If Sandra Hüller’s only on-screen moment of 2026 was her absolutely crushing Harry Style’s “Sign of the Times” in Project Hail Mary, that would have been enough for me to declare this a great year for the Oscar-nominated German actress.

In fact, breaking through the atmosphere on that karaoke mic was just the beginning. Hüller has not one, not two, but three more films coming to U.S. theaters later this year: Digger, the Tom Cruise comedy opening this weekend; Fatherland, the latest historical drama from acclaimed Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski; and Rose, Austria’s award-winning entry for the 2027 Oscars. This isn’t just a great year for Hüller. This is her year.

Hüller has been acting in Germany for nearly three decades, but most American audiences were first introduced to in 2023, when she starred in two Oscar-nominated films for Best Picture, Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest. It was a delight, then, to see her bring her talents to a big-budget, mainstream Hollywood flick like Project Hail Mary, where she played the morally ambiguous leader of the task force that sends Ryan Gosling into space to save the planet. Yes, fine, she drugged him and sent him into space against his will. But didn’t you hear the passion with which she sang, in that brilliant karaoke scene? She did it for the sake of humanity!

Hüller plays a very different type of character in Digger, a satire about a megalomaniac oil tycoon (Tom Cruise wearing a lot of prosthetics) from Oscar-winning director Alejandro G. Iñárritu. Hüller plays said oil tycoon’s half-sister and business partner, and appears only briefly in the film’s trailer, telling Cruise in a breathy voice, “You’re gonna save the world.”

Reviews aren’t yet out for the film, though it hits theaters on Friday. Social media reactions are mixed, and this film reporter has yet to see it. But I do think that, of the actors Iñárritu could have picked to be the “the woman” in his cast of A-list male actors, Hüller is a great choice. And I’m absolutely here for her tie-draped-over-a-white-button-up look.

Fatherland—which premiered at Cannes in May to critical acclaim, screened at New York Film Festival for journalists yesterday, and opens in U.S. theaters on October 23—stars Hüller as Erika Mann, the dutiful daughter of famed German novelist Thomas Mann. It’s the third in a trilogy of historical biopics from Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski, who won the Oscar for Best International feature for 2013’s Ida, and was nominated for Best Director for 2018’s Cold War. In Fatherland, Pawlikowski examines Germany’s identity crisis in the immediate years after World War II by focusing in on one very specific event: Thomas Mann (played by Hanns Zischler)’s visit to Germany in 1945—after years of living in the U.S.—to receive a Goethe Prize for his literary work.

Thomas’s daughter, Erika, acts as his chauffeur, personal stylist, groomer, and speech editor. Through Hüller’s masterful performance, audiences understand that Erika greatly respects her father, his work, and his politics—but also resents his narcissism and cold demeanor. Plus, Hüller gets to flex her language skills, flipping effortlessly between flawless German, English, and French. The film earned Pawlikowski the Best Director award at Cannes, and will serve as Poland’s entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 2027 Oscars.

Of all the great Hüller performances this year, my favorite—and the one I think should earn Hüller an Oscar nomination for Best Actress—is Rose, the Austrian-German period drama which screened at New York Film Fest last week, and will release in U.S. theaters on December 11. Directed by Markus Schleinzer, with a screenplay by Schleinzer and Alexander Brom, Rose stars Hüller as a 17th century woman, Rose, who has been living as a man for years, fighting as a soldier in Europe’s Thirty Years’ War.

After the war, Rose continues the ruse, claiming a downtrodden farm house with a deed she stole off a fallen soldier. She works tirelessly to build up the house, the farm, a life. She gains the village’s trust with fair wages and good deeds—like slaying a bear who attacks one of her farmhands. But she wants more. She wants to expand. And so, she strikes a deal with another farmer to gain access to his land: She will marry his daughter, Suzanna (played by Caro Braun).

Hüller infuses Rose with humor, hubris, and humanity. Her disguise, nothing more than short hair and men’s clothing, relies almost entirely on her performance. Her habit of sucking on the bullet that gave her the scar on her face—which she keeps on a chain around her neck—adds a masculine swagger. Her habit of helping those in need reveals feminine compassion. Though an ultimately tragic tale, Hüller finds plenty of moments of comic relief—including her disbelieving face when her wife happily announces she’s pregnant, after Hüller performs her “marital duties” in the dead of night, by way of a wood-carved strap-on.

Like Fatherland, Rose is being submitted as an entry for Best International Feature at the 2027 Oscars, on behalf of Austria. So that’s two Oscar hopefuls for Hüller, on top of a break-out performance in a Hollywood blockbuster, and a supporting role in Iñárritu’s latest. Perhaps only Robert Pattinson—who this year starred in The Drama, The Odyssey, Primetime, and Dune: Part Three—can claim to have to have a 2026 cinematic footprint as stellar as Hüller’s. And, hey, there’s room for two divas at the top.