Paul Thomas Anderson had waited a long time for this. Eleven nominations across nearly three decades, from Boogie Nights to Phantom Thread, and not a single win. On 15 March 2026, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, the wait ended three times in one night. Anderson won Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and, with his producers, Best Picture for One Battle After Another. It was the film of the night, with six Oscars. It was not the only story. Ryan Coogler's Sinners arrived with a record 16 nominations and left with four, including Best Actor for Michael B. Jordan. Norway, K-pop and a school in the Russian Urals all found their way to the stage. Conan O'Brien hosted for the second year running.
THE FILM THAT WON THE NIGHT One Battle After Another took six awards: Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Supporting Actor for Sean Penn, Film Editing for Andy Jurgensen, and Casting for Cassandra Kulukundis. The last was history. Casting was a competitive Oscar for the first time in 2026, nearly a century after the first ceremony, and Kulukundis was its first winner. Casting directors have long said an ensemble is built, not found. The Academy finally agreed. Jurgensen, who has cut Anderson's films since Licorice Pizza, gave a story that jumps across years and points of view its pulse. The film won for its scale, and for the quiet work that holds a big production together: the script, the cut, the ensemble. Penn's award was his third, after Mystic River and Milk. He became only the fourth man to win three acting Oscars, after Walter Brennan, Jack Nicholson and Daniel Day-Lewis.
SINNERS Coogler's film broke the nominations record before the night began: 16, more than All About Eve, Titanic or La La Land. It went home with four Oscars. Jordan won Best Actor, Coogler won Best Original Screenplay, Ludwig Göransson won Best Original Score, and Autumn Durald Arkapaw won Best Cinematography. Arkapaw's win was another first. No woman had ever won the cinematography Oscar. Coogler wrote the world of Sinners from nothing. Arkapaw made it visible, its light, its colour and the way the camera moves through it. Jordan became the sixth Black actor to win Best Actor, after Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, Jamie Foxx, Forest Whitaker and Will Smith. His partnership with Coogler began with Fruitvale Station in 2013 and ran through Creed and Black Panther. Sinners was its fullest expression. The ceremony gave the film a moment of its own: a performance inspired by its juke-joint sequence, with the ballerina Misty Copeland among the dancers.
THE ACTING AWARDS Jessie Buckley won Best Actress for Hamnet, Chloé Zhao's adaptation of Maggie O'Farrell's novel about Shakespeare's family and the death of his son. She played Agnes, Shakespeare's wife, opposite Paul Mescal. She is the first Irish woman to win the award, after a career that has run from musical theatre to some of the most demanding screen roles of the decade. Amy Madigan won Best Supporting Actress for Weapons, Zach Cregger's horror film. Horror performances rarely win at the Oscars. Hers did, forty years after her first nomination, for Twice in a Lifetime. With Penn and Jordan, the four acting awards were spread across three films.
INTERNATIONAL FILM AND ANIMATION Best International Feature went to Sentimental Value, Joachim Trier's Norwegian family drama starring Renate Reinsve and Stellan Skarsgård, from one of the strongest fields in years: Brazil's The Secret Agent, France's It Was Just an Accident, Spain's Sirāt and Tunisia's The Voice of Hind Rajab. KPop Demon Hunters, the animated musical that became a global phenomenon on streaming, won Best Animated Feature. Its song "Golden" won Best Original Song, the first K-pop song ever to do so. Best Documentary Feature went to Mr. Nobody Against Putin, filmed inside a school in the small Russian town of Karabash by Pavel Talankin, the school's videographer, as the war in Ukraine changed what children were taught. Talankin recorded the patriotic assemblies and parades he was asked to film, then left Russia with the footage. The American director David Borenstein shaped it into the film.
THE CRAFT CATEGORIES Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein took three craft awards: Production Design, Costume Design, and Makeup and Hairstyling. Avatar: Fire and Ash won Visual Effects, and F1 won Sound. The short-film categories brought a rare tie. The Live Action Short award was shared by The Singers and Two People Exchanging Saliva. The Documentary Short went to All the Empty Rooms, and the Animated Short to The Girl Who Cried Pearls.
THE WINNERS Best Picture — One Battle After Another Director — Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another Actor — Michael B. Jordan, Sinners Actress — Jessie Buckley, Hamnet Supporting Actor — Sean Penn, One Battle After Another Supporting Actress — Amy Madigan, Weapons Original Screenplay — Ryan Coogler, Sinners Adapted Screenplay — Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another Cinematography — Autumn Durald Arkapaw, Sinners Film Editing — Andy Jurgensen, One Battle After Another Casting — Cassandra Kulukundis, One Battle After Another Original Score — Ludwig Göransson, Sinners Original Song — "Golden," KPop Demon Hunters International Feature — Sentimental Value, Norway Animated Feature — KPop Demon Hunters Documentary Feature — Mr. Nobody Against Putin
THE NIGHT IN THE ROOM O'Brien set the tone early. "Let us celebrate," he said, "not because all is well, but because we work and hope for better." The In Memoriam carried unusual weight. Rob Reiner, Diane Keaton and Robert Redford were among those remembered, three people who shaped American film for half a century. There was lightness too. The cast of Bridesmaids reunited on stage, fifteen years after the film.
HOW THE YEAR WILL BE REMEMBERED Awards do not decide which films last. They do shape how a year is remembered. This one will be remembered for Anderson's long-awaited night, for a record-breaking Sinners, for the first casting Oscar and the first woman to win for cinematography, and for winners that reached from Oslo to the Urals. One battle after another. This time, Anderson won.