At the 98th Academy Awards on 16 March 2026 in Los Angeles, Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another dominated the evening, winning six Oscars from 13 nominations while Ryan Coogler’s Sinners took four awards from a record 16 nominations. The ceremony mixed expected victories with surprises — including a rare tie in Best Live Action Short — and recurring industry debates about artificial intelligence and political speech. Hosts and presenters largely avoided naming sitting politicians but signalled disquiet about recent policies and global conflicts. The night foregrounded both craft milestones, such as the first female winner in cinematography, and continuing tensions over rights, technology and politics in cinema.
Key Takeaways
- One Battle After Another won six Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director, from 13 nominations, marking it as the evening’s top winner.
- Sinners entered with a record 16 nominations and converted four into wins, notably Best Original Screenplay and Best Actor for Michael B. Jordan.
- The Academy announced a tie for Best Live Action Short: Two People Exchanging Saliva and The Singers shared the award — only the seventh tie in Oscar history.
- Autumn Durald Arkapaw became the first woman to win Best Cinematography; it was also her first nomination and first win.
- Technical favourites landed expected prizes: Frankenstein won three technical Oscars; KPop Demon Hunters took Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song.
- Several critically touted films, including Marty Supreme and The Secret Agent, left the ceremony with no wins despite multiple nominations.
- AI and deepfake concerns surfaced onstage after a widely shared AI-generated clip featuring likenesses of Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise raised copyright and labour worries.
Background
The 2026 Oscars arrived after a season of high-profile releases and intense campaigning. One Battle After Another and Sinners led nomination tallies and were framed as the principal rivals in top categories, building on months of festival buzz and industry awards. The Academy’s voting body, expanded and diversified in recent years, has influenced both nominee selection and the unpredictability of outcomes, as voters weigh artistry, cultural impact and industry issues.
Politics and technology have become recurring themes in awards seasons. In the months before the ceremony, debates about AI-generated content, platform responsibility and copyright intensified after viral clips blurred the line between likeness and creation. Meanwhile, global conflicts and domestic policy choices shaped filmmakers’ acceptance speeches and red-carpet conversations, prompting organisers and performers to navigate speech and safety carefully.
Main Event
Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another led the night with wins in Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, Best Film Editing, Best Adapted Screenplay and the inaugural Best Casting award. Anderson acknowledged the unpredictability of awards in remarks that referenced classic competitive years and the mood-driven nature of voting.
Sinners, directed by Ryan Coogler, secured four Oscars including Best Original Screenplay and Best Actor for Michael B. Jordan. The film’s heavy nomination count — 16, a record this year — translated into a strong but incomplete haul, reflecting how split votes and category overlap shaped results.
Moments of surprise punctuated the evening: a tie in Best Live Action Short produced dual winners, and several previously tipped films such as Marty Supreme and The Secret Agent underperformed relative to expectations. The ceremony also highlighted craft breakthroughs, with Autumn Durald Arkapaw becoming the first woman to win Best Cinematography.
Hosts and presenters mixed humour with pointed commentary. Conan O’Brien and other comic performers used oblique references and topical jokes to critique current policies without naming individuals directly, while some presenters made more explicit appeals for peace and human rights when accepting or presenting awards.
Analysis & Implications
The split between One Battle After Another and Sinners illustrates how awards-season narratives can diverge from nomination counts. Sinners’ record 16 nominations confirmed its breadth of industry recognition, but Anderson’s film converted a higher share of nominations into top awards, showing that concentrated support in key voting blocs can outweigh overall momentum.
Autumn Durald Arkapaw’s win for Best Cinematography is likely to have structural effects: it sets a precedent for the Academy’s recognition of women in major technical categories and may encourage studios to back and promote diverse cinematographers. The industry could see increased pressure to expand hiring pipelines and awards campaigning for technical artists.
The AI episode — a viral clip attributed in coverage to software from a Chinese firm and widely shared before the ceremony — sharpened industry concerns about deepfakes, consent and copyright. The show’s rhetoric, emphasising human creativity over algorithmic generation, aligns with calls from unions and studios for clearer regulation and licensing frameworks to protect performers and creators.
Political undertones at the ceremony signal a cautious approach by Hollywood figures ahead of the US midterms. Presenters and winners balanced calls for humanitarian concerns and free speech with careful framing to avoid alienating segments of the global audience, underscoring the industry’s dual role as cultural ambassador and commercial enterprise.
Comparison & Data
| Film | Nominations | Wins |
|---|---|---|
| One Battle After Another | 13 | 6 |
| Sinners | 16 | 4 |
| Frankenstein | 3 | 3 |
| Marty Supreme | 9 | 0 |
| Hamnet | 8 | 1 |
The table above summarises nominations and wins for the most-discussed films. While raw nomination counts indicate breadth of recognition, conversion rate (wins divided by nominations) varied: One Battle After Another converted nearly half its nominations into wins, whereas Sinners converted a smaller share despite more nods. Technical categories remained a reliable avenue for expected outcomes.
Reactions & Quotes
Acceptance speeches and presenters drew both applause and comment. Anderson framed his film’s victory within the larger history of cinema and the contingency of awards.
“There is no best among them.”
Paul Thomas Anderson
Anderson made the remark while listing past Best Picture nominees to emphasise that awards reflect a moment rather than an absolute ranking of art. The line was offered as a reminder of awards’ limits rather than as a dismissal of competition.
Industry figures also addressed technology and authorship directly when presenting animation awards.
“Tonight we are celebrating people, not AI.”
Will Arnett
Arnett introduced the animation segment with an explicit contrast between human creative labour and emergent automated tools, reflecting wider union and studio concerns about the economic and ethical impact of generative AI.
Some presenters used the stage to make succinct political appeals while avoiding extended policy diatribes.
“No to war, and free Palestine!”
Javier Bardem
Bardem’s brief statement received applause and exemplified a common approach at the ceremony: short, symbolic remarks intended to signal solidarity without prolonged partisan engagement.
Unconfirmed
- Attribution of the widely circulated AI clip to a specific Chinese firm has been reported in media accounts but awaits independent technical attribution and a public forensic report.
- The extent to which Timothée Chalamet’s public comments about classical arts directly affected vote totals remains speculative and has not been substantiated by voting data.
- Details about which specific visa restrictions prevented nominees or subjects from attending require confirmation from government records and individuals affected.
Bottom Line
The 98th Academy Awards reaffirmed that a strong campaign and concentrated support in voting blocs can be decisive: One Battle After Another translated fewer nominations into more major awards than its rival Sinners. Craft achievements, including historic wins in cinematography and tight outcomes like the Best Live Action Short tie, provided moments of industry recalibration.
Beyond trophies, the ceremony highlighted enduring fault lines for the film business — the rise of AI, questions about authorship and labour, and how artists engage with political issues on a global stage. These themes suggest the Oscars will remain a barometer not only of artistry but of broader cultural and technological shifts heading into the midterm political season and next awards cycle.