Fresh off the back of his near-miss at the 2025 Oscars, Timothée Chalamet could be in contention for Best Actor again at next year’s Academy Awards. After his nomination this year for playing folk rock legend Bob Dylan in James Mangold’s music biopic A Complete Unknown, Chalamet is in line to receive another nomination for his portrayal of Marty Mauser in Marty Supreme. This sports movie directed by Josh Safdie will be released at the end of this year, just in time for the 2026 awards season.

Yet Chalamet will likely have to contend with another actor playing a music legend, if he wants to get his hands on that Oscar. Less than a year after Chalamet’s acclaimed performance as Dylan, The Bear actor Jeremy Allen White is set to star as Bruce Springsteen in Deliver Me From Nowhere, a biopic of the rock icon. Scott Cooper’s musical drama film has Oscar nominations written all over it, and is also likely to be released in theaters just as the next movie awards season gets up and running.

The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White Could Rival Chalamet With His Portrayal Of Bruce Springsteen

Deliver Me From Nowhere Will Feature White In The Lead Role As Springsteen

Jeremy Allen White’s central role as Bruce Springsteen in Deliver Me from Nowhere appears to be prime Oscar bait. As one of the biggest rising stars in Hollywood, following the success of The Bear and his acclaimed performance alongside Zac Efron in the 2023 feature-length sports drama The Iron Claw, Jeremy Allen White is more than ready to become one of Hollywood’s most celebrated leading men.

At the same time, rarely do mainstream music biopic movies fail to garner their acting lead an Oscar nod. In the 21st century alone, portrayals of Elvis Presley, Billie Holiday, Ma Rainey, Judy Garland, Freddie Mercury, Édith Piaf, Johnny Cash and Ray Charles have all earned Oscar nominations for Best Actor or Actress, as well as Timothée Chalamet’s nomination for his portrayal of Bob Dylan. Out of these nine performances, four of them went on to win the Oscar. This precedent means that Jeremy Allen White has a great chance of picking up next year’s Oscar for Best Actor.

After Playing Bob Dylan, Chalamet’s Marty Supreme Should Make Him An Oscar Contender

Timothée Chalamet’s Role As Marty Mauser Is A Likely Oscar Nominee

If Timothée Chalamet gets another chance to win Best Actor at the 2026 Oscars, then, he almost certainly has White’s performance as Bruce Springsteen to worry about. This scenario is fairly likely, with Chalamet’s leading role in A24’s upcoming ping-pong themed comedy-drama Marty Supreme seemingly interesting and challenging enough to take the actor into Oscars territory once more. The movie will see him play Marty Mauser, a professional table tennis player modeled after the real-life Marty Reisman, an American world championship contender in the sport credited with popularizing it in the United States.

After Chalamet’s much-publicized SAG award speech in which he aspired to greatness, it’s clear that he took on the role of Marty Mauser with critics and acting gongs in mind. This isn’t the kind of part that’s going to attract fans of Chalamet’s Dune franchise or Wonka movie, for example. Marty Supreme is aimed squarely at the 2026 Oscars.

Marty Supreme And Deliver Me From Nowhere Are Both Slated For Awards Season Releases

Chalamet’s Movie And The Bruce Springsteen Biopic Come Out At The End Of 2025

Both Chalamet’s next movie role and Jeremy Allen White’s Deliver Me from Nowhere have effectively announced their candidacy for the 2026 Academy Awards already, with release dates scheduled for next year’s movie awards season. Marty Supreme’s release date is confirmed as December 25, 2025, exactly one year after Timothée Chalamet’s Oscar-nominated portrayal of Bob Dylan was released to the wider public. Meanwhile, the Bruce Springsteen biopic Deliver Me from Nowhere doesn’t have a confirmed release date just yet, but the movie’s anticipated to have a late-2025 holiday season release, around the same time that Marty Supreme arrives in theaters.

The stage is already set for a new version of 2025’s Oscars rivalry between Adrien Brody and Timothée Chalamet, with Chalamet versus Jeremy Allen White a likely matchup for the 2026 Best Actor Oscar. However, unlike this year, in 2026 Chalamet will be the more experienced Oscar nominee in the rivalry, facing down a fellow nominee who’s been recognized for playing a rock music legend, just as he was for portraying Bob Dylan.

Even if Deliver Me from Nowhere doesn’t turn out to be as successful as James Mangold’s musical biopic A Complete Unknown, Jeremy Allen White will probably still be nominated for his performance as Bruce Springsteen, just as Rami Malek was for playing Freddie Mercury the poorly-received 2018 movie Bohemian Rhapsody. Malek famously went on to win the Oscar for his performance, so Timothée Chalamet should be wary of White when the 2026 Academy Award nominations are announced next January.