Although Kalshi and Polymarket predicted 19 of the 24 2026 Oscar winners correctly, the 98th Academy Awards on March 15 were still full of surprises, heartfelt moments, laughs, and even more hardware for the most awarded films of the last few months.
Regarding the ceremony itself, “One Battle After Another” was the top dog of the night, winning six Academy Awards including the grand prize of Best Picture. Director, writer, and producer Paul Thomas Anderson won his first three Oscars (Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Director) for those three respective categories in the film. Prior to the ceremony, Anderson had won none of his 11 previous Oscar nominations, spanning the past 28 years.
Sean Penn picked up the win for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw in “One Battle After Another,” making him a three-time Oscar winner. However, he did not show up to the ceremony to receive his award, as he was in Ukraine supporting the country and their war efforts. Ukrainian Railways CEO Oleksandr Pertsovskyi gifted him a homemade Oscar built out of the metals from a railcar damaged by the Russians. By also winning Best Film Editing and the first ever award for Best Casting, the political action-thriller etched its name in Oscars history.
While “One Battle After Another” may have earned the most trophies, “Sinners” made just as big of a splash. Although the film ended up with just four wins compared to their record-breaking 16 nominations, director Ryan Coogler’s vampire horror-thriller arguably earned some of the most meaningful wins of the night.
With the momentum from his win for Best Lead Actor at the Actor Awards, Michael B. Jordan took home his first Oscar and became the sixth Black actor to win Best Actor, shouting each of his predecessors out in his acceptance speech. Ryan Coogler also received his first Oscar in the Best Original Screenplay category, him and Jordan fittingly winning together after working together on each of Coogler’s five films so far.
The other two awards accredited to “Sinners” came through Ludwig Göransson and Autumn Durald Arkapaw. Göransson gained his third Oscar in eight years for Best Original Score, previously winning for “Oppenheimer” and Coogler’s “Black Panther.” The vampire thriller’s fourth win was for Best Cinematography, and Arkapaw became the first woman to ever win that award. In her acceptance speech, she highlighted this achievement in a powerful moment when she asked every woman in the audience to stand up.
Whether or not “Sinners” or “One Battle After Another” had the more impressive wins, both films resulted in a fantastic night for Warner Bros. Studios, tying the record for most wins by a single studio at the Oscars with 11.
Although these two movies were the clear frontrunners in the major awards, “Frankenstein” snagged three Oscars in the technical categories of Best Production Design, Costume Design, and Makeup and Hairstyling. Additionally, “K-Pop Demon Hunters” won Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song (“Golden”), wrapping up an incredibly successful awards run and making history with the first K-pop song to ever win at the Oscars.
Although “Hamnet” only secured one Oscar out of their eight nominations, Jessie Buckley culminated her historic awards season with a win for Best Actress, winning the category at pretty much every awards show (including the BAFTA Awards, the Actor Awards, and the Golden Globes) and also becoming the first Irish woman to receive the award. To round off the evening, Amy Madigan winning Best Supporting Actress made “Weapons” an Oscar-winning horror film, the “Avatar” franchise gained its third win in Best Visual Effects for “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” “F1” grabbed Best Sound, and “Sentimental Value” brought Norway its first ever Best International Feature win.
On the other hand, films like “Marty Supreme,” “Train Dreams,” and “Bugonia” went home empty-handed despite each having at least four nominations. Most significantly, despite winning the category at almost every other ceremony for his role in “Marty Supreme,” Timothée Chalamet lost momentum quickly in his campaign for Best Actor after losing to Michael B. Jordan at the Actor Awards and infuriating certain Oscar voters by making comments on how opera and ballet are practically dying art forms, though voting had closed at the time. One anonymous voter responded to the comments saying “That’s an entitled dude. I’m sorry. I lost a lot of respect for him.”
The ceremony even included a tie for Best Live Action Short between “Two People Exchanging Saliva” and “The Singers,” making it the seventh tie in the Academy’s history, and the first one in 13 years.
Overall, the 2026 Oscars was a ceremony of broken records and milestones with “One Battle After Another” and “Sinners” rising to the top as the most awarded films of the year.
