The 99th Academy Awards are still a long way off—the ceremony is scheduled for March 14, 2027—but as happens every year, the Oscar race has already begun. Critics, experts, fans, and the media have begun making predictions about potential nominees, and among the analyses worth keeping an eye on are those from Variety, which bases its predictions on a panel of experts and a comprehensive review of the film season, well before the official nominations are announced.
For 2027, some of the films already making waves in the race for Best Picture include *Being Heumann* from Apple Original Films, *The Debut* from A24, *Dune: Part Three* from Warner Bros., Neon’s *Fjord*, Netflix’s *La Bola Negra*, Universal Pictures’ *The Odyssey*, Amazon MGM Studios’ *Project Hail Mary*, Bleecker Street’s *Tender Loving Care*, Searchlight Pictures’ *Wild Horse Nine*, and Laika’s *Wildwood*. This list already speaks volumes about just how crowded the upcoming awards season will be.
But if there’s one category I personally find even more interesting, it’s Best Supporting Actress or Actor. That’s often where the best surprises come from: performances that may not take center stage in the story, but manage to steal the spotlight for those few minutes they’re on screen. For a supporting role, screen time is often limited, and that’s precisely why leaving a lasting impression is perhaps even more difficult. It’s not enough to be flawless; you have to be able to build a character, make them memorable, and, above all, ensure that the audience continues to think about them even after the credits roll.
A recent example is that of Isabella Rossellini, who was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for *Conclave* in 2025 despite her screen time lasting less than 8 minutes. Much like—at least according to rumors—what might happen for Samantha Morton, who has been mentioned as a possible nominee for Best Supporting Actress for Christopher Nolan’s *The Odyssey*, in which she plays Circe: hers is a brief but intense role, which many already consider one of the film’s most unforgettable moments.
And in this category, there’s a particularly interesting name this year: Penélope Cruz. The Spanish actress is, in fact, among the possible nominees for *The Invite*, alongside names such as Anne Hathaway for *The Odyssey*, Kate O’Flynn for *Tender Loving Care*, Sophie Okonedo for *Clarissa*, and Samantha Morton, also for *The Odyssey*. Furthermore, predictions for the season have already begun to include Penélope Cruz in the conversation for *La Bola Negra* as well, making this a particularly exciting year for her.
*The Invite*, directed by Olivia Wilde and starring Wilde herself alongside Seth Rogen, Edward Norton, and Penélope Cruz, is a comedy about relationships, described by I Wonder Pictures as a “biting, sexy comedy, somewhere between *Perfetti sconosciuti* and Woody Allen—a surprising and original mix of humor, pace, sensational performances, and sharp dialogue, lighthearted yet capable of touching deep emotional chords.” And it seems that Penélope Cruz has truly stood out in her role as the leading couple’s neighbor. A character who, based on the description, seems familiar to those who know the actress’s filmography well: a sophisticated, unpredictable woman capable of throwing others’ romantic dynamics into disarray—a character who inevitably brings to mind María Elena from *Vicky Cristina Barcelona*, the role that earned her the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 2009. In any case, we’ll have to wait for the film’s release in theaters on September 16 to find out for sure.
The reason it’s interesting to see Penélope Cruz’s name in this race isn’t just because she’s a great actress, but because 2026 wasn’t a year for her filled with major films, blockbusters, or world premieres packed with fashion surprises. It was a year in which she continued to choose roles that remind us why, even after such a long career, her name remains relevant.
In *The Bride! *, for example, she plays Myrna Mallow, an elegant and determined detective who sets out on the trail of the main characters. The character has a deliberately retro feel: she is an intelligent woman, far more perceptive than her subordinate role initially suggests, placed by Maggie Gyllenhaal in a world that blends horror, noir, comedy, musical, and references to classic cinema. And she ends up being the real mastermind behind the investigation.
Then there’s *La Bola Negra*, the film by Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo that has already attracted significant international attention and stars Penélope in one of the leading roles. The film, inspired by Federico García Lorca’s unfinished work and Alberto Conejero’s *La piedra oscura*, tells three stories set in different eras and linked by themes such as desire, identity, and repression. It was presented in competition at Cannes and has not yet been released in Italy, but its campaign for awards season already seems ambitious.
It’s still early—in fact, very early—to talk about a new nomination. The Oscars are still months away, and many of the films that could enter the race have yet to find their audience. But it’s still nice to see Penélope Cruz back in the running. After all, it’s been almost twenty years since she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 2009 for Woody Allen’s *Vicky Cristina Barcelona*, and at the time, that statuette cemented a talent that was already impossible to ignore. Today, all these years later, the idea of seeing her nominated in the same category again doesn’t seem out of place at all—especially for an actress who undoubtedly still has something to say on the big screen. And if that “something” were to win over the Academy as well, well, we certainly wouldn’t be the ones to complain.
[📸 Courtesy of I Wonder Pictures / © Adam Newport-Berra]
