Actors and filmmakers spoke out at the Academy Awards in Los Angeles against the US-Israeli war on Iran and the genocide in Gaza, using the red carpet to direct the world’s attention to the human cost of war.
Charles Kupchan, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, says the US and allies are reluctant to use military means to safeguard shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
The 98th edition of the Academy Awards took place on March 15, 2026, at the Dolby Theatre, celebrating the best films released in 2025.
The ceremony, hosted for the second consecutive year by Conan O’Brien, lasted approximately three hours and 45 minutes. It was broadcast on ABC and streamed on Hulu.
This year’s Oscars featured a garden courtyard–themed stage, live performances including “I Lied To You” from Sinners, a tribute by Barbra Streisand to Robert Redford, and the traditional In Memoriam segment. Security was reportedly heightened due to external threats surrounding the event.
The night was largely dominated by two Warner Bros. productions, One Battle After Another and Sinners, which had been fierce rivals throughout the awards season.
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another emerged as the biggest winner of the evening with six Academy Awards, including Best Picture. The dark political thriller stars Leonardo DiCaprio as an ex-radical caught in a high-stakes chase.
Meanwhile, Sinners, directed by Ryan Coogler, secured four Oscars, including Best Actor for Michael B. Jordan, who played twin brothers Elijah “Smoke” Moore and Elias “Stack” Moore in the vampire horror drama.
Despite entering the ceremony with a record-breaking 16 nominations — the most in Oscars history, Sinners finished the night with fewer awards than expected. Still, the film achieved several historic milestones and contributed to a strong showing for Warner Bros., which led all studios with 11 total wins.
Several landmark moments defined the 2026 ceremony.
Cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw made history as the first woman ever to win Best Cinematography for her work on Sinners. She also became the first woman of colour nominated in the category. During her acceptance speech, she invited all women in the room to stand and expressed gratitude to the female support network behind the campaign.
Another milestone came with the introduction of Best Casting, the first new competitive Oscar category in 24 years, which was awarded to One Battle After Another.
For Anderson, the evening marked a long-awaited breakthrough. After receiving 14 previous nominations, he won his first Oscars, taking home awards for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay in a single night — becoming the ninth person in Academy history to achieve the triple victory.
Veteran actress Amy Madigan also set a record for the longest gap between acting nominations, returning to the Oscars after 40 years to win Best Supporting Actress for Weapons.
Other notable winners included Frankenstein, which dominated several craft categories, while the animated hit KPop Demon Hunters secured two awards.
FULL LIST OF 2026 OSCARS WINNERS
Best Picture
One Battle After Another (winner)
Bugonia
F1
Frankenstein
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
The Secret Agent
Sentimental Value
Sinners
Train Dreams
Best Director
Paul Thomas Anderson – One Battle After Another (winner)
Chloé Zhao – Hamnet
Josh Safdie – Marty Supreme
Joachim Trier – Sentimental Value
Ryan Coogler – Sinners
Best Actor
Michael B. Jordan – Sinners (winner)
Timothée Chalamet – Marty Supreme
Leonardo DiCaprio – One Battle After Another
Ethan Hawke – Blue Moon
Wagner Moura – The Secret Agent
Best Actress
Jessie Buckley – Hamnet (winner)
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 (winner)
Benicio del Toro – One Battle After Another
Jacob Elordi – Frankenstein
Delroy Lindo – Sinners
Stellan Skarsgård – Sentimental Value
Best Supporting Actress
Amy Madigan – Weapons (winner)
Elle Fanning – Sentimental Value
Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas – Sentimental Value
Wunmi Mosaku – Sinners
Teyana Taylor – One Battle After Another
Best Original Screenplay
Sinners – Ryan Coogler (winner)
Blue Moon
It Was Just an Accident
Marty Supreme
Sentimental Value
Best Adapted Screenplay
One Battle After Another – Paul Thomas Anderson (winner)
Bugonia
Frankenstein
Hamnet
Train Dreams
Best Animated Feature
KPop Demon Hunters (winner)
Arco
Elio
Little Amélie or the Character of Rain
Zootopia 2
Best International Feature
Sentimental Value (Norway) (winner)
The Secret Agent (Brazil)
It Was Just an Accident (France)
Sirāt (Spain)
The Voice of Hind Rajab (Tunisia)
Best Documentary Feature
Mr. Nobody Against Putin (winner)
The Alabama Solution
Come See Me in the Good Light
Cutting Through Rocks
The Perfect Neighbor
Best Cinematography
Sinners – Autumn Durald Arkapaw (winner)
Frankenstein
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
Train Dreams
Best Original Score
Sinners – Ludwig Göransson (winner)
Bugonia
Frankenstein
Hamnet
One Battle After Another
Best Original Song
“Golden” from KPop Demon Hunters (winner)
“Dear Me” (Diane Warren: Relentless)
“I Lied To You” (Sinners)
“Sweet Dreams of Joy” (Viva Verdi!)
“Train Dreams” (Train Dreams)
Best Film Editing
One Battle After Another – Andy Jurgensen (winner)
F1
Marty Supreme
Sentimental Value
Sinners
Best Production Design
Frankenstein (winner)
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
Sinners
Best Costume Design
Frankenstein – Kate Hawley (winner)
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
Sinners
Best Makeup and Hairstyling
Frankenstein (winner)
Kokuho
Sinners
The Smashing Machine
The Ugly Stepsister
Best Sound
F1 (winner)
Frankenstein
One Battle After Another
Sinners
Sirāt
Best Visual Effects
Avatar: Fire and Ash (winner)
F1
Jurassic World Rebirth
The Lost Bus
Sinners
Best Casting
One Battle After Another – Cassandra Kulukundis (winner)
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
The Secret Agent
Sinners
Best Documentary Short
All the Empty Rooms (winner)
Armed Only with a Camera…
Children No More…
The Devil Is Busy
Perfectly a Strangeness
Best Animated Short
The Girl Who Cried Pearls (winner)
Butterfly
Forevergreen
Retirement Plan
The Three Sisters
Best Live Action Short (tie)
“One Battle After Another” on Sunday won the Oscar for best picture, capping a brilliant awards season.
The zany political thriller bested “Bugonia,” “F1,” “Frankenstein,” “Hamnet,” “Marty Supreme,” “The Secret Agent,” “Sentimental Value,” “Sinners” and “Train Dreams.”
Michael B. Jordan on Sunday won the best actor Oscar for playing twins confronted with pure evil in vampire race fable “Sinners” — tortured fighters typical of the roles director Ryan Coogler has repeatedly created for him.
Jordan made good on the momentum he gained by winning the SAG Actor Award two weeks ago to bring home an Academy Award in his first try.
He bested “Marty Supreme” star Timothee Chalamet, who had been the frontrunner for most of Hollywood’s awards season, along with Leonardo DiCaprio of “One Battle After Another,” Wagner Moura (“The Secret Agent”) and Ethan Hawke (“Blue Moon”).
At age 39, Jordan joins a small circle of Black actors who have won the prestigious Best Actor Oscar, after Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, Forest Whitaker and Will Smith.
“I stand here because of the people who came before me,” an emotional Jordan told the audience.
READ ALSO: Paul Thomas Anderson Wins Best Director Oscar For ‘One Battle After Another’
“Sinners,” a supernatural tale of racial segregation in 1930s Mississippi, was a box office success in large part due to Jordan’s compelling performances as Smoke and Stack, World War I veterans who return home after working in organised crime in Chicago.
The brothers want to open an off-the-books juke joint, smack in the middle of the Prohibition era.
Of course, they want to make some money, but they also want to help the locals drown their sorrows in alcohol and the blues.
Things quickly go sour when white vampires come calling, looking to quench their thirst for blood and music.
The twin roles fall right in line with other characters designed for Jordan by Coogler, who has featured the actor in all of his films — always a complicated, imperfect man.
The pair started their collaboration with “Fruitvale Station” (2013), in which Jordan played Oscar Grant, a young Black man battling fate until he is shot dead by a police officer.
They moved on to the titular boxer in “Creed,” tormented by his father’s legacy, and the villainous Killmonger of “Black Panther,” traumatized by being an orphan in a racist world.
Coogler says Jordan’s success in tough roles is a “testament to his charisma.”
“As soon as you put the camera on him, you just naturally care about the guy, he told The New York Times in April last year, when “Sinners” debuted.
The filmmaker has turned Jordan into a star over the last decade, even when the actor doubted he could overcome the perennial obstacles for Black performers in Hollywood.
Coogler “gave me the reassurance and the confidence that I needed,” Jordan told the Times in the same interview.
“It made me double down and fueled this fire that I had to make it a reality.”
Born in California on February 9, 1987 and raised in Newark, New Jersey, Jordan’s teacher mom pushed him into modelling at age 11.
After a few commercials, Jordan picked up small television roles before his first real break, appearing in a season of the lauded HBO crime drama “The Wire” at age 15.
He then did stints on soap opera “All My Children” and the NBC football drama “Friday Night Lights” before moving on to the big screen with a role in 2012’s “Red Tails,” about the Tuskegee Airmen, a crew of Black pilots during World War II.
“Fruitvale Station” came out the following year, and his partnership with Coogler was sealed.
In 2015, the director called him back for “Creed,” a reboot of the “Rocky” franchise with Jordan playing Adonis, the son of Rocky’s nemesis Apollo Creed and Sylvester Stallone sliding back into his signature role — this time as Adonis’s trainer.
His first taste of the superhero genre came in the unfancied 2015 adaptation of “Fantastic Four” as Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, but “Black Panther” and its sequel solidified his presence in the Marvel cinematic universe.
Since then, Jordan has carefully managed his image.
He has made no secret of going to therapy to shed Killmonger’s demons, but has said little about his private life and described himself to GQ last year as a “workaholic” whose longest relationship lasted a year.
In recent years, he has moved into co-producing some of the films in which he has appeared, including “Just Mercy” and “Without Remorse.” He even directed the third installment of the “Creed” series himself.
He is directing and starring in an upcoming adaptation of “The Thomas Crown Affair,” expected in theaters in 2027, in which he will play the role of the gentleman thief previously taken on by Steve McQueen and Pierce Brosnan.
But Jordan has a new dream.
“I’m looking forward to directing something that I’m not in at all,” he told Vanity Fair earlier this year.
Irish actress Jessie Buckley capped her spectacular rise to Hollywood stardom on Sunday, winning a best actress Oscar for her searing portrait of motherhood and love undone by loss in “Hamnet” .
The 36-year-old actress from a small town in Ireland’s remote southwest received the award for her work as William Shakespeare’s wife Agnes, devastated by the death of their son, the eponymous child in director Chloe Zhao’s acclaimed film.
Her expressive intensity as the grieving heart of the story — an adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 bestselling novel of the same name — captivated audiences, moving many moviegoers to tears.
“This is really something,” an emotional Buckley said, hailing her fellow nominees and saying she wanted to work with all of them.
The bewitching Agnes has “a strong, wide open heart and a mother with an epic landscape inside her”, Buckley told The Irish Times, underscoring the emotional depth of the role.
In February, on becoming the first Irish woman to win a BAFTA best actress award for her performance, she dedicated it to “the women past, present and future that have taught me and continue to teach me how to do it differently”.
“You brought the mother out of the shadows, and you stood her in absolution beside the giant that is Shakespeare”, she said to O’Farrell in the audience.
Buckley was the closest thing to a shoo-in this awards season, sweeping the precursor prizes including the Golden Globe and Critics Choice Awards.
On Sunday, she bested Rose Byrne (“If I Had Legs I’d Kick You”), Renate Reinsve (“Sentimental Value”), Emma Stone (“Bugonia”) and Kate Hudson (“Song Sung Blue”).
Buckley didn’t have a child when she took on the role of Agnes.
But she became pregnant “a week” after finishing “Hamnet”, she told The New York Times, and gave birth to a baby girl in autumn 2025.
Born on December 28, 1989 to a poet, Tim Buckley, and Marina, a former opera singer and vocal coach, the actress was encouraged to join school theatre productions from a young age.
Growing up in Killarney, County Kerry with four siblings, she credits her upbringing for shaping her artistic instincts.
At home, “music, writing and expressing yourself was really nurtured and respected,” she told The Irish Times.
Buckley first made waves as a reality TV hopeful in 2008’s “I’d Do Anything”, a BBC talent show scouting for a production of “Oliver” in London’s West End.
Although she lost in the final, judges urged her to pursue formal dramatic training.
She graduated from London’s prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 2013 and immersed herself in the works of The Bard.
That same year, she secured roles in adaptations of “Henry V” and “The Winter’s Tale” in London.
Television roles followed including in a BBC dramatisation of “War and Peace” (2016), and the HBO hit miniseries “Chernobyl” (2019).
Buckley made her film debut in “Beast” (2017), a psychological thriller set on Jersey in the Channel Islands, and earned a BAFTA nomination for her lead role in the 2018 film “Wild Rose” about an aspiring country singer and ex-convict from Glasgow.
She has often returned to her Shakespearean theatrical roots, playing Juliet at the National Theatre in 2021 with another rising star, Josh O’Connor.
She earned her first Oscar nomination in 2022 for best supporting actress for her portrayal of a tormented mother in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s tense psychological drama “The Lost Daughter”.
An accomplished singer, she won an Olivier Award in 2022 for best actress in a musical for her portrayal of Sally Bowles in the West End revival of “Cabaret”.
That same year, she released a folk album with Bernard Butler, former guitarist of the band Suede.
Buckley lives in the English countryside in Norfolk with her husband, a mental health worker, who she married in 2023.
She has spoken openly about previous struggles with anxiety and panic attacks, and said therapy helped her learn to feel rather than repress her emotions.
Her current project, in theatres now, is Gyllenhaal’s “The Bride!” — a genre-hopping take on the bride of Frankenstein’s monster in which she co-stars opposite fellow Oscar winner Christian Bale.
