★ March 15, 2026 — What to Watch For
Presenters
Robert Downey Jr., Anne Hathaway, Paul Mescal, Demi Moore, Nicole Kidman, Pedro Pascal, Sigourney Weaver, Channing Tatum, Ewan McGregor, Javier Bardem, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jimmy Kimmel, Delroy Lindo, Rose Byrne, Wagner Moura, Lewis Pullman, Bill Pullman, Kumail Nanjiani, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Will Arnett
Adrien Brody presents Best Actor • Mikey Madison presents Best Actress • Zoe Saldaña presents Supporting Actress • Kieran Culkin presents Supporting Actor
Adrien Brody presents Best Actor • Mikey Madison presents Best Actress • Zoe Saldaña presents Supporting Actress • Kieran Culkin presents Supporting Actor
Performances
Sinners tribute: Miles Caton & Raphael Saadiq perform “I Lied To You” joined by Misty Copeland, Buddy Guy, Brittany Howard, Shaboozey, Eric Gales, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, Jayme Lawson, Bobby Rush, Alice Smith, Li Jun Li
Golden: Ejae, Audrey Nuna & Rei Ami with Korean instrumentalists & dancers
In Memoriam: Barbra Streisand honoring Robert Redford (died Sept. 2025)
Also: Josh Groban & the LA Master Chorale
Golden: Ejae, Audrey Nuna & Rei Ami with Korean instrumentalists & dancers
In Memoriam: Barbra Streisand honoring Robert Redford (died Sept. 2025)
Also: Josh Groban & the LA Master Chorale
Special Moments
Bridesmaids reunion: Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Melissa McCarthy & Rose Byrne (15th anniversary)
Marvel reunion: Robert Downey Jr. & Chris Evans
“Extraterrestrial” surprise teased by producers
Theme: “Humanity” — celebrating human connection & actual intelligence over AI
Host: Conan O’Brien returning for second year
Marvel reunion: Robert Downey Jr. & Chris Evans
“Extraterrestrial” surprise teased by producers
Theme: “Humanity” — celebrating human connection & actual intelligence over AI
Host: Conan O’Brien returning for second year
Winners & Nominees — 98th Academy AwardsOdds →
Best Picture
Winner One Battle After Another. Paul Thomas Anderson's Pynchon adaptation completed the most dominant precursor sweep in years — DGA, PGA, WGA, SAG Cast, Golden Globe, and BAFTA — before taking the final prize. Sinners, with its record 16 nominations, won three Oscars but could not overcome Anderson's juggernaut. A deserved coronation for a film that turned the “unfilmable” into something extraordinary.
Winner
One Battle After Another
Produced by Paul Thomas Anderson & Sara Murphy — Focus Features
Best Director
Winner Paul Thomas Anderson. His second Oscar of the night. Anderson adapted Thomas Pynchon — widely considered unfilmable — into something coherent, funny, and devastating. The DGA winner delivered a gracious speech thanking Pynchon, who was not present. Ryan Coogler, who received a record 16 nominations for Sinners, was the sentimental choice but the Academy went with craft.
Winner
Paul Thomas Anderson
— One Battle After Another
Best Actor in a Leading Role
Winner Michael B. Jordan. The SAG Award proved the better predictor over Chalamet's Globe and BAFTA wins. Jordan, playing twin brothers at the center of Ryan Coogler's Sinners, gave an emotional speech crediting Coogler and their decade-long creative partnership. His first Oscar from his first nomination — one of the most popular wins of the night.
Winner
Michael B. Jordan
— Sinners
Best Actress in a Leading Role
Winner Jessie Buckley. The most dominant actress race in years. Buckley swept every major precursor — Globe, BAFTA, SAG, Critics Choice — for her portrayal of Agnes, Shakespeare's wife navigating the death of their son Hamnet. A first-time winner in the most emphatic possible way. Her tearful speech was one of the ceremony's most moving moments.
Winner
Jessie Buckley
— Hamnet
Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Winner Sean Penn. Penn's ferocious turn as a paranoid radical in One Battle After Another won him his third Oscar (after Mystic River and Milk). He beat the favored Jacob Elordi (Frankenstein) in what was the night's biggest category-level surprise, benefiting from the film's overall sweep. Penn wore a “No a la Guerra” pin on stage.
Winner
Sean Penn
— One Battle After Another
Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Winner Amy Madigan. The 53% pre-ceremony favorite held on in the night's most contested race. Madigan's devastating work in Weapons was rewarded over Wunmi Mosaku (Sinners) at 22% and Elle Fanning (Sentimental Value) at 13%. A veteran character actress winning her first Oscar at 75 — one of the most satisfying results of the evening.
Winner
Amy Madigan
— Weapons
Best Original Screenplay
Winner Ryan Coogler, Sinners. Coogler's most personal screenplay — a vampire western rooted in the Jim Crow South, the birth of the blues, and the bond between brothers — won the WGA Award and the Oscar. The film's record 16 nominations translated into three wins, and this was the most emotionally significant. Coogler becomes the first Black writer to win Original Screenplay for a genre film.
Best Adapted Screenplay
Winner Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another. Anderson's third Oscar of the night. Adapting Pynchon's Vineland is itself a feat worth rewarding — the novel is famously resistant to narrative, and Anderson turned it into something that holds together as cinema. Part of his dominant sweep.
Best Animated Feature Film
Winner KPop Demon Hunters. The surprise of the night in this category. The Korean-inspired action-comedy upset the favored Zootopia 2 and Pixar's Elio, proving that the animated feature branch is increasingly willing to look beyond Disney's institutional dominance. A genuinely thrilling result.
Zootopia 2
Elio
KPop Demon Hunters
Little Amélie or the Character of Rain
Arco
Best International Feature Film
Winner Sentimental Value (Norway). Joachim Trier's father-daughter drama — which also earned five nominations in other categories — won the international prize. A deeply personal film about artistic confession and familial love, it conquered Cannes and now has an Oscar. Trier's first Academy Award.
Best Documentary Feature
Winner Mr. Nobody Against Putin. A portrait of political resistance that resonated with an Academy increasingly drawn to stories of individuals standing against authoritarian power. A deserved win in a strong documentary field.
Mr. Nobody Against Putin
The Perfect Neighbor
The Alabama Solution
Come See Me in the Good Light
Cutting Through Rocks
Best Original Score
Winner Ludwig Göransson, Sinners. Göransson's blues-infused, rhythmically intricate score was inseparable from the film's identity. His second Oscar (after Black Panther), and a continuation of his remarkable partnership with Ryan Coogler. The score transforms the supernatural elements of Sinners into something primal and rooted.
Best Original Song
Winner “Golden” from KPop Demon Hunters. The second win for KPop Demon Hunters on the night, capping a remarkable showing for the animated film. “I Lied to You” from Sinners — performed live by Miles Caton, Raphael Saadiq, and an extraordinary ensemble — was the emotional favorite, but the Academy went with “Golden.”
Best Cinematography
Winner Autumn Durald Arkapaw, Sinners. Durald Arkapaw's work on Sinners — capturing the Jim Crow South, the blues clubs, the supernatural horror — was the cinematography branch's choice. She becomes one of the few women to win this category, and the first for a genre film. A major milestone.
Sinners
One Battle After Another
Frankenstein
Marty Supreme
Train Dreams
Best Film Editing
Winner Andy Jurgensen, One Battle After Another. Part of the film's Best Picture sweep — editing often follows the top prize. Jurgensen's cut held together Anderson's sprawling Pynchon adaptation into something propulsive and coherent. Sinners and F1 were strong alternatives, but the Anderson wave carried this category.
Sinners
One Battle After Another
Marty Supreme
Sentimental Value
F1
Best Production Design
Winner Frankenstein. Guillermo del Toro's meticulous reconstruction of 19th-century laboratories and European landscapes won the production design branch. Frankenstein collected three craft Oscars on the night — Production Design, Costume Design, and Makeup & Hairstyling — a clean sweep of the period-design categories.
Frankenstein
Sinners
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
Best Costume Design
Winner Frankenstein. Part of del Toro's craft sweep. The meticulous reconstruction of 19th-century European fashion crossed with the grotesque — the creature's clothing tells its own story of decay and humanity. Hamnet’s Elizabethan work and Ruth E. Carter’s Sinners costumes were strong runners-up.
Frankenstein
Sinners
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Best Makeup & Hairstyling
Winner Frankenstein. The creature design and practical transformation work in del Toro's film was the most technically demanding in the field. Frankenstein’s third craft Oscar of the night, completing the period-design sweep. Mike Hill, Jordan Samuel, and Cliona Furey took the stage.
Frankenstein
Sinners
Kokuho
The Smashing Machine
The Ugly Stepsister
Best Sound
Winner F1. The racing film's immersive sound design — engine roars, tire screeches, the physical sensation of speed — was the sound branch's clear favorite. A win for spectacle and technical craft over the more subtle sound work in Sinners and One Battle After Another.
Sinners
F1
Frankenstein
One Battle After Another
Sirât
Best Visual Effects
Winner Avatar: Fire and Ash. The VFX branch reliably gravitates toward spectacle at scale, and James Cameron's third Avatar delivered exactly that. Sinners’ supernatural elements — built practically where possible — was the critically admired alternative, but Avatar's technical showcase prevailed.
Sinners
Avatar: Fire and Ash
F1
Jurassic World Rebirth
The Lost Bus
Best Casting (new category)
Winner Cassandra Kulukundis, One Battle After Another. The first Oscar ever awarded for casting went to Kulukundis for assembling Anderson’s extraordinary ensemble. A historic moment — the new category was a long-lobbied formal acknowledgment of the craft. Francine Maisler (Sinners) was the pre-show favorite.
Sinners
One Battle After Another
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
The Secret Agent
Best Documentary Short Film
Winner All the Empty Rooms. A quiet, devastating film that stood out in a field that included Armed Only with a Camera, about war journalist Brent Renaud killed in Ukraine. The documentary short branch chose intimacy over spectacle.
Armed Only with a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud
All the Empty Rooms
Children No More: Were and Are Gone
The Devil Is Busy
Perfectly a Strangeness
Best Live Action Short Film
A Friend of Dorothy and Two People Exchanging Saliva have attracted the most attention from the shorts circuit. The live action short is among the hardest categories to call — the field is rarely widely screened before nominations, and branch preferences are difficult to read from the outside.
A Friend of Dorothy
Butcher’s Stain
Jane Austen’s Period Drama
The Singers
Two People Exchanging Saliva
Best Animated Short Film
Winner The Girl Who Cried Pearls. A hand-crafted, painterly short that reflected the branch's recent shift toward artisanal animation over CGI. Butterfly was a strong contender, but the distinctive visual style of The Girl Who Cried Pearls won the day.
Butterfly
Forevergreen
The Girl Who Cried Pearls
Retirement Plan
The Three Sisters