Ben Atkinson
One Battle After Another was certainly a winner at the Oscars, and Marty Supreme was certainly a loser, but – in the wake of the Warner Brothers acquisition – it’s unclear which category general audiences fall into.
While it is encouraging to see films such as the blockbuster Sinners and the independently made One Battle After Another duking it out on the highest awards stage in the world, the 2026 Academy Awards still sits in a precarious limbo in the timeline of film. But before we discuss the takeaway for us audience members, let’s run through the evening’s key moments.
The show began with a skit from the host, Conan O’Brien, where he portrayed Amy Madigan’s character from Weapons, Aunt Gladys, running through various nominated films. For the horror lovers out there, this was a good omen for the very first category announced – Best Supporting Actress – where Amy Madigan took home the award.
Madigan’s win marks the first time this category has been won by an actress in a horror film since Rosemary’s Baby in 1969 – fantastic news for the genre. It’s also Madigan’s first nomination in 40 years, marking the longest gap between Oscar nominations before a win.
Best Animated Feature unsurprisingly went to K-Pop Demon Hunters, whilst Frankenstein took home both Costume Design and Makeup & Hairstyling (later receiving the award for Production Design too), a great result for both films.
The first-ever award for Best Casting went to Cassandra Kulukundis for One Battle After Another, a worthy win considering how many actors from that film were nominated, and the discovery of debut feature actor Chase Infiniti. In her speech, Kulukundis thanked all the casting directors who never got a chance to receive such an award, closing it out with a humorous jab at Paul Thomas Anderson.
In a rare situation, the award for Best Live-Action Short was tied between The Singers and Two People Exchanging Saliva, perhaps because Academy voters are now required to watch all nominees in order to vote in a category. This is the seventh tie in Oscars history, the sixth tie taking place in 2013’s Oscars Ceremony.
Sean Penn then took home Best Supporting Actor, though not literally, as pointed out by presenter Kieran Culkin, he failed to show up, while fellow nominee Delroy Lindo opted not to clap on Culkin’s announcement of the win.
Best Adapted Screenplay went to Paul Thomas Anderson for One Battle After Another, while Best Original Screenplay went to Ryan Coogler for Sinners. A first for both directors, the Oscar wins were a nice way to acknowledge that these were the real powerhouses of the evening. These awards were then followed up with something I didn’t expect to see on live television: O’Brien saying the phrase ‘lowkenuienly trying to rizz up the younger demographic’.
David Borenstein accepted the award for Best Documentary Feature in an impassioned speech about complicity, the ICE murders, media control, and the moral choice we all must make. He directed the winning film, Mr Nobody Against Putin, alongside Pavel Talankin.
Ludwig Göransson unsurprisingly won Best Score for his work on Sinners, cementing his status as one of the best composers of our time with his third award in the category. F1 also picked its sole award of the night for Best Sound, and Avatar: Fire and Ash for Best Visual Effects.
The back and forth continued between the two powerhouses when One Battle After Another’s victory in Best Editing was immediately followed up by a historic win in Best Cinematography for Autumn Durald Arkpaw for her work on Sinners. She is the first woman in history to win in this category, a huge achievement punctuated by a powerful acceptance speech where she asked all the women in the room to stand up.
Best International Film went to Sentimental Value, a category that was utterly stacked this year, whilst Best Original Song went to ‘Golden’ (from K-Pop Demon Hunters).
Now, in the big four categories, only one was essentially locked down before the ceremony. Jessie Buckley took home Best Actress for her performance in Hamnet in what – in my opinion – was the most deserving (and predictable) acting win of the night.
In the Best Director, Best Actor and Best Picture categories, the back and forth continued. Paul Thomas Anderson won the first for One Battle After Another, his first directing Academy Award after 3 previous nominations, and then Michael B. Jordan won the second for his performance in Sinners, his first Academy Award (and first nomination!).
In my eyes, then, the Best Picture award would seal which film was the most successful of the evening – and One Battle After Another took it home! It was a brilliant haul for Paul Thomas Anderson and his cast and crew, with a hugely impressive result for Sinners too.
Notable films that missed out were The Secret Agent, Bugonia, and, amidst all the Timothee Chalamet discourse, Marty Supreme.
So, why do I say this might be a loss for general audiences? Well, both One Battle After Another and Sinners was distributed by Warner Brothers, and the former was also produced by them (because of Amy Madigan’s win, Weapons also gets a nod here). It seems that this is the studio taking risks on independent projects, and now they are being acquired by Paramount Skydance, a production company much less prone to taking such risks.
I dread the thought that the 2026 Awards will, by 2027, seem like a ‘last hurrah’ of independent cinema – or at least a bittersweet moment for an industry in steady decline. With the brilliant films that were nominated this year, and their commercial success, I doubt it… but as an audience, we must stay vigilant.
Ben Atkinson
Featured image courtesy of Engin Akyurt via Pexels. Image use license found here. No changes were made to this image.
In-article photos courtesy of @theacademy via Instagram. No changes were made to these photos.
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