PROJECT HAIL MARY Gets Oscar Boost as It Wins the HCA Midyear Astra Award for Best Picture

Project Hail Mary Takes Best Picture from the HCA

Project Hail Mary has earned the distinction of winning Best Picture in the 2026 midyear Astra Awards from the Hollywood Creative Alliance.

Don’t be surprised if Project Hail Mary is among the 10 best movies of 2026 on many film critics across the nation’s top lists come the end of the year. Its Oscar chances have just been boosted by its win from the Hollywood Creative Alliance in their midyear Astra Awards announcement. That film’s star, Ryan Gosling took the Runner-Up prize for Best Actor, losing the distinction of top honor to Jaafar Jackson who won for playing Michael Jackson in the supposed critical disappointment, Michael.

Also, in a huge upset, Inde Navarrette won Best Actress from the HCA for her work in the well-received horror movie, Obsession. Emily Blunt was long considered the front runner for her work in Disclosure Day, but had to settle for “Runner-Up.”

Backrooms performed well with the HCA, securing some love from the organization in categories such as the Top 10 films of the year so far. Kane Parsons’ name was found on the best directors list and the film also won accolades for Best Runner-Up horror film and its star, Chiwetel Ejiofor, whose inclusion in the six top Best Actor mentions from the HCA was quite impressive. Renate Reinsve also earned honors for the film as a Best Supporting Actress mention.

The Invite was the Runner-Up for Best Picture while its filmmaker Olivia Wilde was also in the Best Director field for her work on the hilarious dramedy which secured a win for its Best Supporting Actress candidate, Penélope Cruz. Edward Norton was Runner-Up to Colman Domingo who won Best Supporting Actor for his turn as the dad in Michael.

Phil Lord and Chris Miller took the directing top honors for their work on Project Hail Mary. In other exciting news, Toy Story 5 got a Best Picture top 10 inclusion for movies released in the first half of 2026 and that animated picture also got a mention in the Best Screenplay category where The Invite took the win.

Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie performed well, finding itself in both the Top 10 movies and the top Best Director category. Mile End Kicks made a showing in the Best Independent movie mentions where Leviticus and Tuner triumphed as the top indie movie and the Runner-Up.

Jacob Elordi was unfairly snubbed for Wuthering Heights although the women of the film, Margot Robbie and Alison Oliver, got recognized with mentions in their respective categories.

Emily Blunt also got mentioned in the Supporting Actress line-up for her work in The Devil Wears Prada 2. The newscaster from Disclosure Day, Courtney Grace was surprisingly mentioned in the category as well for her excellence. Sandra Hüller (Project Hail Mary) was the Runner-Up to Cruz for Best Supporting Actress.

These awards just cover the first half of 2026’s movies and many of these nominees and winners could (and most likely will) fade into oblivion as movies like The Odyssey come out. That Christopher Nolan movie was declared the most anticipated of all upcoming films in the HCA’s Astra Awards.

Leave your thoughts on the Hollywood Creative Alliance’s award winners for midyear contenders below in the comments section. Readers seeking to support this type of content can visit our Patreon Page and become one of FilmBook’s patrons.

Readers seeking more movie news can visit our Movie News Page, our Movie News Twitter Page, and our Movie News Facebook Page.

Want up-to-the-minute notifications? FilmBook staff members publish articles by Email, Mobile App, Google News, Apple News, Feedly, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, Reddit, Telegram, Mastodon, Flipboard, Bluesky, and Threads. This news was brought to our attention by NBP.