Every Oscar-nominated Netflix movie to watch before the 2026 Academy Awards

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Every Oscar-nominated Netflix movie to watch before the 2026 Academy Awards

The 2026 Oscars are rapidly approaching, and the most critically acclaimed films will be competing in 24 categories, which encompass acting, technical, and creative disciplines.

At the 98th Academy Awards, six Netflix films received nominations across several categories, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Original Song. Here are the Netflix nominees to check out before the Oscars and the awards they are up for.

Train Dreams

This period drama is one for the ages

Based on Denis Johnson’s 2011 novella, Train Dreams is about a logger and railroad worker, Robert Grainier (Warrior’s Joel Edgerton), whose work involves building the nation’s expanding railroad empire during the 20th century. This takes him away from home and his wife, Gladys (The Theory of Everything’s Felicity Jones), and their child. The movie shows the passage of time as Robert discovers the meaning of loss and love while grappling with his role in a changing world.

Train Dreams has been nominated for four Academy Awards:

Best Picture
Best Adapted Screenplay
Best Cinematography
Best Original Song

KPop Demon Hunters

Ride the Hallyu Wave with Huntrix

The most-watched Netflix movie of all time, KPop Demon Hunters, has been at the forefront of award season, sweeping several awards, including a Grammy. Now, the Sony Pictures-Netflix animation is in the Oscars mix for both its music and animation.

Heavily inspired by real-life K-pop groups and their iconic discography, this musical film follows the journey of Huntrix, a K-pop girl group tasked with keeping the world safe from demons and their leader, Gwi-ma, by sealing a barrier that keeps demons at bay through their performances. Threatened by impending doom, Gwi-ma deploys an effective strategy to combat Huntrix: a heart-throb boy group that literally and figuratively steals their fans’ souls.

KPop Demon Hunters is nominated for two Academy Awards—Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song (Golden).

The Singers

Get ready for a musical showdown

An entertaining and short watch to tune into before the Oscars this weekend is The Singers, a short musical comedy film that was released on Netflix in February after the platform acquired the global streaming rights in January.

Based on a 19th-century Russian story by Ivan Turgenev, it depicts an improvised pub sing-off in a blue-collar bar. When a bothersome construction worker pesters other patrons, the bartender challenges him to have a sing-off with an old regular at the bar, later extending the competition to the whole bar, with the winner being promised free drinks and a hundred dollars.

The Singers is nominated in the Best Live Action Short Film category.

The Perfect Neighbor

A true story that has you on the edge of your seat

One of the best true-crime films on Netflix that has been praised for its gripping storytelling is The Perfect Neighbor, which marks one of two Netflix documentary nominations at the Academy Awards this year. The documentary follows the events that led to the murder of Ajike Owens in Florida, who was shot by Susan Lorincz. The Perfect Neighbor tracks Susan’s incremental harassment of her neighborhood’s residents and how this escalates into a murder. Bodycam footage and investigative interviews are used throughout the docufilm to weave together the story behind the horrific crime.

The Perfect Neighbor has earned a nomination in the Best Documentary Feature Film category.

All the Empty Rooms

This short film is thick with emotions

The second Netflix documentary to earn an Oscar nomination this year is All The Empty Rooms, which has been nominated for Best Documentary Short Film. This emotionally charged docufilm follows journalist Steve Hartman and photographer Lou Bopp as they travel across the US to memorialize the untouched bedrooms of children killed in school shootings.

Frankenstein

Shelley’s story strikes the screen again

Frankenstein, which is Guillermo del Toro’s retelling of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, was one of the most talked-about Netflix releases of 2025. It is also one of the most nominated films at the Academy Awards this year, behind Sinners (16 nominations) and One Battle After Another (13 nominations). The Gothic sci-fi film tells the story of Dr. Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac), a disgraced scientist who reanimates a creature (Jacob Elordi) to life in a daring experiment.

The film leads this year’s Oscar nominations for Netflix with nine nominations in acting and technical categories, including: