The 98th Academy Awards came with a two-horse race for the top prize and many questionable moments. Let’s recap the biggest highlights of the 2026 Oscars!
The 98th Academy Awards have come and gone, celebrating the films of last year and capping off an awards season filled with what some terminally online people would call drama. The big headline of this year’s ceremony was the contest between One Battle After Another and Sinners for the top prize of Best Picture, with both films also competing in plenty of other categories. With Conan O’Brien returning to host, many categories extremely wide-open, and the kinda sorta return of Best Original Song performances, surely we could have an exciting show on our hands… right? Well, let’s find out by going through a recap of the biggest highlights, surprises, and takeaways from the 2026 Oscars!
Conan’s Serviceable Host Performance
Conan O’Brien took on his second time hosting the Oscars, hitting a Dolby stage that resembled a soothing courtyard garden. He started out strong with a reenactment of the Weapons climax, getting chased by kids through various 2025 films, including KPop Demon Hunters and Sinners (which made me realize I’d rather be attacked by vampires than deranged children). He had a few other solid gags throughout the show, including a Timothée Chalamet “bum drum” which, if you’ve seen Marty Supreme, is exactly what you think it is. My favorite bit saw Casablanca reimagined for today’s audiences who are distracted by their phones, with Conan and Sterling K. Brown overexplaining their characters’ motivations, the setting, and the story.
Conan’s monologue, however, was a mixed bag. You could hear relatively muted reactions to a lot of his material in the crowd. Some duds included a reference to the fake F1 sequel Caps Lock, comparing the rough birth in Hamnet to America’s affordable healthcare, and an easy, predictable jab at Chalamet’s opera/ballet comment. “Security is extremely tight tonight,” he mused, “I’m told there’s concerns about attacks from both the opera and ballet communities.” Even his back-and-forth with announcer Matt Berry (live from London) was a downgrade from Nick Offerman last year. Berry’s mistaken belief that classic actor Basil Rathbone is still alive didn’t exactly do much for me.
There were still a few killer jokes. Maybe the most searing was about this being the first Oscars since 2012 with no British candidates in the two big acting categories. But, in the words of a supposed British spokesperson, “At least we arrest our pedophiles.” Replacing every seat filler with a bunch of Michael B. Jordans was also the kind of Conan ridiculousness I want to see. And like last year, his sincere acknowledgement of why we’re here was an effective capper. “Everyone watching right now around the world is all too aware that these are very chaotic and frightening times. It’s at moments like these that I believe that the Oscars are particularly resonant… Every film we salute is the product of thousands of people speaking different languages, working hard to make something of beauty.”
One Battle After Another Versus Sinners
One Battle After Another was the decently firm frontrunner to win Best Picture as far back as… honestly, the day it premiered. But leading up to the Oscars, Sinners had been gaining a lot of momentum and stood a decent chance at a last-minute upset. One Battle After Another had already claimed 3 awards before Sinners took home its first. The first major win for One Battle After Another was for Best Adapted Screenplay, which was writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson’s first ever Oscar. “I wrote this movie for my kids, to say sorry for the housekeeping mess we left in this world we’re handing off to them. But also with the encouragement that they will be the generation that hopefully brings us some common sense and decency,” PTA said while nervously fiddling with his statue.
Sinners – with a record-shattering 16 nominations – was by far the film whose mention got the most enthused reactions from the audience all night, making it very clear who their favorite was from the start. But clearly the Academy wasn’t quite the same, as the film was 1 for 8 deep into the show. That 1 win was for Best Original Screenplay, earning Ryan Coogler his own first win where he gave a rapid-fire Oakland-style speech in front of an extremely excited crowd. The film finally got its second win in Best Original Score for Ludwig Göransson, who may have it made more than any other film composer besides Hans Zimmer at this point.
Continuing the back-and-forth, One Battle After Another won Editing while Sinners – in what was probably my most audible reaction to a win all night – snatched the equally wide-open Cinematography for Autumn Durald Arkapaw. This made her, believe it or not, the first woman to ever win this award, which may have contributed to the uproarious response her win got. “Whenever I say thank you to Ryan, he replies and says, ‘No, thank you for believing in me,’” she declared. “And that’s the kind of guy that I get to make films with… And he really, truly means it.” She then called for all the women in the room to stand up. “I don’t get here without you guys.”
As a brief aside, shoutout to Teyana Taylor (of One Battle After Another) for being the best cheerleader in the crowd. Every time we cut to her during a winner announcement, she always looked pumped as hell for whomever was walking onto that stage, even if it was her movie’s competition.
One Battle After Another‘s Ultimate Triumph
By the time we finally got to Best Picture, One Battle After Another had 5 wins to Sinners’ 4, again mirroring their trajectories going into this thing. But as soon as Paul Thomas Anderson claimed Best Director, it seemed all but certain that his film would come out on top. His victory speech for Director was as PTA as you could get. “There will always be some doubt in your heart that you deserve it, but there is no question of the pleasure of having it for myself,” he said to applause and laughter.
Anderson got one more chance to speak after his film won Best Picture. “I just wanna say that in 1975, the Oscar nominees for Best Picture were Dog Day Afternoon, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Jaws, Nashville, and Barry Lyndon. There is no best among them. There’s just what their mood might be that day… Let’s have a martini; this is pretty amazing.”
Though this was the expected win, I’m happy neither this film nor Sinners completely blew each other out, and that two very different high-quality films could be even somewhat competitive like this. In total, One Battle After Another racked up 6 wins from its 13 nominations, including the first ever Best Casting award. Sinners can also hang its hat on a late-surge Best Actor win for a visibly stunned Michael B. Jordan, who began his speech as only he could. “Yo mamma, what’s up? Hey pops, where you at? My dad flew in from Ghana to be here.”
Jordan credited his win to Black actors before him like Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, Halle Berry, and Will Smith (who was finally able to be mentioned at an Oscar ceremony without addressing you-know-what). “And to be amongst those giants, amongst those greats, amongst my ancestors, my guys, thank you…” All in all, 4 wins out of 16 nominations may not be the fabled Sinners sweep some wanted, but the movie for sure left its mark. And with Warner Bros. having two films be the night’s top winners, it’s on a hot streak that surely calls for a company buyout.
Other Notable 2026 Oscar Winners
Despite the oversaturation of several films in this year’s nominations, only two other movies got more than one award. Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein won 3 awards from 9 nominations. Kate Hawley won for Best Costume Design, much to Guillermo’s extremely visible, almost childlike glee. Jacob Elordi (The Creature in the movie) also amped up the winners for Best Makeup and Hairstyling as they got on stage to accept the award. He apparently sat in the makeup chair for 400 hours, so it figures they’d get close in that time. Lastly, Tamara Deverell won for Best Production design and specifically thanked Mary Shelley for writing the original “Frankenstein” story. And thanks to The Bride!, we now know exactly what Shelley would’ve wanted to write next.
KPop Demon Hunters claimed two awards, the first of which was Best Animated Feature Film. For the fourth year in a row, Disney/Pixar lost an award they’d once been handed like some charity case. Whatever you think about KPop Demon Hunters, that’s just something to be happy about. Later, the mega-smash hit “Golden” earned the film its second Oscar. “Growing up, people made fun of me for liking KPop,” winning singer Ejae professed, “But now everyone’s singing our song.” The funniest part to me is that classic soul singer Lionel Richie gave this award to an electro-charged KPop song. Or that some people would consider “Everyone’s singing our song” to be a bad thing after its endless exposure.
Probably the most locked category was Best Actress, which predictably (but deservedly) went to Jessie Buckley for Hamnet. In a night filled with mostly generic acceptance speeches, Buckley’s had a great mix of humor and raw passion. She pointed to her husband and said, “You’re the most incredible dad… I want to have 20,000 more babies with you,” before saying to the film’s director Chloé Zhao, “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. It’s Mother’s Day in the UK today, so I would like to dedicate this to the beautiful chaos of a mother’s heart.”
Weapons pulled out a seemingly impossible Best Supporting Actress win for Amy Madigan. Or, as she put it, “I got this little gold guy.” I don’t personally agree with the choice, but it was objectively worth it to hear her say, “I was in the shower last night, trying to think of something to say as I was shaving my legs. And I got pants on. I don’t have to worry about that.” Avatar: Fire and Ash won Best Visual Effects, Sentimental Value won Best International Feature, and F1 won Best Sound, which I’m sure pisses off the people who hate fun. Especially since this gives F1 more wins than Marty Supreme, which walked away with absolutely none of the nine awards it could’ve won. Between this and the Complete Unknown blowout last year, Chalamet might have cursed his Oscar contenders.
A Powerful In Memoriam
I don’t think I’ve ever said this – though you’d think I would have – but the show’s most powerful portion for me was easily the In Memoriam. These are usually serviceable ways to honor those recently passed in the industry. But this year, it was mixed in with personalized sendoffs to particularly staggering losses. Billy Crystal (When Harry Met Sally) began with a tribute to Rob and Michelle Reiner in a charming, funny, but undeniably genuine way. “For us, who had the privilege of working with and knowing him and loving him, all we can say is, ‘Buddy, what fun we had storming the castle.’” Then, some of the biggest names from Reiner’s films came out and stood hand-in-hand as the full In Memoriam began.
Rachel McAdams appeared in the middle to honor the women we lost, giving a small eulogy for the legendary Diane Keaton. By this point, the weight of just how many people died in the past year was really hitting me, and all before the most haunting goodbye was given. Barbara Streisand shared her history with the late Robert Redford, his standards for roles, their passions, and their final exchanges. “As we were hanging up, he said ‘Babs, I love you dearly, and I always will.’ And in the last note I ever wrote to Bob, I ended it with, ‘I love you too,’ and I signed it Babs.” After that, what better way could she go out than by singing “The Way We Were,” in honor of the film of the same name she starred in alongside Redford?
It was a phenomenal In Memoriam. Maybe the strongest one in at least a decade. You’ve got the highly personal farewells, the magnitudes of the losses being felt, the simple instrumentation – including a rendition of “Storybook Love” from Reiner’s The Princess Bride – and the grace of letting the main In Memoriam play out with no fancy gimmicks. It’s all just put in front of you, letting the losses speak for themselves except when they were too earth-shattering to ignore. Rest in peace to every single person listed, and of course to those who were not.
Musical Performances
The Academy made the controversial choice of only having two Best Original Song nominees be performed. Aka, the two songs that were in legitimate contention. One was “I Lied to You” from Sinners. Miles Catton, who sang the sweeping, genre-bending blues tune in the film, led the charge in a recreation of the film’s juke joint setting, joined by ballet dancer Misty Copeland, musicians Eric Gales, Brittany Howard, and Bobby Rush, and co-stars Buddy Guy, Jayme Lawson and Li Jun Li. It was a clearly a well-staged performance, capturing the film’s spiritually brazen dances in great harmony. But the camerawork didn’t do the insane party justice, and Catton’s vocals were barely audible once the instrumentation kicked it up. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I found myself a bit underwhelmed by the performance as a television product.
Much later, “Golden” got its chance to go up, up, up. The performance actually started by paying homage to the film’s antagonistic boyband and “Hunter’s Mantra” before the three main singers emerged. Golden cloths were waved by golden-clad dancers in the golden background, so they understood the assignment. Kudos for giving the non-Ejae singers backing vocals too, since they barely sing in the original song.
But like “I Lied to You,” the wow factor just didn’t come through, and we get something that’s clearly good but in no way spectacular. And despite the original song barely cracking three minutes, this rendition cut out several verses in the middle for no discernible reason! I guess if you’re sick of the song, you’re in luck. But how are the Oscars unable to fit in an entire song when they cut out over half of the Best Original Song lineup already?
Oh yeah, I know why…
The Show’s Terrible Use of Time
Unlike last year, the show cracked down on lengthy acceptance speeches right from the start. As early as Best Makeup and Hairstyling, the music ended things when the second of three speakers had just begun talking. After Best Original Song winner Ejae finished her speech, one of her co-winners started speaking only to be played off almost immediately, despite everyone else’s nonverbal pleas. Now, I’m all for keeping individual winners in check by cutting them off if necessary, and most of them kept their speeches efficiently condensed. But when you’ve got multiple winners sharing the same award, I think some leeway should be offered to let everyone at least say something as long as they’re not overdoing it.
Especially when the show was more than happy to waste time on the award presenters. I know to expect unfunny bits like Channing Tatum not realizing that Will Arnett does more than just animation voicework, or Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans bickering over their Avengers anniversary. But then the cast of Bridesmaids came out with a 3-minute, nonsensical skit about Stellan Skarsgård giving them insensitive notes about their aging appearances, and then lampshaded it with a note from Benicio del Toro: “You guys have been talking for a long time. This bit could’ve been a lot shorter. This is really going on and on. You aren’t even talking about score.” Oh yeah, this was all the lead-in to the Best Original Score award, by the way.
Or, how about Academy president Lynette Howard Taylor coming on stage solely to yap about who makes up the Academy, how they honored innovations in filmmaking, the Governor’s Awards, or the Academy museum? There was no major announcement, no grand honorary moment, and not even a dumb sketch to give this any sense of purpose. It was literally just her going, “Isn’t the Academy awesome, you guys? Yay, us!”
Meanwhile, the clips shown for each award presentation – you know, the way many people get a sense of what’s even being awarded – were once again criminally short. Everything was only shown as long as it took to read the nominees’ names. If I wanted someone talking over the Best Sounds I’m supposed to be appreciating, I’d just go to a movie theater. The only two categories that were done justice were Best Picture and Best Song, probably because two of the songs had already been performed in their entirety… well, almost their entirety. Bottom line, if I’m gonna stay up past midnight putting this whole recap together, I’d like the reasons for the show going over time to actually be… y’know, good.
The Best Presenters of the Night
I lambasted some presenters, but I want to be fair and give credit to the best ones. When presenting Best Animated Short Film to The Girl Who Cried Pearls, Will Arnett came out of nowhere with a boss defense of human-made animation: “Tonight we are celebrating people. Not AI. Because animation is more than a prompt. It is an art form, and it needs to be protected. Am I right?!” he shouted to a riled-up crowd, in what will probably be the animation community’s biggest rallying cry since Guillermo del Toro’s “Animation is cinema.”
Next, Anne Hathaway learned that even British royalty irrationally dislikes her when her co-presenter, Dame Anna Wintour, ignored her urgent request for feedback on her dress by just listing off the Best Costume Design nominees, followed by straight-up getting her name wrong with a, “Thank you, Emily.” It’s simple, efficient, and comedically on point.
When presenting for Best Production Design, Sigourney Weaver discussed her experience with aliens, including the “downright adorable” Grogu in the audience being pet by Kate Hudson. “Get away from him, you b*tch!” she shouted. Eh, still a better callback to the line than in Alien: Romulus. Tragically, we also see that Grogu is physically incapable of clapping for the winners. And something tells me the audience of his upcoming movie won’t be clapping either.
Former Oscar host Jimmy Kimmel got some of his mojo back when presenting the Best Documentary Feature and Best Documentary Short Film awards – won by Mr. Nobody Against Putin and All the Empty Rooms respectively – discussing how dangerous it can be just to make these types of movies. “As you know, there are some countries whose leaders don’t support free speech. I’m not at liberty to say which. Let’s just leave it at North Korea and CBS.” Moulin Rouge stars Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman reunited to present Best Picture, falling back into their romantic routine in a way that I pray Keith Urban never sees. And as much as I criticized Adrian Brody’s excessively long speech last year, he took it on the chin when presenting Best Actor by bringing out pages of notes before getting immediately played off.
Miscellaneous Oscar 2026 Highlights
Paul Mescal, Gweneth Paltrow, Chase Infiniti, Wagner Moura, and Delroy Lindo all came out to present the inaugural Best Casting award, each praising the casting director for their respective movie. I’m usually not a fan of this format, but I can let it slide for this award’s grand debut. Though I’m mostly concerned about how Delroy Lindo got that small wound on his chin. Maybe the camera operator was too, since they cut to Lindo before Moura was done talking. Cassandra Kulukundis won for One Battle After Another, and she gave one of the night’s most frank speeches. “I have to thank the crew… I’m in all of your departments whether you like me or not,” she declared, before boasting that she got an Oscar before any of the film’s other nominees (this was the first of its six wins).
When Kumail Nanjiani presented the award for Best Live Action Short, he was the first of many to be surprised that the result was a tie. Yes, this is a thing that can happen, and it has happened six times in the past. After giving the night’s best zinger – “Ironic that the Short Film Oscar is gonna take twice as long,” – he announced The Singers and Two People Exchanging Saliva as the two winners. Two People Exchanging Saliva co-director Alexandre Singh made the most of the historic moment by referencing a petty “controversy” that actively detracts from the entire purpose of being here: “We can change society through art, through creativity, through theater and ballet, and also cinema.” Classy. Oh, and Sean Penn then won the extremely open Best Supporting Actor but didn’t show up to accept it, capping off the strangest stretch of the event.
Speaking of short films, did anyone notice the weirdly prolonged cheers when Best Documentary Short was mentioned in the opening monologue? Or the unusually big response from the audience when Kimmel started presenting the Documentary awards? I’m not saying anyone’s wrong for that. I just have more questions than answers. Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Conan’s closing sketch, in which he’s given the title of Oscars Host For Life, only to be gassed to death a la One Battle After Another. His real replacement turns out to be Mr. Beast… Honestly, I would not be shocked to see that happen, and that terrifies me.
The 2026 Academy Awards took place on Sunday, March 15, 2026 at 7e|4p.
Header Credits: Trae Patton and Al Seib / The Academy, ©A.M.P.A.S.