One Battle After Another, Paul Thomas Anderson’s wry look at activism and radicalism in a time drenched in both, won best picture, best director and best adapted screenplay among a host of other prizes at a celebratory if at times pointed Oscars Sunday night.
“There is no best among them; there is just what the mood is that day,” Anderson said, citing the 1976 Oscars and its deep bench to make a point about the good company in this one. The auteur was accepting the best picture prize, his third Oscar of the night after a 30-year career in which he had previously won zero.
Indeed, a slew of first-time winners dominated the telecast of the 2026 Oscars, with strong supporting appearances from politics and late Hollywood legends.
An acclaimed veteran filmmaker (Ryan Coogler), an acclaimed even more veteran filmmaker (Anderson), an acclaimed veteran actor (Michael B. Jordan) and an acclaimed even more veteran actress (Amy Madigan) all won statuettes for the first time. Ditto for a KPop song (“Golden”), an Irish woman competing for best actress (Jessie Buckley), a female cinematographer and a Black cinematographer (Autumn Durald Arkapaw) and a casting director (Cassandra Kulukundis). Meanwhile an In Memoriam segment that honored Rob Reiner, Robert Redford and Diane Keaton proved to be one of the most impactful in years.
Both Anderson and Coogler won trophies for their screenplays, the One Battle After Another filmmaker for adapted and the Sinners auteur in original. “Please, please, please sit down because ’cause I’m very nervous and they’re gonna play me off,” Coogler said as he took his prize. Coogler has had his share of hits in the past with Fruitvale Station and Black Panther but had never won an Oscar.
Anderson had gone even longer: he had been nominated 11 times before tonight dating back to a screenplay nomination for Boogie Nights in the 1990s but never won. “You make a guy work hard for one of these,” the American auteur behind movies including Magnolia and The Master said good-naturedly after winning the director prize for his new movie, which jumped out to frontrunner status in September and seldom relinquished it throughout the season.
The triumphalism shifted often between Battle and Sinners, the latter of which brought Arkapaw’s win for cinematography. “I have felt so much love from all the women on this whole campaign and gotten to meet so many people, and I just feel like moments like this happen because of you guys,” she said upon accepting the prize.
Jordan won for the same film, in which he played two roles, and also saluted the pioneers who came before him as he shouted out to a number of past Black Oscar acting winners. “To be among those giants, to be among those ancestors … I feel it,” he said.
Earlier in the show a lengthy In Memoriam segment unspooled, as Barbra Streisand gave a meaningful speech recalling her time with Robert Redford and sang part of “The Way We Were” to him; Billy Crystal paid tribute to his frequent collaborator Rob Reiner and the director’s wife Michelle, who were both murdered in December; and Rachel McAdams honored Diane Keaton — all part of a segment that saw a host of boomer and other late legends feted.
The heartstring-y Hollywood tone shifted quickly, though, as Jimmy Kimmel took the stage to hand out documentary prizes. The late-night host got in digs at CBS News under David Ellison and President Donald Trump/Amazon for the Melania documentary.
“There are some countries whose leaders don’t support free speech. I’m not at liberty to say which. Let’s just leave it at North Korea and CBS,” he deadpanned, then, noting how some doc filmmakers took their lives in their hands to tell the truth, added, “There are also documentaries where you walk around the White House trying on shoes.”
Kimmel, who of course was targeted by the Trump administration and briefly suspended by ABC after a joke he made in the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination, then added “Oh man is he going to be mad his wife wasn’t nominated for this,” presumably referring to Trump and the Melania doc. (It wasn’t eligible for this Oscars; perhaps Amazon will undertake a campaign next year.)
The winners of All the Empty Rooms, a doc short about the child victims of school shootings, then took the stage to describe their experience. “Since that day, her bedroom has been frozen in time,” Gloria Cazares, whose daughter was killed in the 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. “Jackie is more than just a headline. She is our light and life. Gun violence is now the No. 1 cause of death in kids and teens. We believe if the world could see their empty bedrooms, we’d be a different America.”
The moment was followed by a speech from David Borenstein, co-director of doc winner Mr. Nobody Against Putin, about a teacher in a Ural Mountain town, Pavel Talankin (also a director on the movie), who documents Putin misdeeds with his students. Borenstein’s speech quickly went from one about Russia to one about America. “When a government murders people on the streets of our major cities, when we don’t say anything, when oligarchs take over the media and control how we could produce it and consume it — we all face a moral choice,” he said, making the subtext text. “But luckily even a nobody is more powerful than you think.”
Javier Bardem would later take the stage presenting international feature and say “No to war, and free Palestine,” to some applause from the audience. Sentimental Value, one of the least political films in the international field, then won that prize. Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just An Accident might have gotten a bump from the two-week-old war in Iran but, if it did, it was not enough to lap the Norwegian favorite. Sentimental director Joachim Trier did make his own small political statement when he said, “All adults are responsible for all children, and let’s not vote for politicians that don’t take this seriously into account.”
The night began on a touching, career-capping note as Madigan took her first Oscar nearly 45 years since she began acting while casting directors were honored for the first time at the show after an omission lasting even criminally longer.
Madigan won the supporting actress statuette for her role as the creepily supernatural Aunt Gladys in breakout horror hit Weapons, winning an Oscar in her second try. Her first nomination came 40 years ago for the romantic drama Twice In a Lifetime.
“What’s different is I got this little gold guy,” Madigan said in her acceptance speech, comparing this Oscar campaign to the last one.
Beginning with a cackle befitting her Weapons character, she said she had tried to think of a speech while shaving her legs in the shower Saturday night, and then proceeded to give emotional thank yous to various people who worked on her film and on her career. “As you can tell I’m a little flummoxed,” she said, while alluding to all the other Warner Bros. contenders that had welcome her on the awards trail. She also thanked longtime husband Ed Harris and “of course all the dogs.”
In an equally uplifting moment, the inaugural best casting Oscar saw the actors who had been cast in the nominated films all stand on stage and go down one by one thanking the casting directors who put them in their movies. “I’m very grateful for you personally that you made room for one who’s been doing this a little while,” Sinners star Delroy Lindo said as he thanked casting director Francine Maisler.
But the decorated veteran and category favorite was then upset by longtime Anderson collaborator and One Battle After Another casting director Cassandra Kulukundis, who then went to the podium and gave a freewheelingly happy speech that only reinforced the value of the prize. “I have to thank the Academy for even adding this category and casting directors for fighting to make this happen despite everything in their way,” she said, saying it was “freaking insane” that she was up there.
Their movie also continued its early strong run as Sean Penn won supporting actor for his turn as a white-nationalist law-and-order man Steven J. Lockjaw in the political dramedy. Penn, who did not attend the show, was a rare repeat winner Sunday night: his three acting Oscars ties a male record.
A sense of hope also permeated the live-action short category, which saw an uncommon tie and prizes for two sets of filmmakers. One of the movies, the New Yorker-produced Two People Exchanging Saliva, is a brilliant and unsettling dystopic work shot like a Calvin Klein ad and isn’t giving anyone any hugs; however the other, The Singers, shows barflies coming together showcasing surprising musical talent and fit with the evening’s theme.
Shortly after Madigan’s win, KPop Demon Hunters took the animated feature Oscar, no doubt giving heart to the millions of fans of the Netflix phenom who may not otherwise be avidly following best picture odds.
An emotional director co-director Maggie Kang took the stage and said, “For those of you who look like me, I’m so sorry that it took this long to see us in a movie like this,” the Korean-Canadian filmmaker then vowing it would not be long until the next one.
A defiant note happened when animated presenter Will Arnett said “Tonight we’re celebrating people, not AI.” Animation, he added, “is more than a prompt; it’s an art form and it needs to be protected.”
Frankenstein’s win in costume and hair-and-makeup categories also amounted to an AI rebuttal given director Guillermo del Toro’s outspoken words about AI this campaign season. Winner Jordan Samuel thanked “the prosthetic and makeup people for all the hard work they did,” a comment that is hard to hear without thinking about the way LLMs can generate looks without anyone working on a shoot at all.
The show began with host Conan O’Brien trying to push a more hopeful message despite war-torn and dislocating times.
After noting said toughness, O’Brien said that “It’s at moments like these that the Oscars are particularly resonant, citing the dozens of countries watching and represented and the pursuit of the ‘rarest of qualities today: optimism. So please let us celebrate not because we think all is well but because we know and hope for better.’”
This story first published on March 15 at 4:50 p.m.
