What Happened at the 98th Academy Awards
Who Hosted the Ceremony and How the Night Unfolded
Former late-night TV staple Conan O'Brien returned to host the show for a second year in a row. Matt Berry of The IT Crowd and What We Do in the Shadows fame handled announcing duties. The Oscars took place at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles and aired live on ABC and streamed on Hulu.
A star-studded lineup of presenters, including past winners, past nominees, and even past hosts, took the stage. Among them were last year's acting winners, Mikey Madison, Adrien Brody, Kieran Culkin, and Zoe Saldana. Other presenters included Anne Hathaway, Pedro Pascal, Nicole Kidman, Paul Mescal, Demi Moore, and Sigourney Weaver. A special Bridesmaids reunion took place, including current Oscar nominee Rose Byrne, Ellie Kemper, Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, and Melissa McCarthy.
Billy Crystal began the lengthy In Memoriam segment with a tribute to his best friend Rob Reiner, who was killed along with his wife Michele in their home last year. Barbra Streisand paid heartfelt tribute to her late The Way We Were co-star Robert Redford and then sang a passage from its Oscar-winning theme song.
What Made This Year's Ceremony Historically Distinct
This year, the Academy added a new category, the first since Best Animated Feature was introduced in 2002, recognizing Best Casting. Sinners had the most nominations of any movie ever with 16, making it the most-nominated film in Academy Awards history, surpassing La La Land, Titanic, and All About Eve, which were tied with 14. The night also featured live performances of two nominated songs, reflecting the Academy's stated desire to keep the show moving.
Who Won Best Picture and What One Battle After Another Represents
What the Film Is and Who Made It
One Battle After Another was named Best Picture at the 98th Oscars. The film took home six Oscars in total. Paul Thomas Anderson also won the award for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, marking his first-ever wins after more than two decades of nominations.
Anderson became just the ninth person to win Best Picture, Directing, and Screenplay Oscars on the same night. He used his screenplay speech to strike a political note, calling for common sense and decency and expressing hope that the next generation would bring greater care to a world his own had left in disarray.
One Battle After Another scored a leading six wins, and Warner Bros. Depression-era genre film Sinners was next with four, ending a marathon awards season in which the two studio mates battled each other for months. Amid the studio's 110-billion-dollar acquisition by Paramount Skydance, Warner Bros. led all distributors with 11 statuettes.
Who Else Won for One Battle After Another
Sean Penn, who was not at the ceremony, won Best Supporting Actor for One Battle After Another, setting a record with his win. Teyana Taylor won Best Supporting Actress for the same film. One Battle After Another also landed an Oscar for Best Film Editing for Andy Jurgensen, and won the newly created Best Casting award for Cassandra Kulukundis.
Who Is Michael B. Jordan and Why His Win Is Historic
What Jordan's Performance in Sinners Demanded
Jordan, 39, plays dual roles as war veterans Elijah "Smoke" Moore and Elias "Stack" Moore, twin brothers who try to use stolen money to open a juke joint in Mississippi during the Jim Crow era. The film is a genre-bending vampire tale set in 1932.
Jordan did not share the role with another actor. He played both twins. Every scene in which Smoke and Stack share the frame, Jordan acts opposite himself, coordinating movement, differentiating two fully realized human beings, and making the trick invisible. No actor had ever won the Best Actor Oscar for a dual role. Jordan is the first.
Jordan's dual performance marked the first time an actor has ever won an Oscar for playing two roles in the same film. He thanked Coogler and Warner Bros. for betting on original ideas and original artistry.
What Jordan Said in His Acceptance Speech
Jordan received a thunderous, long-lasting standing ovation as he accepted his Best Actor statuette at the Dolby Theatre. He paid tribute to those who paved the way for him, naming the only other Black performers who have won Best Actor or Actress at the ceremony: Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, Halle Berry, Jamie Foxx, Forest Whitaker, and Will Smith. He said he was humbled to be amongst those giants, those greats, his ancestors, and his gods. He vowed to keep stepping up and be the best version of himself, before closing by thanking audiences who had watched Sinners multiple times.
Who Jordan Joins in Oscar History
Jordan became only the sixth Black actor to win an Oscar for a leading role, joining Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, Jamie Foxx, Forest Whitaker, and Will Smith. Halle Berry remains the only Black woman to have ever won Best Actress. This is only the second time in Oscar history a Black writer has won the Original Screenplay category, after Jordan Peele for his 2017 film Get Out, with Ryan Coogler's win for Sinners marking the milestone.
What Jordan's Career Journey Tells Us About Hollywood's Long Game
Jordan grew up in Newark, New Jersey. His father was a caterer. His mother was a high school career counselor. He started modeling at twelve. At fifteen, he walked onto the set of HBO's The Wire and played Wallace, a teenage drug dealer with a devastating softness, a boy who understood what was happening to him and could not stop it.
By 25, Fruitvale Station cast him as a man killed by police. Then Creed, at 28, gave him a man learning to fight. Still, none of those roles asked what Sinners asked. At 38, he played two brothers refusing to be destroyed by a world designed to destroy them. At 39, he accepted the Academy Award for Best Actor, and his mother was sitting in the room where it happened.
What Sinners Achieved and Why Its Cultural Impact Runs Deeper Than Awards
Who Ryan Coogler Is and What This Film Means to His Legacy
Ryan Coogler, born and raised in Oakland and Richmond, California, won Best Original Screenplay for Sinners, his first Oscar. This is only the second time in Oscar history a Black writer has won the category, after Jordan Peele for Get Out in 2017. Coogler told the crowd, which included his parents, that he grew up in Oakland and Richmond and could talk a lot.
Coogler wrote and produced Sinners as his most personal work. Set in the Mississippi Delta in 1932, the film blends vampire horror with historical narrative about race and freedom. The screenplay earned Coogler the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, cementing the project's cultural and cinematic impact.
The partnership between Jordan and the Oakland-born Coogler began in 2013 with Coogler's first feature film, Fruitvale Station, with Jordan in the lead role as Oscar Grant, the young man shot and killed by a BART police officer in 2009. The two went on to collaborate on the Black Panther films, and then Sinners.
Who Autumn Durald Arkapaw Is and What Her Win Means
Autumn Durald Arkapaw became the first woman and first Black cinematographer to win the Best Cinematography category, asking every woman in the Dolby Theatre to stand as she dedicated the moment to those who helped her reach it. She is also the first person of African American or Filipino descent to win in the category.
In a night thick with representation, this win may carry the longest institutional significance. The cinematography category has existed since the first Academy Awards in 1929. It took 97 ceremonies for a woman to win it.
What Sinners' Record Nomination Haul Signals About Genre Films
Sinners received a record 16 Academy Award nominations, the most of any film in history, including four of the Big Five awards. It also received seven nominations at the 83rd Golden Globe Awards, a leading 17 nominations at the 31st Critics' Choice Awards, a record 21 nominations at the 26th Annual Black Reel Awards, and 18 nominations at the 57th NAACP Image Awards, winning 13.
The film's record-breaking nomination haul is itself a cultural statement. Horror films, and particularly horror films rooted in Black American history and experience, have historically been dismissed by awards bodies as genre entertainment rather than serious cinema. Sinners' comprehensive recognition across every major awards circuit dismantles that hierarchy permanently.
What Other Major Awards Were Given at the 2026 Oscars
Who Won Best Actress and What Jessie Buckley's Victory Represents
Jessie Buckley was named Best Actress for Hamnet, picking up her first career Oscar on her first nomination. She became the first Irishwoman to win the prize, after steamrolling through awards season for her aching portrayal of William Shakespeare's partner Agnes. Director Chloe Zhao was nominated for directing Hamnet but did not win.
Who Won Best Supporting Actress and What Amy Madigan's Win Represents
Amy Madigan won Best Supporting Actress for her role in Weapons, in what was widely described as a late-career triumph. Madigan, who began her career in the 1980s, had never previously won an Academy Award. Her win was a reminder that Oscar recognition does not follow a linear timeline, and that the Academy's expanded and diversified voting membership continues to reward performances that earlier iterations of the body may have overlooked.
Who Won Best International Feature and Best Animated Feature
Sentimental Value from Norway was named Best International Feature Film. KPop Demon Hunters won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature, with director Maggie Kang dedicating the win to Koreans worldwide. The film's song "Golden" became the first K-pop song to ever win an Oscar, for Best Original Song.
The K-pop win is not simply an entertainment footnote. It reflects how comprehensively Korean popular culture has penetrated the global mainstream in the decade since BTS first charted on Billboard, and how the Academy's cultural geography continues to expand beyond its historic Hollywood centre.
Who Won Best Score and What Ludwig Goransson's Third Oscar Means
Ludwig Goransson won his third career Oscar, Best Score for Sinners. The Black Panther and Oppenheimer composer paid loving tribute to his father during his acceptance speech. Three Oscars across three culturally distinct films, including one set in the Mississippi Delta blues tradition, one rooted in Afrofuturism, and one inside the Manhattan Project, positions Goransson as one of the most culturally versatile film composers of his generation.
What Frankenstein Won at the 2026 Oscars
Netflix's Frankenstein scooped up a trio of wins, for Costume Design, Makeup and Hairstyling, and Production Design. Netflix was next with seven total wins, including three for Frankenstein. The streamer's K-pop Demon Hunters was the only other film to score multiple trophies.
What the 2026 Oscars Mean for Hollywood and Cultural Representation
Who Warner Bros. Is After This Night and What It Means for the Studio
One Battle After Another and Sinners powered Warner Bros. to a record night. The studio led all distributors with 11 statuettes. This happened amid the studio's 110-billion-dollar acquisition by Paramount Skydance, making the record night a symbolic statement of institutional vitality at a moment of corporate transformation.
What the New Best Casting Category Signals About the Industry
Best Casting is the first new category at the Academy Awards in 25 years, added in 2026. Cassandra Kulukundis won the inaugural prize for One Battle After Another, upsetting favourite Francine Maisler of Sinners. The creation of a casting category is a long-overdue institutional acknowledgment that the people who identify and place actors in roles are foundational creative contributors, not administrative support.
What This Night Tells Us About Where American Culture Is Heading
The 2026 Oscars delivered a striking convergence of signals about American cultural identity. A vampire horror film set in Jim Crow Mississippi became the most nominated film in Academy history. A K-pop song won Best Original Song. A Black cinematographer broke a 97-year barrier. A Black actor won Best Actor for the first dual-role performance ever recognized in that category. A first-time Irish winner took Best Actress. And the first Best Casting award in a quarter-century went to a film exploring Depression-era America through genre cinema.
These are not coincidences. They are the accumulated consequence of a decade of pressure on the Academy to diversify its membership and broaden its definition of what constitutes worthy cinema. The results of that expansion are now visible in the trophies handed out at the Dolby Theatre.