2026 Oscars winners: Very special year for people who love movies as One Battle After Another and Sinners win

It can be fashionable to take the Oscars down a notch, declare it dead and buried, as if anyone cool could possibly care about a bunch of famous people congratulating themselves.

Sure, it can be a bit over-the-top and self-important, and there’s always something a bit cringe about watching very privileged people swanning around in gowns that cost more than your whole year’s rent.

But here’s the thing. The Oscars remains one of the most effective marketing platforms Hollywood has, all the more important at a time of fracturing audiences and intense competition in the attention economy.

The filmed entertainment industry is still a behemoth, and while it may be facing myriad challenges from consolidation and big tech coming to eat its breakfast, lunch, dinner and two desserts, there is something so wholesome about cinema.

Movies are about storytelling, and at their best, when it’s artist-led and not just a cynical commercial ploy, it reflects the human experience. It’s in conversation with our dreams, our fears, our ever-expanding anxieties and our innate sense of optimism that things can be better.

It helps us to access and process complex emotions both personal and outside of ourselves. It opens up new, different worlds, and shares with us perspectives we would never have considered.

That’s the idealism of filmmaking – and that is what the Oscars can represent.

Yes, it’s all a bit political, and the movies with the greatest monetary heft, that run expensive campaigns can triumph over smaller features. It’s not a perfect system.

But when you think about the cacophonous cries that Hollywood has run out of fresh ideas, that all it ever does is release remakes, sequels and reboots, the Oscars is a bridge between those big franchise films and niche arthouse fare such as anything made by provocateur Gaspar Noe.

The Oscars represents commercial art, and it, in theory, is there to crow about the best of the industry, and why it should still be relevant to a mainstream, mass audience.

The best art can be political and it can be humanist and it be both at the same time.

In that sense, this year, the 98th Academy Awards is an absolute triumph.

One Battle After Another emerged as the ultimate victor with its six wins including best picture, but Sinners also took home some high-profile wins including lead actor for Michael B. Jordan.

These are two crowd-pleasing films with hundreds of millions of dollars in box office receipts. They’re entertaining and thrilling, and feature propulsive action sequences that make you lean forward in your seat – and they’re political, unafraid to engage with the many anxieties of our times.

Paul Thomas Anderson, who wrote, directed and produced One Battle After Another, a film about a former revolutionary and his teenage daughter, said as he collected his first of three Oscars today, “I wrote this movie for my kids to say sorry for the housekeeping mess that we left in this world we’re handing off to them.

“But also with the encouragement that they will be the generation that hopefully brings us some common sense and decency.”

OK, there has been an argument in the past that asking the next generation to fix this mess is abrogating responsibility, but, by making One Battle After Another, Anderson is doing what he can, using the gifts he has a storytelling, to reflect our world back to us, so that we can, at the very least, acknowledge that things are not right.

In One Battle, that includes a white supremacist cabal pulling the levers of power, and government agents that agitate violence against protestors in a sanctuary city.

To Anderson, these are urgent concerns, and it’s likely not a coincidence that the character he called the heart of the film – Chase Infiniti’s Willa – is a biracial child, just like his kids with partner Maya Rudolph. The personal is political.

One Battle won Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Supporting Actor for Sean Penn, Editing and Casting, six gongs in all.

Sinners is even more declarative. Directed and written by Ryan Coogler, this is a film that crossed genres, adeptly moving between musical, historical drama, action and even with a touch of slasher horror.

Coogler used the story of a vampire attack on a juke joint in the American South in the 1920s to talk about the US legacy of violence and cultural appropriation of black history and art.

And he did that with verve, style and thematic gravitas.

Coogler is one of the most exciting filmmakers of today, someone who can work within a big studio franchise such as Marvel and Creed by infusing his own voice perspective, and take on original projects such as Sinners.

If you’ve never seen his debut feature, Fruitvale Station, starring Michael B. Jordan as Oscar Grant III, a real-life young man who was killed in 2009 by transport police in the San Francisco bay area, seek it out. It pulses with the anger of injustice, and it was also the start of an incredible collaboration between Coogler and Jordan, who have now made four films together.

When Jordan won lead actor, besting Timothee Chalamet, the early frontrunner, he drew on the names of those few black artists who have graced the stage before him – Sidney Poitier, Halle Berry (still the only black woman to win in best actress), Forest Whitaker, Will Smith and Denzel Washington.

To have Sinners win four gongs and in very visible categories such as lead actor and original screenplay for Coogler, plus a historic first for Autumn Durald Arkapaw, the first woman to triumph in cinematography, is significant and it’s exciting.

Two-time Oscar winner KPop Demon Hunters, which won for Animated Feature and Original Song, was a sensation, but it was also a vibrant and emotionally resonant film that only works because of a wide embrace of Korean pop culture.

Director Maggie Kang, in accepting her Oscar, wasn’t oblique when she said, “To all the fans who got us here, and for those of you who look like me, I’m so sorry that it took us so long to see us in a movie like this.

“But it is here, and that means that the next generation don’t have to go longing. This is for Korea and for Koreans everywhere.”

It’s not just that it won two Oscars, or that its mere existence is, in a sense, political, it’s that KPop Demon Hunters is in lockstep with mainstream audiences. It is Netflix’s most streamed original film ever, with 20.5 billion minutes watched in 2025, the equivalent of 207 million views if you divide that by its running time.

Golden, its signature song, topped music charts everywhere and won a Grammy.

Those three films, the biggest winners of the Oscars this year, represent the apex of what the Oscars should stand for.

But that’s not even the full picture. Because it’s just as instructive for what didn’t make the cut.

This is a year in which Marty Supreme, nominated for nine awards, didn’t nab anything. Nor did The Secret Agent, which went in with four nominations. In another year, they would’ve but the competition was so intense.

Sentimental Value took home international feature, which meant the likes of The Voice of Hind Rajab, The Secret Agent, Sirat and It Was Just an Accident did not. But all of those runners-up were amazing films. Any one of them could’ve won and been a worthy victor.

Also worth noting is that Joachim Trier, who wrote and directed Sentimental Value, paraphrased James Baldwin in his acceptance speech by saying that we shouldn’t be voting for politicians who don’t responsibility for the welfare of children.

Almost all the feature Oscar nominees this year had a strong perspective and a strong voice, they knew what they stood for, and they were astonishing achievements in cinematic art.

There was the raw emotion of Jessie Buckley’s Oscar-winning performance in Hamnet, which beat out four others including Rose Byrne in the best actress category. Any of the other four could’ve won (Song Sung Blue was not a good movie but Kate Hudson was wonderful) and it would not have been a point for complaint.

It is really rare that the near-full Oscar field was liberally littered with nominees that could’ve easily ascended that stage. Very few forgettable fillers.

That’s not an Oscars or Hollywood in crisis, at least not artistically.

So, you might see the same, tired contrarian thinkpieces and social media posts about the Oscars being irrelevant or old-hat, but it would be worth asking them if they’ve actually seen even half the films.

Because if they have, even accounting for subjective taste, they couldn’t in good faith say that the 98th Academy Awards wasn’t a special year.

Anderson, in accepting Best Picture, referenced 1974, when the nominees were Dog Day Afternoon, One Flew Over Cuckoo’s Nest, Jaws, Nashville and Barry Lyndon, and that “there is no best among them”.

This year will also go down as being a particularly strong crop of films that boldly declare that Hollywood still knows what it’s doing.

Let’s hope, for all of our sakes, that the industry’s artists hold strong against the moneymen and the tech barons.

BEST PICTURE

Bugonia

F1

Frankenstein

Hamnet

Marty Supreme

One Battle After Another - Winner

The Secret Agent

Sentimental Value

Sinners

Train Dreams

BEST DIRECTOR

Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another - Winner

Ryan Coogler, Sinners

Josh Safdie, Marty Supreme

Joachim Trier, Sentimental Value

Chloe Zhao, Hamnet

BEST ACTRESS

Jessie Buckley, Hamnet - WINNER

Rose Byrne, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

Kate Hudson, Song Sung Blue

Renate Reinsve, Sentimental Value

Emma Stone, Bugonia

BEST ACTOR

Timothee Chalamet, Marty Supreme

Leonardo DiCaprio, One Battle After Another

Ethan Hawke, Blue Moon

Michael B. Jordan, Sinners - WINNER

Wagner Moura, The Secret Agent

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Elle Fanning, Sentimental Value

Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Sentimental Value

Amy Madigan, Weapons - WINNER

Wunmi Mosaku, Sinners

Teyana Taylor, One Battle After Another

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Benicio del Toro, One Battle After Another

Jacob Elordi, Frankenstein

Delroy Lindo, Sinners

Sean Penn, One Battle After Another - WINNER

Stellan Skarsgard, Sentimental Value

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Bugonia

Frankenstein

Hamnet

One Battle After Another - WINNER

Train Dreams

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Blue Moon

It Was Just An Accident

Marty Supreme

Sentimental Value

Sinners - WINNER

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE

It Was Just An Accident

The Secret Agent

Sentimental Value - WINNER

Sirat

The Voice of Hind Rajab

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

Arco

Elio

KPop Demon Hunters - WINNER

Little Amelie or the Character of Rain

Zootopia 2

BEST CASTING

Hamnet

Marty Supreme

One Battle After Another - WINNER

The Secret Agent

Sinners

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Frankenstein

Marty Supreme

One Battle After Another

Sinners - WINNER

Train Dreams

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

Avatar: Fire and Ash

Frankenstein - WINNER

Hamnet

Marty Supreme

Sinners

BEST FILM EDITING

F1

Marty Supreme

One Battle After Another - WINNER

Sentimental Value

Sinners

BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING

Frankenstein - WINNER

Kokuho

Sinners

The Smashing Machine

The Ugly Stepsister

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

Frankenstein - WINNER

Hamnet

Marty Supreme

One Battle After Another

Sinners

BEST SCORE

Bugonia

Frankenstein

Hamnet

One Battle After Another

Sinners - WINNER

BEST SONG

Dear Me, Diane Warren: Restless

Golden, KPop Demon Hunters - WINNER

I Lied to You, Sinners

Train Dreams, Train Dreams

Sweet Dreams of Joy, Viva Verdi

BEST SOUND

F1 - WINNER

Frankenstein

One Battle After Another

Sinners

Sirat

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

Avatar: Fire and Ash - WINNER

F1

Jurassic World Rebirth

The Lost Bus

Sinners

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

The Alabama Solution

Come See Me in the Good Light

Cutting Through Rocks

Mr. Nobody Against Putin - WINNER

The Perfect Neighbour

BEST ANIMATED SHORT

Butterfly (Papillon)

Forevergreen

The Girl Who Cried Pearls - WINNER

Retirement Plan

The Three Sisters

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT

All the Empty Rooms - WINNER

Armed Only With a Camera

Children No More: Were and Are Gone

The Devil is Busy

Perfectly a Strangeness

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT

Butcher’s Stain

A Friend of Dorothy

Jane Austen’s Period Drama

The Singers - WINNER

Two People Exchanging Saliva - WINNER