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2027’s awards season race, though, promises to be even better for fans of genre fare, particularly Sci-Fi and fantasy. There were some of the former this year – alongside Frankenstein, Bugonia also had several nominations – though not much of the latter, but both should be very well represented. At the forefront of that is Christopher Nolan’s fantasy epic, The Odyssey, which, while it’s also going to be a summer blockbuster, looks like being one of the major players when the awards are handed out next year.
Which Sci-Fi & Fantasy Movies Could Be In The Oscars 2027 Race?
The Odyssey is likely to be a major contender in the biggest categories and the below-the-line ones: it has a stacked cast, a director coming off a major Oscar-winning film in Oppenheimer, and, like most Nolan movies, it should be an incredible technical achievement. Because of that, at this early stage, it has a good shot at being the most nominated movie at the 2027 Oscars.
A film that could threaten that is Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Three. The franchise has already won several Oscars – the first movie won six, the second picked up two – but the third is the conclusion to the saga, which could position it for some bigger recognition. While both movies so far received Best Picture nominations, they were mostly limited to below-the-line categories (the first did get an Adapted Screenplay nod). Most egregiously, Villeneuve hasn’t been nominated for Best Director for his work on the saga, so it’ll be interesting to see if that changes, and whether Timothée Chalamet can keep up his run of acting nominations.
It would be unfair to expect this to complete a The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King style sweep, where it won 11 awards partly because the Academy hadn’t probably recognized it up until then (indeed, the numbers through two movies are similar to Dune). The material will get a little weirder, which might count against it, and, ROTK aside, sequels do often face an uphill battle in awards season, but it should at least get a lot of nominations, and hopefully break through into some of those bigger categories.
Besides those two, which are two of the year’s heaviest hitters, there are a few others from the Sci-Fi and fantasy landscape that should be in the mix. Project Hail Mary‘s reviews have firmly established it as a masterpiece. The Martian (which is based on a book by the same author, Andy Weir, and has the same screenwriter in Drew Goddard) might be a good gauge of its chances: it received seven nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Adapted Screenplay. Something similar wouldn’t be shocking for Hail Mary.
A little harder to predict, but still worth mentioning, are Disclosure Day and Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew. Even after multiple trailers, there’s a sense of mystery around the former, which is Steven Spielberg’s big return to science fiction. Spielberg’s name alone will put him in the conversation, and if it lands, it should at least pick up a few nods: his two most recent movies, West Side Story and The Fabelmans, both received seven nominations. Similar is true for Gerwig. Her three movies as a director, Lady Bird, Little Women, and Barbie, have 19 Oscar nominations between them, and all were Best Picture nominees.
