Oscars 2026 recap: History-making wins for ‘OBAA,’ ‘Sinners’
It was one Oscar after another for “One Battle After Another (OBAA)” and “Sinners” Sunday night at the 98th Academy Awards. The two frontrunners shared 10 Oscars after coming to the show with a commanding 29 combined nominations.
“OBAA” won six out of 13 nominations, including wins for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, Best Casting, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Editing.
“Sinners,” which came to the show with a record 16 nominations, won four, including wins for Best Actor, Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Score, and a history-making win by Autumn Durald Arkapaw, a Filipino and African American Creole woman who shattered the last remaining glass ceiling at the Oscars by winning Best Cinematography.
Arkapaw is the first woman and the first woman of color to win the category dominated by men for 98 years. She is also the first Filipino descent, man or woman, to win an Academy award!
The significance of the moment was not lost on Arkapaw and on the star-studded audience inside the Dolby Theatre. She received a rare and thunderous standing ovation after she was announced as the winner. On stage, after taking in the magnitude of her win, she invited all the women in the room to stand up and share in her triumph.
“I’m so honored to be here, and I really want all the women in the room to stand up, because I feel like I don’t get here without you guys. I really, really, truly mean that. 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, and I want to thank you for that.”
She began her speech with a shoutout to Ryan Coogler, the director of “Sinners,” who ran to the back of the theater and brought Aidan, her son, to the front of the stage. So, he could witness her mom make history.
“Aidan, where are you at?” she said before addressing Coogler after seeing them cheering from the bottom of the stage. “Whenever I say thank you to Ryan, he replies and says, ‘No, thank you! Thank you for believing in me and thank you for trusting me.’ And that’s the kind of guy that I get to make films with. He’s a very, very honorable person.”
During her speech, she cited legends in her field like Ellen Kuras and Rachel Morrison, who helped pave the way for female cinematographers.
Arkapaw was welcomed warmly when she entered the press room backstage. She received the kind of welcome only actors typically get! We asked her what the win meant to her and to many young girls who would be inspired by her success.
“It’s tricky because when you go up there (on stage), you have so much to say, especially after 98 years — there’s so much in your head, and you’re like, ‘Are they going to kick me off? Can I say all this stuff?’ And then, no one was bringing up a piece of paper. So, I tried to just have it all in my head,” she shared.
“But one thing I was going to say that I had written down was that a lot of little girls that look like me will sleep really well tonight because they’ll want to become cinematographers. And I know that… just being on stage getting this award for a movie like that will change so many girls’ lives because they’ll be inspired when they weren’t before!”
She also acknowledged all the women inside the Dolby who stood up in celebration with her.
“I just wanted to say thank you to all the women in the room, because moments like this don’t happen without women, kind of, standing up for you and advocating for you,” she said. “But this isn’t about me anymore. This is about so much more. And I know that. I wanted it for all the ladies in the room, and I wanted it for all the girls at home. So, it happened, and I’m so happy for that because I want to give that to them.”
Arkapaw’s win was one of the highlights of what was to become one of the most emotional ceremonies in recent years.
Halfway through the show, the Academy bade farewell to all Hollywood giants and legends who passed away last year.
The moving “In Memoriam” segment started with former Oscar host Billy Crystal eulogizing the late Rob Reiner and his wife, Michelle, who were tragically killed by their own son last December. After Crystal’s brief tribute, the stage opened up and ushered in many of the stars of Reiner’s acclaimed films, including Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Kathy Bates, Demi Moore, John Cusack, Kiefer Sutherland, Cary Elwes and many more.
After the tribute to Reiner, Rachel McAdams, with her voice breaking, extolled the greatness of screen legends Diane Keaton and Catherine O’Hara, among others, who also sadly passed away recently.
In a poignant tribute to one of the biggest stars and legends of Hollywood, Barbra Streisand made a rare appearance to close the three-part “In Memoriam” segment with a moving testimonial on the greatness of the late Robert Redford. Streisand, who called Redford an intellectual cowboy, shared how he loved to call her Babs. Streisand ended her tribute by singing a stanza from the Oscar-winning song The Way We Were, the theme song of the acclaimed classic love story Streisand and Redford starred in together.
During her tribute, she reminded the audience of one of the greatest contributions of Redford to cinema: the creation of the Sundance Institute and the founding of the Sundance Film Festival, which championed independent filmmaking and launched the careers of two of the biggest winners of the night.
Paul Thomas Anderson (“OBAA”) and Ryan Coogler (“Sinners”) both had their start at Sundance.
Anderson, who won three Oscars (Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay), developed his first film, “Hard Eight,” through the Sundance Lab Institute in 1993.
Coogler, the Best Original Screenplay winner, and Michael B. Jordan, the Best Actor winner, had their career breakthroughs in 2013 when their movie “Fruitvale Station” premiered to wide acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival.
Best Actress winner Jessie Buckley, who swept the Oscar season for her towering performance in “Hamnet,” was directed by Chloe Zhao (a previous Best Director winner for “Nomadland” and who, coincidentally, was also a Sundance Lab Institute alumna in 2012.)
In accepting her Oscar, Buckley acknowledged Zhao and screenwriter Maggie O’Farrell.
“Chloé and Maggie. To get to know this incandescent woman and journey to understand the capacity of a mother’s love is the greatest collision of my life,” she said.
Like Arkapaw, Buckley also achieved a historic win for Ireland. She is the first Irish to win Best Actress.
“Don’t go to bed, keep partying! That’s what I’m going to do,” she joked when asked for her message to her Irish countrymen. “I’m so grateful for the support, and I feel the love… I feel it from young people and old people, from women and men, and from my family. To be here tonight with all my family… that makes it real. They’re the people who built me. To share this moment with them and know that back home they are either drunk or staying up. I’m delighted for us all.”
When asked to reflect on her win, she responded, “It feels like some kind of crazy alchemy that all of these things are colliding on a day like today. My daughter got her first tooth this week. I woke up with her lying on my chest, snuggling me. What a gift to get to explore motherhood through this incredible mother that Agnes is and was, and then to become one myself. Then to receive this recognition of the incredible role mothers play in our world on this day is something I will never, ever forget. Thank you.”
“I think this role cracked a kind of tenderness in me,” she added. “Sometimes, if you’re a strong woman, you’re perceived as just being strong, but actually tenderness is as vibrant and strong as strength. And to know that through this woman where she was able to hold the capacity of strength and vulnerability and tenderness and grief and love in all its epic colors… I mean, why would you ever want to let that go? It’s something I want to hold on to for the rest of my life.”
For Jordan, he considers his Best Actor win for his powerful performance as twins Smoke and Stack in “Sinners” timely.
“It feels timely. I feel like, like I said before, I’m here because of the people that came before me. Sidney (Poitier) and Denzel (Washington), Halle Berry and Forest (Whitaker), all those actors who grace the stage and not looking for awards and not looking for acknowledgement. They’re artists, they want to do the work. And that’s something I’ve always focused on trying to do the work. My father always told me, ‘Don’t expect anything to be handed to you. Do the work and everything else is going to figure itself out.’ And there is selfishness in understanding that, in your craft, in your industry, this is a pinnacle, and this is what our industry standard is. This is what we put value on in a big way. That competitiveness. You do want that. But at the same time… you can’t take anybody’s blessings away from anybody else. So, I’m just walking my path and just trying to be locked in.”
He added that he would encourage other actors and other artists, no matter what their medium is, to try to keep in mind to be honest and truthful and to dream big.
“Dream big, and be kind, be honest. I’m really, I’m really big on pouring into the universe, and the universe is going to pour back into you. And that’s, that’s how I try to live. Yeah.”
Jordan was locked in a tight contest with Timothee Chalamet (“Marty Supreme”) for most of the season until the week of voting when Chalamet was quoted to appear to belittle ballet and opera. There was a huge backlash that ensued, which Conan O’Brien, this year’s Oscar host, joked about at the beginning of his monologue.
Many fans and insiders are speculating that Chalamet lost the Oscar because of his own doing. Chalamet’s film “Marty Supreme” came into the show with nine nominations and was completely shut out.
The winner for Best Supporting Actress was the beloved veteran Amy Madigan for her villainous turn as the garish Aunt Gladys in the terrific horror film “Weapons.”
Her category was the first to be announced during the show. She received a standing ovation after she won. She thanked her husband, the great actor Ed Harris, after revealing that she prepared her speech while shaving her legs in the shower the night before.
Backstage, she talked about a probable Aunt Gladys sequel and the elevation of horror films as prestige films.
Horror films were dominant this year. Apart from “Sinners,” Guillermo Del Toro’s gothic horror “Frankenstein” was also a big winner with three Oscars (Best Production Design, Best Costume Design and Best Makeup & Hairstyling.)
“You know, horror, as we all know, was looked at like you’re at the little kids’ table at Thanksgiving,” Madigan said backstage. “You’re just over there. Which, as we know, is not true. You just look at the great silent horror films that started our business. You still need a great writer. You need a great director. You need wonderful actors and crew. This year is pretty amazing. Look at ‘Sinners.’ It deals with such racial inequities, but yet they do it in this vampire way with the Irish, mind you, where my people are from. I like D.E.I. because everybody can be in the mix. It makes me feel really happy, and I hope it’ll continue to open it up.”
D.E.I. is a controversial initiative in the U.S.A.
The Academy recently enacted a rule encouraging more inclusiveness and diversity in filmmaking. In order for movies to qualify for an Academy award, they have to meet certain casting criteria.
The academy added a new category this year for Best Casting, which “OBAA” won.
Another historic win for the night was achieved by South Korea. The animated film “KPop Demon Hunters” won two Oscars: Best Animated Film, a first for South Korea, and Best Original Song for Golden, the first KPop song to win!
Other winners were Norway’s submission “Sentimental Value” for Best International Feature Film, Brad Pitt’s “F1” (Best Editing) and “Avatar: Fire & Ash” (Best Visual Effects.)
The winner for Best Supporting Actor was Sean Penn for his role as the obsessive military man hunting down Leonardo DiCaprio’s character in “One Battle After Another.”
Penn was absent. The next morning, pictures of him in Ukraine with the Ukrainian president were posted online.
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