Steamrollers, record breakers, and late surges: Inside the 2026 Oscar nominees
The Business
KCRW
4.5 • 697 Ratings
🗓️ 6 February 2026
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, Kim Masters is joined by Scott Feinberg, The Hollywood Reporter’s Executive Editor of Awards, for a deep dive into the 2026 Oscar nominees. Feinberg unpacks the debut of the new Best Casting category and explains the strategy behind Warner Bros.' support for its Best Picture frontrunners One Battle After Another and Sinners.
Plus, Masters and Matt Belloni dig into the power shifts at Disney, including Josh D’Amaro’s appointment as CEO and Dana Walden’s elevation to president and chief creative officer of The Walt Disney Company. They also unpack Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos’s trip to Capitol Hill for a Senate antitrust hearing, and why Paramount’s David Ellison chose to sit this one out during his own trip to Washington.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From KCRW, I'm Kim Masters, and this is The Business. |
| 0:07.6 | The nominations are in, and the 2026 Oscars are right around the corner. |
| 0:12.3 | The Hollywood reporter Scott Feinberg is here to guide us through the race. |
| 0:16.0 | The last time that it was clearly a two-horse race for Best Picture and both horses came from the same |
| 0:21.1 | studio was 51 years ago when Paramount had both The Godfather 2 and Chinatown. So it's pretty |
| 0:28.4 | rare to have one company with the two leading contenders for Best Picture and also the two most |
| 0:34.0 | nominated films of the year. Scott joins me to make sense of new categories and record-breaking nominations. |
| 0:40.0 | But first, there's a lot going on, so we bring you a hefty banter. |
| 0:43.8 | Stick around. It's the business from KCRW. |
| 0:48.0 | I am joined by my partner in banter. Matt Bellany. Hello, Matt. |
| 0:51.7 | Hi there. Wow, a big week. a big week. I'm going to start |
| 0:56.0 | with Disney on Tuesday a little earlier than expected. James Gorman, the chairman of the Walt |
| 1:01.1 | Disney Company board, announced that the long Disney national nightmare is over. Tell us why |
| 1:08.7 | Josh tomorrow for Disney's new CEO. Josh is unbelievable. I mean, this has been, |
| 1:13.8 | as everybody's reported, a long, thorough, exhaustive process. And we looked at all comers. |
| 1:20.7 | We wanted whoever got this job to be the best person to run what is probably one of the |
| 1:25.5 | most exciting jobs in the world. So Josh DeMorrow, as |
| 1:29.2 | expected, has been named CEO with Dana Walden named ahead of all content, which adds |
| 1:35.1 | movies to her portfolio. And then there's also the Netflix hearing where Ted Serranos was |
| 1:40.2 | subject to grilling about the alleged disposition of Netflix to promote trans ideology. |
| 1:45.4 | But let's stick with Disney for now. |
| 1:47.7 | After that long search, and it felt like we knew for a long time, it was either Dana Walden or Josh DeMorrow, |
... |
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