Could Penélope Cruz Double Up at the Oscars?

Three performances could put the Academy’s new acting rule to the test.

July 27, 2026 | Lisa Hatzenbeller

Most actresses spend an entire awards season fighting for one nomination. Penélope Cruz may have three separate performances competing for the same five Best Supporting Actress spots, and for the first time, the Academy’s rules would allow more than one of them to make the final lineup. That possibility turns Cruz’s unusually busy year into one of the most interesting Oscar stories of the season.

The Invite comes out of Sundance with A24 behind it, Bunker pairs her with husband Javier Bardem in a new film from Florian Zeller, and La Bola Negra carries international momentum and reunites her with Pedro Almodóvar after a high-profile Cannes debut. She also appears in The Bride!, which may not be an Oscar vehicle for Cruz but still adds to an unusually packed year for an actress who has never seemed interested in slowing down.

Her timing could not be more interesting. Under the Academy’s new rule, an actor can now receive two nominations in the same acting category if both performances finish among the top five in voting. That means Cruz would not necessarily need voters to settle on one film as her only path into Best Supporting Actress. If two performances build enough support, both could make the final lineup.

That is still a massive challenge. The rule makes a double nomination possible, but it does not create an extra slot or make voters more likely to support the same actor twice. Cruz would still need two performances to outperform almost every other actress in the race. Yet when looking at her history with the Academy and the strength of the projects in front of her, she may be one of the first actors with a real chance to test what the rule can mean.

Cruz Has Never Needed a Best Picture Contender

Cruz already has four Academy Award nominations across lead and supporting categories. She earned Best Actress nominations for Volver and Parallel Mothers, won Best Supporting Actress for Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and returned to the supporting category the following year for Nine. None of those four films were nominated for Best Picture, and in two cases, including her Oscar-winning performance in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Cruz was the film’s only nomination.

This year could be different. The Invite, Bunker, and La Bola Negra may each have the potential to compete beyond Cruz’s performance, and one or more could develop into a serious Best Picture contender. For the first time in her Oscar-nominated career, Cruz could have a distributor-led Best Picture campaign helping drive voters toward her performance rather than relying almost entirely on the strength of her work. With three possible Best Supporting Actress vehicles and broader campaign support behind at least one of them, the prospect of Cruz earning two nominations becomes much harder to dismiss.

The Invite Arrives With the Most Momentum

Of Cruz’s three likely awards vehicles, The Invite enters the season with the clearest head start. The film premiered at Sundance, where its reception sparked a major bidding war before A24 acquired it. That early attention gives the film something every awards campaign wants but cannot manufacture later: a strong opening narrative.

A24 also gives The Invite a distributor with a proven ability to sustain festival buzz throughout a long awards season. Olivia Wilde has already been part of the early acting conversation surrounding the film, and her work may become one of its most visible campaign elements. Still, that does not push Cruz out of the picture. A film can support more than one acting contender, particularly when the performances generate different kinds of attention.

For Cruz, The Invite may offer the clearest path into Best Supporting Actress because its Sundance reception gave the film an early place in the American awards conversation, while A24 gives it a distributor with a proven ability to sustain that momentum. The key will be whether Cruz remains one of the film’s central campaign priorities once the field takes shape and A24 begins deciding where to concentrate its awards push.

Bunker Has Serious Oscar Pedigree

Bunker may be the least predictable of Cruz’s three contenders, but it has too much talent attached to dismiss. The film stars Cruz opposite her real-life husband, Javier Bardem, giving two Academy Award winners another opportunity to share the screen. Their relationship will naturally generate interest, but the larger awards question is whether the film gives both actors the kind of emotionally demanding material that has defined their strongest work.

Following his Oscar-winning success with The Father, Florian Zeller returns with Bunker, which he wrote and directs from an original screenplay. Zeller won Best Adapted Screenplay for The Father, a film that also earned a Best Picture nomination and Anthony Hopkins his second Best Actor win. His work often centers on intimate stories, psychological tension, and emotionally demanding performances, making the pairing of Cruz and Bardem under his direction especially promising.

Zeller could also emerge in the Best Original Screenplay race, giving Bunker an awards identity beyond its cast and helping it register as more than an isolated acting showcase. The film remains a wild card for now, but a strong screenplay response could quickly expand its profile and strengthen Cruz’s position in the Best Supporting Actress conversation.

La Bola Negra Could Be Her International Powerhouse

La Bola Negra brings Cruz back together with Pedro Almodóvar, one of the defining creative partners of her career. Their work stretches across decades and includes Live Flesh, All About My Mother, Volver, Broken Embraces, I’m So Excited!, Pain and Glory, and Parallel Mothers. More importantly for this Oscar conversation, Almodóvar directed Cruz to two of her four Academy Award nominations.

Her first nomination came for Volver, which made her the first Spanish actress nominated for Best Actress. Fifteen years later, she returned to the category for Parallel Mothers. In both cases, Almodóvar gave Cruz a role that allowed Academy voters to recognize her outside the traditional English-language prestige-film path.

Their latest collaboration already has significant momentum of its own. After premiering in Competition at Cannes, La Bola Negra became the subject of a bidding war before Netflix acquired it for $5 million. That acquisition gives the film a distributor capable of turning international acclaim into a sustained Academy campaign, particularly if Cruz emerges as one of its most celebrated elements.

The Academy’s increasingly international membership could also work in the film’s favor. Cruz has already demonstrated that her appeal is not confined to one part of the voting body, and La Bola Negra gives her a path that looks very different from both The Invite and Bunker. Rather than competing through the same campaign narrative, each film could attract voters for different reasons.

Could Two Performances Make the Final Five?

A double nomination would still require an extraordinary amount of support. Voters may admire Cruz in more than one film but ultimately rally behind a single performance, especially once critics, precursors, and studio campaigns begin shaping a clearer frontrunner. Distributors may also decide that concentrating resources behind one performance offers a safer path than allowing two Cruz campaigns to compete for attention.

The greater challenge is sustaining enthusiasm for more than one performance throughout the season. It would not be enough for Cruz to receive strong reviews in multiple films. Two performances would each need to remain visible, earn passionate support, and convince voters that recognizing one does not make the other expendable. That is the narrow path created by the Academy’s new rule: multiple performances can now advance, but each must independently finish among the five strongest vote-getters.

Campaign timing could further shape how Cruz’s three performances compete with one another. The Invite and La Bola Negra have already established themselves through major festival premieres and high-profile acquisitions, while Bunker remains the unknown that could enter the race later. If Zeller’s film delivers, it may expand Cruz’s presence in Best Supporting Actress, but it could also shift attention away from one of her earlier performances rather than joining both of them in the conversation. A crowded field and the priorities of each distributor will ultimately determine whether Cruz’s campaigns build alongside one another or begin competing for the same voters.

Final Thoughts

I feel confident that Cruz will earn at least one Best Supporting Actress nomination this season. What remains uncertain is which performance will carry her back to the Oscars and whether the race eventually narrows around a single film or leaves room for two. Her career has already shown that Academy voters will recognize her work even when the film surrounding it is not a dominant awards contender, which makes her especially well positioned for a season like this one.

One nomination may remain the safer prediction, but a double nomination is no longer merely hypothetical. Cruz enters the season with several performances capable of sustaining serious attention, and voters may ultimately decide that choosing only one does not fully capture the strength of her year. She may be the first performer to show that two outstanding performances no longer have to compete for the right to represent an actor’s entire year.