Everything You Need to Know About the SAG Awards

Credit: 2015 Screen Actors Guild Awards, LLC

In November 2025, SAG-AFTRA announced that the Screen Actors Guild Awards would officially be renamed the Actor Awards presented by SAG-AFTRA, beginning with the 32nd annual ceremony set for March 2026. The rebrand aligns the show’s name with its iconic statuette, which has been called “the Actor” since the awards’ inception over 30 years ago.

According to showrunner and executive producer Jon Brockett and JoBeth Williams, chair of SAG-AFTRA’s Awards Committee, the name change represents “a perfect next step in the show’s evolution.” The decision was driven by the need for clearer global recognition now that the ceremony streams worldwide on Netflix. While everyone in Hollywood knows that SAG stands for Screen Actors Guild, the acronym raised questions for 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,” Brockett and Williams explained in a joint statement. “Laser-focusing the name on those two things became the clearest and most straightforward path for this new chapter of the show.”

The change also fully recognizes the 2012 merger between SAG and AFTRA (the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists), as the awards are now formally presented by SAG-AFTRA rather than just SAG. Importantly, nothing about the voting process, eligibility, or the show’s spirit has changed—it remains actors honoring actors. The organization acknowledges that many past winners and audiences will continue to refer to their awards as SAG Awards during the transition period, and that’s perfectly acceptable.

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The first Actor Awards (then called the SAG Awards) took place in 1995, with trophies going to titans of the industry including Tom Hanks for “Forrest Gump,” Jodie Foster for “Nell,” and the casts of “Seinfeld” and “NYPD Blue.” It was the debut appearance for the now-iconic award statuette known as the Actor.

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Kristen Bell made history as the first-ever host for the SAG Awards at the 24th ceremony in 2018. After Megan Mullally hosted in 2019, the ceremony went hostless for several years—although Idris Elba took over in an unofficial capacity for the 2024 ceremony. Bell returned to host the 31st ceremony in 2025 and will host again for the 32nd Actor Awards on March 1, 2026.

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Active SAG-AFTRA members who have paid their dues and are in good standing are eligible to cast their ballots for the Actor Awards. With more than 160,000 members and over 118,000 eligible to vote, the Actor Awards has the largest voting body on the awards circuit. For the 2026 ceremony, members who paid their November 2025 dues by Dec. 10, 2025, were eligible to vote.

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The voting process takes place in two stages: nominations and final balloting.

• Nominations: Two nominating committees—one for motion pictures and one for television—each comprised of 2,500 randomly selected SAG-AFTRA members vote on nominations. These committee members are selected each year from paid-up and active members who have not served in the past eight years.
• Final balloting: After nominations are announced, all paid-up and active SAG-AFTRA members are eligible to vote for the winners.

Actor Award nominations for the 32nd ceremony were announced on Jan. 7 by actors Janelle James (“Abbott Elementary”) and Connor Storrie (“Heated Rivalry”). Films and television shows released during 2025 were eligible for consideration. “One Battle After Another” led all films with a record-breaking seven nominations, while “Sinners” followed with five nods. Here are the full lists of 2026 film nominees and TV nominees. This year’s ensemble nominees are: 

Film

• “Frankenstein” 
• “Hamnet”
• “Marty Supreme” 
• “One Battle After Another” 
• “Sinners”

Courtesy Warner Bros/Focus Features/A24

TV drama

• “The Diplomat” 

• “Landman”

• “The Pitt”

• “Severance” 

• “The White Lotus” 

TV comedy 

• “Abbott Elementary” 
• “The Bear”
• “Hacks”
• “Only Murders in the Building”
• “The Studio”

Courtesy Disney/Gilles Mingasson/Apple TV

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The 32nd annual Actor Awards will be held on March 1 at the Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall in Los Angeles. For the third consecutive year, the ceremony will stream live exclusively on Netflix at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT, allowing global audiences to watch. Red carpet coverage (also on Netflix) begins at 5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. PT. This year marks a special partnership with ELLE magazine, which has set a theme celebrating “Reimagining Hollywood Glamour From the ’20s and ’30s.”

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The Actor Awards recognize actors across film and TV, but the ceremony can be enjoyed by anyone. The event is also a fundraiser for the SAG-AFTRA Foundation, which provides union members with resources, education, and community support. 

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Here is a complete list of the categories that make up the awards show:

Film
Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role
Outstanding Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture

Television
Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series
Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Limited Series
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Limited Series
Outstanding Stunt Ensemble in a Television Series

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Film: SAG-AFTRA presents the standard honors for actors in leading and supporting roles, and also for ensemble casts. That’s where eligibility can get a little tricky. To get onstage as part of the prestigious award for outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture, the rules state that a performer must have been credited on a separate title card. So performers in memorable but smaller roles that share billing are left out, while those who are in the cast crawl receive certificates.

TV: Actors who appear on a primetime TV show or a streaming program exhibited in the last year in an eligible comedy, drama, or limited series or a television movie may receive an Actor Award. To be considered part of the ensemble of a TV series, a contender must appear in a certain number of episodes within the nominating time frame and be either a series regular or guest star. Ensemble certificates are doled out to those who have appeared in at least two episodes within eligibility. For individual TV categories, there are no minimum episode count requirements.

Stunt performers: The Actor Awards is one of the few awards bodies that recognize stunt performers. It includes an award for outstanding performance by a stunt ensemble in a motion picture and an award for outstanding performance by a stunt ensemble in a television series.

Life Achievement Award: SAG’s National Honors and Tributes Committee has also named recipients of the Life Achievement Award each year starting in 1962—over 30 years before the first awards ceremony! Past winners include Alan Alda, Morgan Freeman, Lily Tomlin, Carol Burnett, Debbie Reynolds, Rita Moreno, Robert De Niro, Helen Mirren, and Jane Fonda. The 2026 ceremony will honor Harrison Ford with the SAG-AFTRA Life Achievement Award, making him the 61st recipient of the union’s highest tribute. 

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• Join SAG-AFTRA: Getting your SAG card is a right of passage for any actor, so knowing how to join the union is crucial. First, you must land a union gig, then supply your paycheck stubs or paid activity document to SAG-AFTRA. You can also apply for membership in SAG-AFTRA if you create your own content that falls under a union budgetary category, or if you’ve been a member for a year in another affiliated organization such as Actors’ Equity and the Canadian ACTRA.
• Ensure your dues are paid and that you’re an active member: Pay your dues to maintain your membership and be eligible to vote.
• Cross your fingers for nominations balloting: Members in good standing who have not voted in the Actor Awards’ nominating committees for the last eight years are chosen at random to be on either the motion picture or the television nominating committee.
• Vote for final balloting: All SAG-AFTRA members in good standing may vote for the final awards. Voting takes place through SAG-AFTRA’s secure voter portal. For the 2026 ceremony, final voting opened on Jan. 14 and closes Feb. 27 at 12 p.m. PT.

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People looking to dominate their Oscar pools tend to watch the Actor Awards pretty closely, as their film nominees and winners often align. Since actors make up the largest branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, people voting for the Actor Awards also have a strong say in Oscar winners. Historically, a significant percentage of Actor Award winners have gone on to win Oscars in the same categories. The 2026 Actor Awards take place on March 1, just two weeks before the Academy Awards on March 15, making them a key indicator of potential Oscar winners.

The Emmys and other TV awards also boast a large voting bloc of actors, so depending on eligibility windows, small-screen contenders often overlap with SAG-AFTRA voters.

• Start by attending an acting school, or by learning the basics of becoming an actor online
• Get an acting agent
• Sign your first acting contract
• Master the audition process, and get cast. Then keep applying to every role that fits your type!
• Network with your fellow actors and artists
• Once your buzzy project is out, you may want to hire a publicist

Follow those steps and do your best, and you may just find yourself thanking your peers with an Actor statue in hand. You may even go so far as to join the exclusive club of performers who have earned the title of EGOT.