One Battle After Another sweeps the Oscars as Michael B Jordan and Jessie Buckley win big | Oscars 2026

Paul Thomas Anderson’s counterculture romp One Battle After Another has won the Oscar battle, scooping six awards after a contentious season.

The big-budget comedy thriller, inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland, was named best picture and also won the first Oscars for Sean Penn for director, supporting actor, adapted screenplay, editing and casting, a long-referenced category in the industry.

“I wrote this movie for my kids to apologize for the mess we left on this world we handed over to them,” Anderson said in his first acceptance speech of the night. He also said he hoped the younger generation would help bring “common sense and honesty” back to society.

This night, which has previously been nominated for films such as Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood and Phantom Thread, means Anderson will win his first Oscar award.

Penn beat out co-star Benicio del Toro for his third Oscar win, but he wasn’t there to accept his award. “Sean Penn couldn’t or didn’t want to be here tonight,” host Kieran Culkin joked.

The season turned into a two-horse race between One Battle After Another and Sinners, which entered the night as the most nominated film ever with a record 16 nominations.

The vampire blockbuster of the time won four awards: actor for Michael B Jordan, original screenplay, original score and cinematography; This makes Autumn Durald Arkapaw the first female winner and the first Black winner of the award.

Jordan won his first Oscar for his lead performance in the film, beating Timothée Chalamet and Leonardo DiCaprio. “I am here because of the people who came before me,” he said, before listing past Black Oscar winners. He became the sixth Black winner in this category.

Coogler became the second black actor to win the original screenplay Oscar, following in the footsteps of Jordan Peele, who won for Get Out. The 39-year-old actress stood up to the cast and said “you’re all winners in my book” before apologizing to her children for “being away all the time.”

Jessie Buckley became the first Irishman to win a best actress Oscar for her performance in Chloé Zhao’s Shakespearean drama Hamnet. The 36-year-old actress was previously nominated for her role in Gone Girl.

She dedicated the award to “the beautiful chaos of a mother’s heart” and called it “the greatest honour.”

Amy Madigan was named best supporting actress for her villainous role in the popular horror film Weapons, beating Teyana Taylor and Wunmi Mosaku. This is the first time this award has been given to an actor who is the only nominee for his own film since Penelope Cruz in Vicky Cristina Barcelona. The 75-year-old actor, who was previously nominated in 1986, broke a new record with the longest gap between nominations before his win.

Joachim Trier’s family drama Sentimental Value was named best international feature film, the first time Norway has won in this category. It surpassed The Secret Agent, It Was Just an Accident and The Voice of Hind Rijab. “I’m just a Norwegian movie buff,” Trier said on stage. At the end of his speech, he paraphrased James Baldwin as follows: “All adults are responsible for all children, and let’s not vote for politicians who don’t take that seriously.”

The award was presented by Javier Bardem, who said “no war and liberate Palestine” on stage and wore distinctive badges expressing the same message.

The Oscar for best documentary went to Mr. Nobody Putin, which showcases a teacher fighting against oppressive rules at his school in Russia. It’s a movie “about how you lose your country,” director David Borenstein said. He added: “We all face a moral choice when a government kills people in the streets of our major cities, when we say nothing, when oligarchs take over the media and control how we produce and consume it, but fortunately no one is more powerful than you think.”

KPop: Demon Hunters, Netflix’s most-watched movie ever, won two Oscars for animation and original song. This week saw official confirmation that the sequel is on the way. “For those who look like me, I’m so sorry it took this long to see us in a movie like this,” co-director Maggie Kang said, before dedicating the win to Korea and “for Koreans everywhere.” Smash hit Golden made history as the first K-Pop song to win an Oscar.

Guillermo del Toro’s adaptation of Frankenstein on Netflix also won three awards for production design, costume design, make-up and hair design. While the visual effects Oscar went to Avatar: Fire and Ash, the sound award was given to F1.

There was also an unusual tie in the live action short category; This is only the seventh time this has happened in Oscar history. The last time I went was for sound editing in 2012.

This led to Warner Bros.’ success with the studio taking home 11 awards and its first best picture win since 2013’s Argo. It marks an important night for us. The epic night for the studio comes as Paramount prepares to merge after a heated ownership battle.

Conan O’Brien returned as host for the second year in a row, kicking off the show with a pre-recorded track racing through scenes from the year’s big movies, dressed as Madigan’s character from Weapons. He joked that he would be the “last human host” of the Oscars (Will Arnett, while hosting the animated shorts award, also made an impassioned defense of the use of AI, to great applause).

During the ceremony, he said anyone offended by politics should watch “the alternative Oscars presented by Kid Rock,” mocked Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos for coming to the theater for the “first time,” touched on the lack of British leading actor nominees with a spokesperson saying “at least we arrested our pedophiles,” and asked “why isn’t the website I buy toilet paper from winning more Oscars?” he asked, humorously expressing Amazon’s decision not to nominate him.

O’Brien also spoke about the “very chaotic, scary times” we’re in and how the awards “are particularly resonant” given the large number of international nominees. “Let’s celebrate not because we think everything is fine, but because we are working and hoping that the days ahead will be better,” he added.

He joked that he would be coming live later in the night because “he’s got a little penis theatre” and then joked “let’s put his name in front of it”. While hosting two documentary Oscars, Jimmy Kimmel also took aim at Amazon’s Melania documentary (“Oh, how crazy he’s going to be, his wife wasn’t nominated for that”) and the ongoing takeover of right-wing media (“As you know, there are some countries whose leaders don’t support free speech. I’m not at liberty to say which. Let’s leave that to North Korea and CBS”).

The night also featured a special tribute to the late Rob Reiner, led by his long-time friend and collaborator Billy Crystal. He said their films “will last a lifetime” and that the loss of Rob and his wife Michelle is “immeasurable”. He was later joined by other stars of his films, including Meg Ryan, Carol Kane, Demi Moore and Annette Bening.

Rachel McAdams also remembered Canadian Catherine O’Hara (“she made us laugh until we cried”) and her Morning Glory co-star Diane Keaton (“brilliant on screen and indelible in life”), both of whom died last year.

Barbra Streisand followed with a tribute to the late Robert Redford, the “intellectual cowboy” who “had a real backbone on and off the screen.” He also sang part of The Way We Were, the title track of the hit romantic drama.

Among the nominated films that came up empty-handed tonight were Bugonia, Train Dreams, It Was Just an Accident and The Secret Agent.

Last year’s Oscars were a highlight, with Sean Baker’s low-budget comedy-drama Anora winning best picture and picking up four other awards.