear Me” from Diane Warren: Relentless
• “Dream As One” from Avatar: Fire and Ash
• “Drive” from F1
• “Dying To Live” from Billy Idol Should Be Dead
• “The Girl In the Bubble” from Wicked: For Good
• “Golden” from KPop Demon Hunters
• “Highest 2 Lowest” from Highest 2 Lowest
• “I Lied to You” from Sinners
• “Last Time (I Seen The Sun)” from Sinners
• “No Place Like Home” from Wicked: For Good
• “Our Love” from The Ballad of Wallis Island
• “Salt Then Sour Then Sweet” from Come See Me in the Good Light
• “Sweet Dreams of Joy” from Viva Verdi!
• “Train Dreams” from Train Dreams

Animation Academy Awards Oscar Shortlists

Along with the music categories, the 2026 Oscar short lists include several animation categories, but not Animated Feature. However, we do know the 35 films eligible for it, since the Academy released them back in November.

Best Animated Short Film

While we didn’t get the Animated Feature list, we did get the Animated Short one. The list features 15 shorts that survived the cut down from 113.

• Autokar
• Butterfly
• Cardboard
• Éiru
• Forevergreen
• The Girl Who Cried Pearls
• Hurikán
• I Died in Irpin
• The Night Boots
• Playing God
• The Quinta’s Ghost
• Retirement Plan
• The Shyness of Trees
• Snow Bear
• The Three Sisters

Best in Visual Effects

The Best Live-Action Visual Effects Category is the other animation shortlist the Academy Awards gave us. There are ten movies on the list, and they all seem to be a good fit for the award.

• Avatar: Fire and Ash
• The Electric State
• F1
• Frankenstein
• Jurassic World Rebirth
• The Lost Bus
• Sinners
• Superman
• Tron: Ares
• Wicked: For Good

Best Live-Action Short Academy Awards Oscar Shortlists

The Academy Awards only graced us with the short film lists this year. I understand that the feature lists are the big-name categories, and that the Oscars want to preserve their suspense. However, I feel that releasing at least one of them would improve the hype surrounding the whole event.

Either way, fifteen short films advanced to the Live-Action Short Film nomination round out of the 207 eligible films:

• Ado
• Amarela
• Beyond Silence
• The Boy with White Skin
• Butcher’s Stain
• Butterfly on a Wheel
• Dad’s Not Home
• Extremist
• A Friend of Dorothy
• Jane Austen’s Period Drama
• Pantyhose
• The Pearl Comb
• Rock, Paper, Scissors
• The Singers
• Two People Exchanging Saliva

Best International Feature Film Academy Award Oscar Shortlist

The Academy Awards released only two 2026 feature film category shortlists: international and documentary. In the International category, 15 films, representing 15 different countries, made it into the nominations round out of 86.

These films are:

• All That’s Left of You – from Jordon
• Belén – from Argentina
• Homebound – from India
• It Was Just an Accident – from France
• Late Shift – from Switzerland
• Left-Handed Girl – from Taiwan
• Kokuho – from Japan
• No Other Choice – from South Korea
• Palestine 36 – from Palestine
• The President’s Cake – from Iraq
• The Secret Agent – from Brazil
• Sentimental Value – from Norway
• Sirât – from Spain
• Sound of Falling – from Germany
• The Voice of Hind Rajab – from Tunisia

Documentary Academy Awards Oscar Shortlists

The final set of Academy Awards Oscar shortlists we have is for the documentary categories. These shortlists reflect the Academy’s level of taste and international scope. For instance, the films on the list use humor to address serious topics, rather than the celebrity faces of past Oscar winners.

Best Feature Documentary

15 out of 200 documentaries advanced to the nominations round in the Feature Documentary category:

• The Alabama Solution
• Apocalypse in the Tropics
• Coexistence, My Ass!
• Come See Me in the Good Light
• Cover-Up
• Cutting through Rocks
• Folktales
• Holding Liat
• Mr. Nobody against Putin
• Mistress Dispeller
• My Undesirable Friends: Part 1 – Last Air in Moscow
• The Perfect Neighbor
• Seeds
• 2000 Meters to Andriivka
• Yanuni

Best Short Documentary

There are also 15 documents vying for the  Short Documentary category out of 117:

• All the Empty Rooms
• All the Walls Came Down
• Armed Only with a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud
• Bad Hostage
• Cashing Out
• Chasing Time
• Children No More: “Were and Are Gone”
• Classroom 4
• The Devil Is Busy
• Heartbeat
• Last Days on Lake Trinity
• On Healing Land, Birds Perch
• Perfectly a Strangeness
• Rovina’s Choice
• We Were the Scenery

Other Revealed Academy Award Oscar Shortlists

The other Oscar shortlists for the 98th Academy Awards include four film production categories, both documentary categories, and the Live-Action Short and International Short categories.

Best Cinematography

16 movies advance to the Cinematography nomination round:

• Ballad of a Small Player
• Bugonia
• Die My Love
• F1
• Frankenstein
• Hamnet
• Marty Supreme
• Nouvelle Vague
• One Battle after Another
• Sentimental Value
• Sinners
• Sirât
• Song Sung Blue
• Sound of Falling
• Train Dreams
• Wicked: For Good

Best Sound Production

There are ten films up for Best Sound in 2025:

• Avatar: Fire and Ash
• F1
• Frankenstein
• Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
• One Battle after Another
• Sinners
• Sirât
• Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere
• Superman
• Wicked: For Good

Best Casting for a Movie

Casting is the Oscars’ newest category. It celebrates the movie with the most appropriate actors for its characters. Ten films are vying for it this year:

• Frankenstein
• Hamnet
• Marty Supreme
• One Battle after Another
• The Secret Agent
• Sentimental Value
• Sinners
• Sirât
• Weapons
• Wicked: For Good

Best Movie Makeup and Hairstyling

The Academy Awards advanced ten films to the Makeup and Hairstyling nomination round:

• The Alto Knights
• Frankenstein
• Kokuho
• Marty Supreme
• Nuremberg
• One Battle after Another
• Sinners
• The Smashing Machine
• The Ugly Stepsister
• Wicked: For Good

When Will We Get the Final Oscar Nominations?

The various Academy Awards divisions will vote for all 24 categories between January 12 and January 16, 2026. They will then release their final nomination lists on January 22, 2026.

After that, the 98^th Academy Awards will air live on ABC on Sunday, March 15, 2026. Conan O’Brien will return to host the event, which will be held at the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood in Los Angeles, California.

Who Do You Want to Win?

While it would have been nice to get all 24 shortlists, the 12 we got are certainly interesting. There’s something for everyone, and the entries look well-suited for their categories. So, who do you want to win an Oscar? Post your answer in the comments.