Oscars 2027 Predictions: Dates, Categories and How They Settle

The 99th Oscars take place on Sunday 14 March 2027, and the Academy announces the nominees on Thursday 21 January 2027, according to its press office page checked on 8 October 2026. Nobody can say yet who will win, because the nominees are not known; at 08:09 UK time on 8 October 2026 the Best Picture winner prediction on versus priced its 19 answers from 0.1p to 50.5p.

versus has live predictions on the winners of 16 categories, including Which film takes Best Picture at the Oscars? and Who wins the Oscar for Best Director?, plus questions on who or what will be nominated, such as Which films will earn a Best Picture Oscar nod?, and on which film leads the nominations.

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. The Academy says all its dates are subject to change.
• 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 published on 7 April 2026 for the 99th Oscars, and the page still showed them on 8 October 2026.

• 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, Best Casting, Best International Feature and Best Makeup and Hairstyling.
• Who or which films will be nominated. In the Best Picture list 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: at 08:09 UK time on 8 October 2026 its 17 prices ran from 1.9p to 99.7p and added up to far more than 100p. The prediction ends on 21 January 2027. Best Actor nominations work the same way with people as answers, and one question asks about a single film.
• 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 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. The price reflects both.

How These Predictions Settle

Every market on versus names the source that settles it before you trade. For the Oscars predictions, such as Which film takes Best Picture at the Oscars?, 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 2% transaction fee is added on top, 10p, so 510p leaves your balance.

• If that actor is nominated and wins: the 25 contracts settle at 100p each, 2,500p in total.
• If that actor is not nominated, or is nominated and someone else wins: they settle at 0p, at the announcement of the nominees on 21 January 2027 in the first case and after the ceremony in the second, and the 510p is gone.
• If you sell first: say the nominees are announced and the price falls to 8p. Selling the 25 contracts at 8p gives you 200p back, a loss, but a smaller one than a settlement at 0p.

The most this position could cost you was the 510p you saw before confirming. There is no leverage and no margin call.

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 and the nomination rule. The nominees on 21 January 2027 and the ceremony on 14 March 2027. When markets close explains how deadlines work.
3. 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.

Before you trade

versus is licensed by the UK Gambling Commission under account 101143, which you can check on the Commission's public register. A 2% transaction fee is added on top of the stake and shown before you confirm, and while a market is open you can sell at the current price. Positions settle in ordinary money, not cryptocurrency, and customer money is held separately from company money. This guide is written for readers in Great Britain.

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, how it works follows one position from opening to settlement, and how to verify market rules goes through the rules line by line. Only put in what you are comfortable losing. Prediction markets are entertainment with real money at stake, not a way to make money.

Frequently asked questions

When are the Oscars 2027?

The 99th Oscars take place on Sunday 14 March 2027 at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, according to the Academy's press office. The Academy says all its dates are subject to change.

When are the 2027 Oscar nominations announced?

On Thursday 21 January 2027, after nominations voting from 11 to 15 January. The Academy announces its shortlists earlier, on 15 December 2026.

Who will win Best Picture at the 2027 Oscars?

Nobody knows yet: the nominees are announced on 21 January 2027 and the winner on 14 March 2027. At 08:09 UK time on 8 October 2026 the Best Picture winner prediction on versus priced its 19 answers from 0.1p to 50.5p, but a price is the market's estimate, not a result.

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