‘One Battle After Another’ wins Oscar for best picture.
- The San Juan Daily Star
- 4 hours ago
- 6 min read
By BROOKS BARNES
“One Battle After Another” won six Oscars at the 98th Academy Awards on Sunday, including those for best picture and best director, at long last cementing Paul Thomas Anderson’s status as one of the foremost filmmakers of his generation.
A primal scream about authoritarianism and citizen resistance, “One Battle After Another” was also honored for Anderson’s adapted screenplay, giving the 55-year-old auteur three statuettes to take home after 28 years of nominations but no wins. (His first career nod was for “Boogie Nights” in 1998.) “One Battle After Another” added statuettes for best supporting actor (a no-show Sean Penn), casting and editing.
“What a night!” Anderson said from the stage. “Let’s have a martini.” The camera cut to the audience, where a hooting Steven Spielberg was using his hands like a megaphone.
But the evening was not a sweep. “Sinners,” a period horror fantasia about African American identity and trauma, received four Oscars, including one for Ryan Coogler’s original screenplay. The film added trophies for its score, lead actor (Michael B. Jordan, another first-time winner) and cinematography.
Jordan played the diabolical twins Smoke and Stack. He thanked Warner Bros. and Coogler for “betting on original ideas and original artistry.”
With her victory in the cinematography category for “Sinners,” Autumn Durald Arkapaw became the first woman to receive the honor in academy history. During her acceptance speech, she asked the women in the room to stand. “I feel like I don’t get here without you,” she said.
Here are takeaways from the show:
— Big night for Warner Bros.: “One Battle After Another,” which collected $210 million worldwide, and “Sinners,” which sold $369 million, both came from the same studio: Warner Bros. Most of Hollywood’s old-line movie companies have become fixated on sequels and remakes, but Warner has also gambled on highly original, big-budget movies, with “One Battle” and “Sinners” as prime examples. Netflix and Paramount Skydance spent recent months trying to acquire Warner and related corporate assets. Paramount Skydance, which notably had no Oscar nominations Sunday night, emerged as the winner. If the acquisition clears a regulatory review later this year, the Oscars will be the end of an era for Warner — its end as a stand-alone movie company.
— Tough night for indies: Netflix left the ceremony with seven Oscars, the most in its history, according to Ted Sarandos, the streaming service’s co-CEO. Those wins — along with the love showered on Warner’s auteur blockbusters — came at the expense of indie darlings like A24’s “Marty Supreme,” which starred Timothée Chalamet and left empty-handed despite having nine nominations. (The voter backlash to Chalamet’s swaggering antics on the Oscar campaign trail has been real.) Also blanked were “The Secret Agent,” a Brazilian film, and the absurdist “Bugonia,” each of which had four nominations.
— Best actress: Irish actress Jessie Buckley completed an awards season sweep (the Golden Globes, the BAFTAs, various guild ceremonies) by winning the best actress Oscar. She was honored for her performance of a mother shattered by grief in “Hamnet.” It was the specialty film’s only victory out of eight nominations.
— Three wins for ‘Frankenstein’: “Frankenstein,” a lavish period drama on Netflix, won the best costume category. It also won the Oscar for makeup and hairstyling. Anne Hathaway and a surprisingly funny Anna Wintour, the Condé Nast czarina, appeared as the presenters in a scripted marketing moment for the coming 20th Century Studios movie “The Devil Wears Prada 2.” (ABC, which broadcasts the Oscars, is owned by Disney, which also owns 20th Century. Welcome to today’s corporately consolidated Hollywood.) The film also won for production design.
— Casting gets a statue: For the first time, the Academy Awards gave a casting director a little gold man, honoring Cassandra Kulukundis for helping to put together the sprawling ensemble of “One Battle After Another.” It was an upset: Going into the ceremony, Francine Maisler had been a favorite for her work on “Sinners.”
— Supporting actress: Amy Madigan received the supporting actress Oscar for her unhinged Aunt Gladys in “Weapons.” It was a late-career triumph for Madigan, 75, who has been a character actress since 1982. “He just wrote a dream part and let me just grab it by the throat,” Madigan said from the stage, thanking Zach Cregger, who wrote and directed the film.
— ‘KPop Demon Hunters’: The film was named best animated movie, and it also won for best song. Maggie Kang, one of the film’s directors, used her acceptance speech to encourage diversity in filmmaking. “This is for Korea, and for Koreans everywhere,” she said.
— And the award goes to … two!: In a rarity at the Oscars, one category — live-action short — resulted in a tie between “Two People Exchanging Saliva” and “The Singers.” The outcome resulted in an awkward moment, when producers for the show tried to move things along by turning off stage lights during an acceptance speech; the microphone also began to retract into the stage.
— In memoriam: Billy Crystal opened the in memoriam segment by honoring director Rob Reiner. Barbra Streisand later briefly sang in tribute to Robert Redford, with words projected on the wall above the orchestra: “The glory of art is that it cannot only survive change, it can lead it.”
— Documentary winners: Jimmy Kimmel — taking a comedic swipe at Melania Trump’s recent vanity documentary — presented the Oscars for nonfiction filmmaking. “All the Empty Rooms,” about the bedrooms left behind by children killed in school shootings, won for short documentary, while the feature prize went to “Mr. Nobody Against Putin,” about Russia’s efforts to control public perception during its war with Ukraine.
— The host: Conan O’Brien, hosting for the second consecutive year, opened the show with a parody of “Weapons,” appearing in drag as that film’s terrifying Aunt Gladys in a pretaped segment. The stars ate it up, giving him a standing ovation. As the telecast went on — for more than 3 1/2 hours — a relaxed O’Brien mixed barbed Hollywood jokes with goofy sight gags, keeping the ceremony loose and occasionally ridiculous. References to politics were relatively few.
2026 OSCAR WINNERS
Best Picture
“One Battle After Another”
Nominees in this category: “Bugonia”; “F1”; “Frankenstein”; “Hamnet”; “Marty Supreme”; “The Secret Agent”; “Sentimental Value”; “Sinners”; “Train Dreams”
Best Director
Paul Thomas Anderson, “One Battle After Another”
Nominees in this category: Ryan Coogler, “Sinners”; Josh Safdie, “Marty Supreme”; Joachim Trier, “Sentimental Value”; Chloé Zhao, “Hamnet”
Best Actor
Michael B. Jordan, “Sinners”
Nominees in this category: Timothée Chalamet, “Marty Supreme”; Leonardo DiCaprio, “One Battle After Another”; Ethan Hawke, “Blue Moon”; Wagner Moura, “The Secret Agent”
Best Actress
Jessie Buckley, “Hamnet”
Nominees in this category: Rose Byrne, “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You”; Kate Hudson, “Song Sung Blue”; Renate Reinsve, “Sentimental Value”; Emma Stone, “Bugonia”
Best Supporting Actor
Sean Penn, “One Battle After Another”
Nominees in this category: Benicio Del Toro, “One Battle After Another”; Jacob Elordi, “Frankenstein”; Delroy Lindo, “Sinners”; Stellan Skarsgard, “Sentimental Value”
Best Supporting Actress
Amy Madigan, “Weapons”
Nominees in this category: Elle Fanning, “Sentimental Value”; Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, “Sentimental Value”; Wunmi Mosaku, “Sinners”; Teyana Taylor, “One Battle After Another”
Original Screenplay
“Sinners”
Nominees in this category: “Blue Moon”; “It Was Just an Accident”; “Marty Supreme”; “Sentimental Value”
Adapted Screenplay
“One Battle After Another”
Nominees in this category: “Bugonia”; “Frankenstein”; “Hamnet”; “Train Dreams”
Casting
“One Battle after Another”
Nominees in this category: “Hamnet”; “Marty Supreme”;“Sinners”; “The Secret Agent”
Animated Feature
“KPop Demon Hunters”
Nominees in this category: “Arco”; “Elio”; “Little Amélie or the Character of Rain”; “Zootopia 2”
Production Design
“Frankenstein”
Nominees in this category: “Hamnet”; “Marty Supreme”; “One Battle After Another”; “Sinners”
Costume Design
“Frankenstein”
Nominees in this category: “Avatar: Fire and Ash”; “Hamnet”; “Marty Supreme”; “Sinners”
Cinematography
“Sinners”
Nominees in this category:” Frankenstein”; “Marty Supreme”; “One Battle after Another”; “Train Dreams”
Editing
“One Battle After Another”
Nominees in this category: “F1”; “Marty Supreme”; “Sentimental Value”; “Sinners”
Makeup and Hairstyling
“Frankenstein”
Nominees in this category: “Kokuho”; “Sinners”; “The Smashing Machine”; “The Ugly Stepsister”
Sound
“F1”
Nominees in this category: “Frankenstein”; “One Battle after Another”; “Sinners”; “Sirât”
Visual Effects
“Avatar: Fire and Ash”
Nominees in this category: “F1”; “Jurassic World Rebirth”; “The Lost Bus”; “Sinners”
Original Score
“Sinners”
Nominees in this category: “Bugonia”; “Frankenstein”; “Hamnet”; “One Battle after Another”
Original Song
“Golden” (“KPop Demon Hunters”)
Nominees in this category: “Golden” (“KPop Demon Hunters”); “I Lied To You” (“Sinners”); “Sweet Dreams Of Joy” (“Viva Verdi!“); “Train Dreams” (“Train Dreams”)
Documentary Feature
“Mr. Nobody Against Putin”
Nominees in this category: “The Alabama Solution”; “Come See Me in the Good Light”; “Cutting through Rocks”; “The Perfect Neighbor”
International Feature
“Sentimental Value,” Norway
Nominees in this category: “The Secret Agent,” Brazil; “It Was Just an Accident,” France; “Sirat,” Spain; “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” Tunisia
Animated Short
“The Girl Who Cried Pearls”
Nominees in this category: “The Three Sisters”; “Retirement Plan”; “Forevergreen”; “Butterfly”
Documentary Short
“All the Empty Rooms”
Nominees in this category: “Armed Only with a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud”; “Children No More: “Were and Are Gone”“; “Perfectly a Strangeness”; “The Devil Is Busy”
Live-Action Short (Tie)
“The Singers”
“Two People Exchanging Saliva”
Nominees in this category: “Butcher’s Stain”; “A Friend of Dorothy”; “Jane Austen’s Period Drama”
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