Adam Sandler Is On The Verge Of Another Oscar Snub

Heading into the 2026 Oscars season, there were many actors widely assumed to be safe bets for nominations. The likes of Timothée Chalamet, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jessie Buckley, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Ariana Grande, and Teyana Taylor have done everything to ensure they’ll hear their names called when Oscar nominations are announced on January 22.

Months, even weeks, ago, Adam Sandler would’ve arguably been rightfully included in that grouping. His performance in Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly was widely praised as some of the best work of his career. And while George Clooney is at the movie’s center, Sandler was the one who kept securing recognition for his supporting role, including winning the Matlin Modern Master Award.

He is a nominee for the Golden Globes, Astra Awards, and many critics’ groups. He was also nominated by the Gotham Awards and the Critics’ Choice Awards. Sandler lost both, with Wunmi Mosaku (Sinners) and Jacob Elordi (Frankenstein) winning at the respective shows. Despite those losses, his Oscar chances looked alive, but now that’s all changed.

Adam Sandler’s Missed Nomination At The Actor Awards Hurts His Oscars Standing

Yesterday, the Actor Awards (formerly known as the Screen Actors Guild Awards) made their nominations in all categories, including Best Supporting Actor, where Sandler was an expected nominee. The Actor Awards instead unveiled a five-person lineup that did not include the Jay Kelly star.

The nominees were the One Battle After Another duo Benicio del Toro and Sean Penn, Miles Caton (Sinners), Paul Mescal (Hamnet), and recent Critics’ Choice Awards winner Elordi. The lineup was surprising on many levels, including the miss from Stellan Skarsgård, which came as the guild completely ignored foreign language films. With Skarsgård out of the picture, Sandler also not being recognized really hurts.

The Actor Awards are hugely important to the Oscars, as SAG-AFTRA members make up the largest voting body in the Academy. It is very common for SAG winners to also win the Oscar, with there often being a lot of overlap among the nominees in each of the acting categories too.

For Best Supporting Actor specifically, it is most common for the Oscars and SAG to match on four of five nominees. That has happened 19 out of 31 times. They’ve only aligned on all five actors three times, with that last instance coming in 2014. There are rarer cases of only three or two nominees matching, too.

This leaves some wiggle room for Sandler to still re-emerge on Oscar nomination morning, but the path is difficult. Del Toro, Penn, and Mescal have been consistent nominees throughout awards season, while Elordi has come on very strong as of late. Caton’s nomination from the Actor Awards is the one most likely to be different with the Oscars.

Unfortunately for Sandler, Skarsgård is better positioned to be that replacement. It would be a real shock if the Jay Kelly actor got in over the Sentimental Value actor. That leaves him in a tough spot of overtaking Penn, Mescal, or Elordi, who are all attached to stronger Best Picture contenders, too.

The 2026 Oscars could now be another moment where a terrific dramatic performance by Sandler is overlooked by the Academy. His snub in 2020 for Uncut Gems was completely unexpected. Considering he was also not recognized previously for his work in movies like Punch-Drunk Love, what Sandler has to do to get an Oscar nomination has become increasingly confusing.

Should he miss out on a nomination for Jay Kelly, as his current trajectory suggests, it seems Adam Sandler will have to deliver an even greater performance in a future film to secure his elusive first Oscar nomination.