Sinners & One Battle After Another Win Big

It was the biggest and most anticipated night in Hollywood last night, with the 98th Academy Awards hitting the red carpet to celebrate and honour the biggest achievements in filmmaking from 2025.

This season proved to be one of the most divisive and challenging to confidently predict because of plenty of strong contenders. However, critics and film fans agreed the 2026 Oscar season was a horse race between Paul Thomas Anderson’s black-comedy political piece, One Battle After Another and Ryan Coogler’s celebration of Black history and artistry, Sinners, which has made history as the most Oscar-nominated film of all time with a total of 16 nominations.

These two films basked in trophies, with One Battle After Another taking home six wins, including Best Director for Anderson, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture. Sinners won four awards, with Coogler being awarded Best Original Screenplay for his effort on the film, with leading man Michael B. Jordan winning Best Actor in a Leading Role and composer Ludwig Göransson taking home the Oscar for Best Original Score, to name a few.

Anderson had previously been nominated at the Academy Awards 14 times over a 30-year career.

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Guillermo del Toro’s adaptation of Mary Shelley’s sci-fi horror Frankenstein was awarded for its terrific visual and artistic composition, earning Oscars for Best Production Design, Best Costume and Best Makeup and Hairstyling, with Joseph Kosinski’s sports biography F1 winning for its technical composition.

Meanwhile, and to no one’s surprise, Irish star Jessie Buckley took home the trophy for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her beautiful and emotionally devastating performance as Anne Hathaway in Chloé Zhao’s adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s tragic book Hamnet.

All Marty Supreme star Timothée Chalamet received were quips about his recent controversy for citing the opera and ballet as culturally insignificant, with Josh Safdie’s intense drama taking home no trophies it was nominated for.

History was also made last night with cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw becoming the first woman and woman of colour to win the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for her work on Sinners and Golden by Netflix’s K-Pop Demon Hunters was awarded Best Original Song, becoming the first K-pop song to win an Oscar.  This season also saw the Academy finally hand out some long-overdue recognition to the horror genre, such as Amy Madigan winning Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance in Zach Cregger’s horror Weapons.

The 2026 Academy Award Winners 

Best Picture 

One Battle After Another (Paul Thomas Anderson)

Best Director – Paul Thomas Anderson for One Battle After Another

Best Original Screenplay – Sinners (Ryan Coogler)

Best Adapted Screenplay – One Battle After Another (Paul Thomas Anderson, a loose inspiration of Vineland by Thomas Pynchon)

Best Actor in a Leading Role – Michael B. Jordan as Elijah ‘Smoke’ Moore and Elias ‘Stack’ Moore in Sinners (Ryan Coogler)

Best Actress in a Leading Role  – Jessie Buckley as Anne Hathaway in Hamnet (Chloé Zhao)

Best Actor in a Supporting Role – Sean Penn as Col. Steven J. Lockjaw in One Battle After Another (Paul Thomas Anderson)

Best Actress in a Supporting Role – Amy Madigan as ‘Aunt Gladys’ in Weapons (Zach Cregger)

Best Original Score – Sinners (Ludwig Göransson)

Best Casting – Cassandra Kulukundis for One Battle After Another

Best International Feature – Sentimental Value (Joachim Trier, Norway)

Best Animated Short – The Girl Who Cried Pearls (Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski)

Best Animated Feature – Kpop Demon Hunters (Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans)

Best Documentary Feature – Mr Nobody Against Putin (David Borenstein and Pavel Talankin)

Best Documentary Short – All The Empty Rooms (Joshua Seftel)

Best Live Action Short – A tie between Two People Exchanging Saliva (Natalie Musteata and Alexandre Singh) and The Singers (Sam A. Davis)

Best Original Song – ‘Golden’ by Kpop Demon Hunters (Ejae, Audrey Nuna, Rei Ami)

Best Cinematography – Sinners (Autumn Durald Arkapaw)

Best Film Editing – One Battle After Another (Andy Jurgensen)

Best Sound – F1 (Skywalker Sound Team)

Best Visual Effects – Avatar: Fire and Ash 

Best Production Design – Frankenstein (Tamara Deverell and Shane Vieau)

Best Makeup and Hairstyling – Frankenstein (Mike Hill, Jordan Samuel and Cliona Furey)

Best Costume Design – Frankenstein (Kate Hawley)