Oscars 2027 Predictions: Dates, Categories and How They Settle

The Oscars are one of the few entertainment questions that end on a known date with a clear answer. The Academy announces the nominees in January and names the winners in March. At the time of writing in September 2026, versus has live predictions on who will win categories from Best Picture and Best Actor to Best Cinematography and Best Animated Feature, plus questions on which films are nominated and which film leads the nominations. This guide covers the dates, how the predictions settle and what a position can cost you.

The Short Answer

• The Academy has set the dates. The nominees are announced on Thursday 21 January 2027 and the 99th Oscars take place on Sunday 14 March 2027.
• A winner prediction has two hurdles. An answer has to be nominated first, and then it has to win.
• The Academy settles it. The rules name official information from the Academy as the source. The winner predictions also cover a tie and the case where no winner is declared.
• You can lose the whole amount. A winning contract settles at 100p and a losing one at 0p, and a position that settles at 0p is lost in full.

The Dates the Academy Has Set

These are the dates the Academy's own press office has published for the 99th Oscars.

• 15 December 2026: the Academy announces its shortlists.
• 11 to 15 January 2027: nominations voting.
• 21 January 2027: the nominees are announced.
• 25 February to 4 March 2027: final voting.
• 14 March 2027: the ceremony, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.

The Academy also says its eligibility period ends on 31 December 2026, so the field of films is not complete yet.

The Kinds of Oscars Prediction

There are three kinds of Oscars question on versus, and each one settles differently.

• Who or what will win a category. Each answer is one person or one film with its own price: a person in the acting and directing categories, a film in most of the others. At the time of writing they cover Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Screenplay, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Animated Feature, Best Documentary Feature, Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, Best Original Score and Best Casting.
• Which films will be nominated for Best Picture. Each film is its own answer. It settles at 100p if the film is on the Academy's list of nominees and at 0p if it is not, and several films can be right at once. The prediction ends on 21 January 2027.
• Which film will lead the nominations. This settles on the film with the most nominations across all categories, and the rules count nominations for its cast and crew as well as for the film itself.

Read the wording of a question before you choose an answer. A Best Cinematography answer, for example, backs a film, not a named cinematographer.

The Nomination Rule That Catches People Out

A winner prediction opens months before anyone knows who is nominated, so the answer lists are long and partly guesswork. The rules deal with that. In every winner prediction, an answer that is not among the Academy's official nominees settles as a loss as soon as the nominees are announced.

So every position in a winner prediction has to clear two hurdles: the answer has to be nominated on 21 January 2027, and then it has to win on 14 March 2027. Today's price reflects both.

How These Predictions Settle

Every market on versus names the source that settles it before you trade. For the Oscars predictions, the rules name official information from the Academy, including its website and the live ceremony. Each answer has its own price between 0p and 100p, the market's estimate of how likely it is. When the winner is announced, a contract on the winning answer settles at 100p and the others settle at 0p.

The rules for the winner predictions also cover the awkward cases:

• A tie. If two answers share an award, the rules say which one counts.
• No winner declared. The rules set a date in mid 2027 and say how the market settles if no winner has been declared by then.

Read that part of the rules before you open a position.

A Worked Example

Say a Best Actor answer trades at 20p. You put 500p into it, which buys 25 contracts. The transaction fee is 2% of the stake, added on top, so it comes to 10p and 510p leaves your balance. The fee is shown before you confirm.

• If that actor is nominated and wins: the 25 contracts settle at 100p each, 2,500p in total.
• If that actor is not nominated: the contracts settle at 0p as soon as the nominees are announced on 21 January 2027, and the 510p is gone.
• If that actor is nominated and someone else wins: the contracts settle at 0p after the ceremony, and the 510p is gone.
• If you change your mind first: while the market is open you can sell at the current price. Say the nominees are announced and the price falls to 8p. Selling the 25 contracts at 8p gives you 200p back. You take a loss, but a smaller one than if they settled at 0p.

In every case, the most this position could cost you was the 510p you saw before confirming. There is no leverage and no margin call, so a market moving against you cannot leave you owing money.

What Can Move the Prices

Until the nominees are announced, prices can only reflect what people expect. Festival screenings, first reviews and the Academy's shortlists on 15 December 2026 can all shift them. The announcement on 21 January 2027 is the biggest single moment: answers that miss out settle at 0p straight away, and prices for the rest can move sharply. After that, other awards and campaign news can move them again before final voting closes on 4 March 2027.

None of this makes the result predictable. The voters decide, and a price is only the market's estimate at a given moment, not a promise. A widely tipped answer can lose, and one with a low price can win.

Checks Before You Open a Position

1. Read the rules first. They name the Academy as the source and cover a tie and the case where no winner is declared.
2. Note the two dates. The nominees on 21 January 2027 and the ceremony on 14 March 2027. When markets close explains how deadlines work.
3. Remember the nomination rule. An answer that is not nominated settles at 0p as soon as the nominees are announced.
4. Decide what you are prepared to lose in full. The stake and the 2% fee are shown before you confirm, and together they are the most the position can cost you. Treat that total as money you may not get back.

Safer Play is built into the app: deposit limits, loss limits, reality checks, time out and self exclusion, alongside GAMSTOP. The safer play page explains each tool.

Where to Find These Predictions

versus is a prediction market app across politics, finance, sport, AI, crypto and entertainment. The current predictions include the Oscars questions above: open any market to see its question, the price of each answer and the source that settles it. How it works follows one position from opening to settlement, and how to verify market rules goes through the rules line by line.

versus is licensed by the UK Gambling Commission under account 101143, which you can check on the Commission's public register. Positions settle in ordinary money, not cryptocurrency, and customer money is held separately from company money.

The Bottom Line

An Oscars 2027 prediction comes down to two announcements: the nominees on 21 January 2027 and the winners on 14 March 2027. Prices can move at every step and any position can settle at 0p, so only put in what you are comfortable losing. Prediction markets are entertainment with real money at stake, not a way to make money.

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