SAG-AFTRA Rebrands SAG Awards as Actor Awards; Paul Thomas Anderson Film Sets Nomination Record

The name on the statue hasn’t changed. The show around it has.

On Wednesday, SAG-AFTRA unveiled nominations for the 32nd edition of its annual honors, the first to go forward under a new banner: the Actor Awards. Announced on a Netflix YouTube livestream, the nominations were dominated by Paul Thomas Anderson’s film One Battle After Another, which scored seven bids — the most for any movie in the guild’s 32-year history.

Janelle James of Abbott Elementary and actor-comedian Connor Storrie read out most of the categories from Los Angeles, while Actor Awards committee members Jason George and Elizabeth McLaughlin handled the stunt ensemble fields. Each time One Battle After Another was called — for lead actor, supporting performances, ensemble and stunts — it reinforced what many in the industry already expected: the film has become the central contender of the 2025–26 awards season.

The ceremony, formally titled the 32nd Annual Actor Awards Presented by SAG-AFTRA, will be held March 1 at the Shrine Auditorium & Expo Hall in Los Angeles and streamed live on Netflix at 8 p.m. Eastern. It is the latest step in a transformation that has turned what began as a cable guild show into a globally available live event and one of the most influential precursors to the Academy Awards.

New name, same statue

For three decades, the Screen Actors Guild Awards were known simply as the SAG Awards. This year’s slate is the first under the rebranded name, a change SAG-AFTRA officials say is designed to clarify the show’s purpose for domestic and international audiences.

“We wanted to provide clearer recognition in terms of what the show is about for our domestic and global audiences — we honor actors in film and television,” the organization explains on the Actor Awards website. “Laser-focusing the name on those two things became the clearest and most straightforward path for this new chapter of the show.”

The event’s official name is now the Actor Awards, or “The Actors” in shortened form. The bronze statuette handed to winners, a figure known since the show’s inception in 1995 as The Actor, retains its name and design. SAG-AFTRA notes that The Actor and the phrase “I Am an Actor” are trademarked and protected against unauthorized use.

The rebranding arrives just over a year after the union emerged from a high-profile strike against major studios and streamers. That work stoppage, which began in July 2023 and ended in November, centered on residuals from streaming platforms and the use of artificial intelligence in performance. The union said the new contract, which runs through mid-2026, secured a new streaming bonus model and safeguards around digital replicas and AI-generated performances.

The Actor Awards are explicitly billed as “presented by SAG-AFTRA,” underlining the union’s ownership of the show at a time when it is seeking to reassert the value of human performers in a rapidly changing industry.

A record haul for One Battle After Another

Among films, One Battle After Another led the nomination tally with seven, a record that places it atop the awards’ official list of all-time “Actors” record holders. The movie, a black comedy action thriller written and directed by Anderson and loosely inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s novel Vineland, had already emerged as a critical favorite.

Leonardo DiCaprio is nominated for outstanding performance by a male actor in a leading role for his work in the film, while Chase Infiniti is recognized in the female lead category. Benicio del Toro and Sean Penn both earned supporting actor nominations, Teyana Taylor is cited in supporting actress, and the film’s cast is in contention for outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture. Its stunt team is also nominated for outstanding action performance by a stunt ensemble.

The official Actor Awards “fast facts” sheet identifies those seven nods as the most ever for a single film. Previous high marks have typically come from awards-season juggernauts that dominated ensemble and acting fields but did not reach that total.

Other films with multiple nominations include Sinners, with five; Frankenstein, Hamnet and Marty Supreme, with three each; and Bugonia, with two.

The leading actor field in film features Timothée Chalamet (Marty Supreme), DiCaprio, Ethan Hawke (Blue Moon), Michael B. Jordan (Sinners) and Jesse Plemons (Bugonia). On the actress side, nominees are Jessie Buckley (Hamnet), Rose Byrne (If I Had Legs I’d Kick You), Kate Hudson (Song Sung Blue), Infiniti and Emma Stone (Bugonia).

Supporting categories include Miles Caton (Sinners), Jacob Elordi (Frankenstein) and Amy Madigan (Weapons), alongside artists more traditionally associated with pop and genre work, such as Ariana Grande (Wicked: For Good) and Wunmi Mosaku (Sinners).

In the marquee ensemble category for film, One Battle After Another will compete against Frankenstein, Hamnet, Marty Supreme and Sinners.

Television leaders and ensembles

On the television side, the newsroom comedy The Studio leads all programs with five nominations, including ensemble in a comedy series and individual nods for Ike Barinholtz, Seth Rogen, Kathryn Hahn and Catherine O’Hara. The limited series Adolescence and the HBO anthology The White Lotus each scored four.

Drama ensemble nominees include The Diplomat, Landman, The Pitt, Severance and The White Lotus. In comedy, ensembles from Abbott Elementary, The Bear, Hacks, Only Murders in the Building and The Studio will compete for the Actor statue.

Stunt ensembles in television will be honored in a separate category, with Andor, Landman, The Last of Us, Squid Game and Stranger Things making the list.

SAG-AFTRA said more than 118,000 members are eligible to vote on the final winners, making the Actor Awards the largest peer-voted acting honors in the industry. Nominations are chosen by smaller, randomly selected panels of union members; the full eligible membership votes on the winners. The eligibility window for this year’s awards runs from Jan. 1 through Dec. 31, 2025.

An early read on the Oscars

Because of the size of its voting base and the overlap between SAG-AFTRA membership and the actors branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the guild’s awards have long been a key indicator of Oscar outcomes in the acting categories.

Historical tallies show that winners of the four individual SAG acting awards have gone on to win Oscars in roughly three-quarters of cases. The outstanding cast award is considered a less direct predictor of best picture, but films that eventually win the Academy Award for best picture are typically at least nominated in the ensemble category here.

The alignment appears strong again this season. One Battle After Another leads the Golden Globe field with nine nominations, including multiple acting bids, and recently won best picture and best director at the Critics Choice Awards. It swept major critics’ groups in Los Angeles, New York and other cities earlier in the season and is shortlisted in several categories for the 98th Academy Awards, with Oscar nominations scheduled to be announced Jan. 22.

Performers like DiCaprio, Infiniti, Chalamet, Buckley, Jordan, Stone, Elordi and Taylor now appear on most lists of likely Oscar contenders, having accumulated recognition across critics’ awards, the Golden Globes and the Actor Awards.

Netflix’s live stage

This year’s ceremony continues SAG-AFTRA’s partnership with Netflix, which began with a partial livestream of the 2023 awards on the streamer’s YouTube channel and expanded into a full live broadcast of the 2024 and 2025 shows on the Netflix platform.

By placing the Actor Awards on a global streaming service, the union is betting that its rebranded show — with a clearer title and an easily identifiable statuette — can reach viewers beyond traditional U.S. cable audiences and join a growing slate of live events on streaming.

The union’s own members are among those up for honors. SAG-AFTRA president Sean Astin, who was elected in 2025, will preside over his first Actor Awards as the organization’s top officer. National executive director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, who helped lead negotiations during the 2023 strike, also plays a key role in staging the event.

Harrison Ford to receive top honor

The ceremony will also feature the presentation of the SAG-AFTRA Life Achievement Award to Harrison Ford, recognizing career achievement and humanitarian work. The honor, which the guild stresses is not a “lifetime achievement” award in name, has previously gone to artists including Jane Fonda, Robert De Niro, Lily Tomlin and Morgan Freeman.

Ford, whose career spans Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Witness and recent installments of the Indiana Jones franchise, is being honored in a year when the Actor Awards are explicitly repositioning themselves around the identity of performers.

As final voting opens later this month and the Oscars race accelerates, the newly renamed Actor Awards will offer one of the clearest public tests of which performances have resonated most with working actors themselves. When the winners are announced on March 1, they are likely to shape not only the outcomes at the Academy Awards but also the way this transitional year in film and television is remembered.