Entertainment
2026 Oscars Turned Into A Two Movie Battle
By Jennifer Asencio
| Published
The 2026 Academy Awards are in the books, and, despite a plethora of nominees, the race came down to two movies: Sinners and One Battle After Another.
Six movies were nominated for Best Picture in addition to those, for a total of eight: Bugonia, Train Dreams, Sentimental Value, Marty Supreme, F1, Frankenstein, Secret Agent, and Hamnet. A few sleepers that earned nominations in other categories included Weapons and Song Sung Blue, but for the most part, the nominations in almost every major category included Sinners, One Battle After Another, Frankenstein, and Sentimental Value. Sinners alone had 16 Oscar nominations, the most in the history of the Academy Awards to date.
Sinners Secured Four Oscars
I have to be honest: I haven’t felt the compulsion to watch the Oscars in years. But with such a compelling slate of contestants this time, as well as the potential to make history, I had to check it out. The show wasn’t actually too bad. Most of the jokes were tasteful and despite Conan O’Brien’s warning that the show would “get political,” it very rarely did.
But Sinners only took away four Oscars: Best Original Screenplay for Ryan Coogler, Best Actor for Michael B. Jordan, Best Original Score, and Best Cinematography. In one respect, Sinners did make history, as cinematographer Autumn Durald Arckapaw became the first woman to win in that category. Sinners was a movie about music, so it was great that Ludwig Goransson took that Oscar.
The surprise of the night (at least for me) was the Best Original Song category, which I thought for sure would go to “I Lied to You” from Sinners, but instead went to “Golden” by the K-Pop Demon Hunters, whose movie of the same name won Best Animated Feature. The singers from popular Korean cartoon entertained the audience with an extravaganza show during the ceremony, as did Miles Caton and Raphael Saadiq, performing the Sinners song.
One Battle After Another Cleans Up
Although One Batlle After Another bested Sinners, it was only by two awards. Paul Thomas Anderson won Best Director, and the movie won Best Picture, Best Editing, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor for Sean Penn, and a new category for Best Casting. Leonardo DiCaprio was once again passed over for Best Actor, making his record only one win (2015’s The Revenant) for eight nominations.
Aside from the surprise of K-Pop Demon Hunters, the biggest winner of the night wasn’t a movie, but a genre. The horror genre took home eight Oscars between three movies: Sinners, Frankenstein, and Weapons. Genre movies like fantasy, science fiction, and horror don’t usually perform well at the Oscars except in the special effects category; The Return of the King was a notable exception but not the norm.
Overall, this year there were a lot of notable films and not enough awards for all of them. Besides, the Oscars play by Highlander rules most of the time: there can be only one. But even that rule got broken when there was a tie for Best Live Action Short Film (The Singers and Two People Exchanging Saliva). So no matter who won, it was truly a night of ups and downs, where two very worthy movies fought each other for the top prize, and came out nearly even.