It’s admittedly early to talk about the 2027 Oscars, but two stars are already predicted to be the main contenders for the Best Lead Actor award. For the 2026 Academy Awards, the battle for the Oscar in this category was difficult to predict. Timothée Chalamet’s performance in Marty Supreme was the early frontrunner before Sinners’ Michael B. Jordan swooped in with a late surge to take home the prize. A similar situation could occur for next year’s 99th Academy Awards, which is scheduled to air on March 14, 2027. The good news, though, is that a win for either of these two early favorites would give them their first acting Oscar win after having long, illustrious careers in Hollywood.
Tom Cruise and John Malkovich are the frontrunners for their first acting Oscar win
Both Tom Cruise and John Malkovich are at the top of the list for who will win the 2027 Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role, according to a prediction market on Kalshi (as of April 17). When combined together, the votes for Cruise and Malkovich make up more than 50% of the betting spread, as noted by the full results below.
- Tom Cruise (in Digger) – 28%
- John Malkovich (in Wild Horse Nine) – 26%
- Josh O’Connor (in Jack of Spades) – 9%
- Sebastian Stan (in Fjord) – 8%
The other candidates in the bet surprisingly didn’t receive any votes, including Brad Pitt for The Adventures of Cliff Booth, Adam Driver in Paper Tiger, Andrew Scott in Pressure, Charles Melton in Saturn Return, Channing Tatum in Josephine, and Keanu Reeves in The Entertainment System Is Down.
Delving deeper into the history of the bet, which started in the middle of March, Cruise and Malkovich have swapped positions a few times as the frontrunner. Cruise was the king of the hill since the bet started before Malkovich overtook the position in early April. At the time of writing, they are pretty much tied with one another for the top spot.
It should be noted, though, that this bet is missing a handful of notable actors who could act as a spoiler. A separate Kalshi bet on the potential nominations for Best Lead Actor still has Cruise (60%) and Malkovich (61%) at the top, but it reminds us that we shouldn’t forget about Matt Damon in The Odyssey (54%), Timothée Chalamet in Dune: Part Three (41%), Jeremy Gosling in The Social Reckoning (40%), Jaafar Jackson in Michael (29%), and Ryan Gosling in Project Hail Mary (37%). In fact, The Odyssey is already predicted to take home the Best Picture Oscar, which gives a boost to Matt Damon’s chances in this category.
Why Tom Cruise could win the Best Actor Oscar
Many award experts are looking at the upcoming dark comedy Digger as the vehicle for Tom Cruise to (finally) win the Best Lead Actor Oscar. The film is directed by the famed Alejandro González Iñárritu, who has a strong pedigree with The Academy given his Best Picture wins for Birdman (2014) and The Revenant (2015). His 2022 psychological film Bardo didn’t make much of a splash at the box office, but the production budget for Digger is at a substantial $125 million, so Warner Bros. Pictures is putting their weight behind the project. Iñárritu’s films are also known for being a catalyst for acting awards, with Michael Keaton getting an Oscar nomination in Birdman and Leonardo DiCaprio clinching the Oscar win for The Revenant.
The upcoming comedy follows the 63-year-old actor as oil baron Digger Rockwell, who wishes to prove that he is the answer to an ecological disaster that was caused by his company. At CinemaCon in mid-April, the Top Gun: Maverick star revealed a trailer for the film that showed his shocking transformation into an aging tycoon with white hair and a protruding gut, which is the kind of metamorphosis that Academy voters tend to favor.
While Cruise was given the Academy Honorary Award at the 2026 Oscars, he has never won the coveted golden statuette for his acting, despite being nominated for Best Actor in Born on the Fourth of July (1989) and Jerry Maguire (1996). As such, the sentimental vote is with him as voters could feel as though he has been snubbed one too many times in the past.
Why John Malkovich could win the Best Actor Oscar
The sentimental vote also applies to John Malkovich, who has never won an Academy Award for his acting work either. The 72-year-old actor was nominated twice for Best Supporting Actor in Places in the Heart (1984) and In the Line of Fire (1993). His lengthy filmography span over 100 movies, so his performance in the upcoming drama and comedy Wild Horse Nine could be seen as one of his last chances to be recognized by The Academy.
The film puts Malkovich in the role of CIA officer Chris who gets paired up with fellow officer and protégé Lee (Sam Rockwell) in a mission to Easter Island in the leadup before the 1973 military coup in Chile. The official trailer provides a sneak peek into the humorous banter between the pair. Wild Horse Nine is being seen as Oscar bait due to its star-studded cast that includes Steve Buscemi, Park Posey, and Tom Waits, in addition to its director and screenplay writer, Martin McDonagh, who has received Oscar recognition for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) and The Banshees of Inisherin (2022). All of this gives Malkovich a solid opportunity to take the Oscar win.
That said, it will take quite a while before we see whether Cruise or Malkovich will gain the advantage in the Oscar race, since Digger releases on October 2 and Wild Horse Nine comes out on November 6. And as we’ve seen with Michael B. Jordan’s win, there’s plenty of time for the odds to flip. Still, it’s looking like next year’s Best Lead Actor award will be a historic Oscar moment either way.
