Oscars 2026: Plenty of winners, lots of losers, and not enough politics

The 98th Academy Awards took place on Sunday night. Any questions?

Who won the major awards? 

Critics’ favourite One Battle After Another took home the coveted Best Picture award and Paul Thomas Anderson also won Best Directing for the film. 

After an almost uncontested campaign, Jessie Buckley took the award for Best Actress in Hamnet. She is the first Irish woman to win the award. Amy Madigan finished her similarly successful award season sweep on a high, taking the award for Best Supporting Actress in Weapons.

In the penultimate reveal of the night, Michael B Jordan secured the Best Actor Oscar after a tumultuous race for the award. He thanked “Sydney Poitier, Denzel Washington, Halle Berry, Jamie Fox, Forest Whittaker, Will Smith”. “To be amongst those giants,” he said, “amongst those greats… thank you everybody… I feel it.”

Amy Madigan pictured at the Warner Bros. Pictures Post-Oscar Celebration. Image: Jay L. Clendenin/Warner Bros. Pictures

What were the big surprises of the night?

The ceremony saw a rare tie between The Singers and Two People Exchanging Saliva in the category of Best Live Action Short Film. Presenter Kumail Nanjiani assured the audience he wasn’t joking before declaring he would announce one film, give them their time to speak, and then announce the second winning short. 

Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein swept the design categories and took the awards for costume design, makeup and hairstyling, and production design. The film fell short, however, in the Best Supporting Actor category, which Jacob Elordi lost to One Battle After Another’s Sean Penn. 

Penn was not present to accept the award, and presenter Kieran Culkin, deadpan as usual, told the audience: “Sean Penn couldn’t be here this evening. Or didn’t want to. So I’ll be accepting the award on his behalf.” 

So… where was Sean Penn? 

Ukraine, according to The Independent. Penn has been one of America’s most vocal advocates for Ukraine in its ongoing conflict with Russia, he even considered melting down his previous two Oscars to make bullets for Zelensky’s army. 

Who left empty-handed?

Timothee Chalamet’s “pursuit of greatness” is unfortunately set to continue as he not only fell short of securing Best Actor for Marty Supreme, but the film itself left the ceremony with nothing. If losing wasn’t enough for Chalamet, he fell victim to a dig from host Conan O’Brien who joked that the real reason for increased security at this year’s ceremony was not due to Iranian threats but “concerns about attacks from both the opera and ballet communities”. This comes after Chalamet’s controversial comments in an interview with Matthew McConaughey regarding those arts.

Bugonia, The Secret Agent, and Train Dreams also left having won nothing. 

What made the night special?

Sinners‘ Autumn Durald Arkapaw won the award for Best Cinematography, making history as both the first woman and the first black person to be awarded in this category. Durald took a moment in her speech to ask all of the women in the audience to rise to their feet.

The ceremony saw two musical performances. The first was a rendition of the nominated song ‘I Lied to You’ from Sinners. Miles Caton was joined on the stage by co-stars Jayme Lawsonon, Li Jun Li and Jack O’Connell, musical artists including Shaboozey, and Misty Copeland, retired American Ballet Theatre dancer.

This was followed by a high energy performance of ‘Golden’ by fictional group HUNTR/X. The audience, including all of the nominated actors in the front row, waved glowing lightsticks during the song, Teyana Taylor being the most enthusiastic by far.

The ‘In Memoriam’ segment this year played out differently, with a touching tribute to legendary director Rob Reiner and his wife Michelle Singer in a speech by Billy Crystal, the star of rom-com classic When Harry Met Sally. Crystal was met by his co-star Meg Ryan and countless other Reiner-directed actors on stage for the rest of the segment. Other speeches included Rachel McAdams’ homage to star Diane Keaton and Barbara Streisand’s surprise tribute to Robert Redford, with a rare but apt song from Streisand to close this extended emotional moment. 

In a room full of political filmmakers, who took risks to speak up?

Conan O’Brien returned as host for a second year, and opened his monologue recognising that “things could get political” over the course of the evening. There were some ambiguous mentions of the “housekeeping mess” of the world, including one from Best Picture director Paul Thomas Anderson. However, despite the night being dominated by wins from political films, most victories were followed by surprisingly apolitical speeches. 

Real-life politics seemed to be lost on many of the winning political filmmakers this year, but there were a few politically motivated statements, and perhaps the most clear-cut were from speeches by the winners of Best Short Documentary and Best Feature Documentary, two unequivocally political films. The former, All The Empty Rooms, highlights the effects of school shootings through the images of rooms left behind by the young lives lost at the hands of gun violence. Gloria Cazales, mother of Jackie, a 9 year old killed in the Uvalde school shooting in 2022, spoke of her grief and called on others to watch the documentary – “if the world could see their empty bedrooms, we’d be a different America”. 

Former Oscar presenter Jimmy Kimmel made several digs at Melania Trump’s self-titled documentary. Kimmel praised documentaries which dare to “tell the truth, oftentimes at great risk [and] inspire us to take action”. Seconds later, he belittled Melania’s passion project. “Walking around the White House trying on shoes”, it seems, was not enough to make the cut. 

Best International Feature Film nominee The Voice of Hind Rajab proves Kimmel’s point, with star Motaz Malhees unable to attend the ceremony because of President Trump’s travel ban, which stops millions of people from entering the country, including those with Palestinian citizenship. 

Director of the winning feature documentary Mr Nobody Against Putin highlighted how the censorship of mainstream media was a central characteristic to a country moving towards authoritarianism, as Jimmy Kimmel, a momentary victim to said censorship, called CBS out by name.

What was new this year?

Since the introduction of a new Academy rule requiring members to have watched every nominated film to vote in a category, there will be no more ‘voting on vibes’. Amy Madigan’s Best Actress win begs the question: would she have been so successful if members of the academy weren’t required to watch the film? 

Famously, the Academy keeps all results other than winners under wraps, but while the new rules in theory could change which kind of performance wins, the new rules definitely make for a fairer ceremony.

24 Oscars were presented this year (25 if you count the tie), a rare increase from last year – and it will be a permanent one. The first ever Oscar for Achievement in Casting was presented to Cassandra Kulukundis, the woman responsible for assembling the cast of Best Picture winner One Battle After Another.

25-year-old Chase Infiniti was one of five presenters, each representing their nominated film. She spoke of the impact Kulukundis has had on her career, saying she “saw something” Infiniti “didn’t even know was there”. One Battle After Another was Infiniti’s first feature film, and with 13 nominations at the Academy Awards, it is safe to say Kulukundis’s work in casting deserves to be recognised, as does the work of many casting directors gone before her. 

Teyana Taylor (left) with Casting winner Cassandra Kulukundis (right) at the Warner Bros. Pictures Post-Oscar Celebration. Image: Jay L. Clendenin/Warner Bros. Pictures

What about next year?

Just when we thought the credits would roll, the audience was treated to the last of many Conan O’Brien led sketches. In the style of One Battle After Another (spoilers!) O’Brien is assassinated, and his name on a plaque reading “Conan O’Brien – Host for Life” is replaced by one with another name: “Mr Beast”. 

We sure hope not.