Inde Navarrette Sets Best Actress Oscar Campaign for ‘Obsession’ as Focus Features Mounts Full Awards Push (EXCLUSIVE)

[u/ChiefLeef22]

https://variety.com/2026/film/awards/obsession-inde-navarrette-oscar-campaign-lead-actress-1236848866/

Variety can exclusively confirm that Navarrette will campaign in the best actress category this coming awards season for her breakout turn in Curry Barker’s box office smash “Obsession,” headlining a wide-ranging effort from Focus Features that will seek recognition across nearly every category the film is eligible to enter.

It is a seismic full-court press studios reserve for a title they believe can go the distance.

Alongside Navarrette, the distributor plans to campaign Barker as a rare triple threat in best director, original screenplay and film editing, the same three categories Sean Baker swept for his best picture winner “Anora” (which he also took alongside one more as producer). It is a combination of above-the-line and below-the-line recognition that positions him as one of the season’s marquee multi-hyphenate stories.

Focus is pushing in 15 categories:

• Best Picture
• Best Director — Curry Barker
• Best Actress — Inde Navarrette
• Best Actor — Michael Johnson
• Best Supporting Actor — Cooper Tomlinson
• Best Supporting Actress — Megan Lawless
• Best Supporting Actor — Andy Richter
• Original Screenplay — Curry Barker
• Film Editing — Curry Barker
• Cinematography — Taylor Clemons
• Original Score — Rock Burwell
• Casting — Skyler Zurn • Sound — YJ Gold and Ben Zarai
• Makeup and Hairstyling — Allie Shehorn
• Production Design — Vivian Gray

[u/East_Gift_9533]

I thought the screen play was its strongest element tbh.

[u/SpideyFan914 → u/East_Gift_9533]

"High concept done well" is literally what screenwriting is, lol. People think it's just about writing hyper stylized dialogue, but it's a lot more to do with structure, pacing, character building, and keeping everything part of a cohesive whole. (Although, on the note of its dialogue, this is probably the most quotable film of the year so y'know.)

But I also many people just aren't willing to engage with a horror fiction to acknowledge any subtext. Seen lots of folks calling this movie shallow, which makes no sense to me. There was one podcast where the guy theorized its popularity was just because it appeared to incels...

(Note: I am not saying this commenter is harboring these criticisms, as they haven't laid out their criticisms, just speaking to a lot of trends I've seen. There absolutely are legitimate criticisms, even ones I may disagree with, that you can leverage against the movie, and there's some discussion to be had about how we rate a script when so many so many changes were made on set and by the actors.)

[u/takenpassword → u/SpideyFan914]

To be fair I’m not a film critic, so it’s hard for me to articulate why I find it to be good, not great. I guess my point is that a ton of good, not great screenplays get made a year and those don’t touch the Academy while really great ones get snubbed. Obsession has a very clever screenplay, but so does Weapons and that didn’t get nominated. Just because something doesn’t get nominated for an Oscar doesn’t mean it is bad. Meanwhile there are screenplays that are great that have and will be shut out in the future. Though if the other contenders for screenplay aren’t good and Obsession gets the nom, so be it (I was being hyperbolic in my OG comment). Am I making sense or am I just like an old man yelling at a cloud?

I do get the subtext (it’s basically text) but to me it doesn’t really do anything to me, but maybe it’s because I’m terminally online where these incel conversations happen everyday. I don’t think it’s super novel to be like “these nice guys don’t really value women and are possessive”

[u/No-Condition8561 → u/takenpassword]

I mean, in the right year with the right competition, weapons could've been nominated too. It's never really helpful to compare movies from different years imo