‘Sinners’ Gets Record 16 Oscar Nominations, Leading Race

(Bloomberg) -- Sinners, the Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. film about twin brothers fighting vampires in segregated Mississippi in the 1930s, captured a record 16 Academy Award nominations, including best picture and best director, to lead this year’s race for the Oscars. 

One Battle After Another, also from Warner Bros., garnered 13 nominations while Sentimental Value, Marty Supreme and Frankenstein each racked up nine, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences said Thursday. The Oscars will be held on March 15 in Los Angeles and hosted by comedian Conan O’Brien for the second straight year. 

Sinners surpassed the previous record of 14 nominations received by All About Eve, Titanic and La La Land. The Ryan Coogler-directed film grossed $368 million in worldwide ticket sales last year, mostly in the US and Canada. 

Warner Bros.’ haul of 30 nominations, not including short films, leads all studios and cements a turnaround of the film division led by Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy, underscoring why the iconic Hollywood entertainment giant is at the heart of a heated takeover battle between Netflix Inc. and Paramount Skydance Corp. 

Early last year Warner Bros. Chief Executive Officer David Zaslav considered replacing Mike and Pam, as they’re known in the industry, after growing frustrated with mounting costs and a string of underperforming releases. 

But subsequent titles were highly successful, with A Minecraft Movie becoming the highest grossing film domestically of 2025, and Superman, from the DC Studios unit, helping reset the company’s superhero franchise. Zaslav extended the contracts for De Luca and Abdy in October. 

“This is a truly golden moment for our company and also a powerful validation of our strategy: to believe in movies, to believe in original storytelling, and to believe in the theatrical experience,” Zaslav said in a memo to employees on Thursday. 

The fight for best picture looks especially competitive this year. Sinners, One Battle After Another, Hamnet from Focus Features, Marty Supreme from independent studio A24 and Frankenstein, directed by Guillermo del Toro and released by Netflix, were all named in the American Film Institute’s list of the top 10 movies of 2025. They all took home Golden Globe awards and all were nominated for a best picture Oscar.

One Battle After Another, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as a washed-up revolutionary seeking to rescue his daughter from his former nemesis, saw Oscar nominations for several actors, as well as for best original score and adapted screenplay. It was directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and has grossed $206 million in theaters. 

Marty Supreme, about a ping-pong playing hustler in 1950s New York, racked up Oscar nominations including best actor for the film’s star, Timothée Chalamet, and best original screenplay.

The Norwegian family drama Sentimental Value, from independent film production and distribution company Neon, was nominated for best picture and also saw several of its actors tapped for Oscars.

Directed by Chloé Zhao, Hamnet stars Paul Mescal as William Shakespeare and Jessie Buckley as Shakespeare’s wife Agnes. Produced by Steven Spielberg, the film tells the fictional tale of the couple’s grief after the loss of their son Hamnet. It has grossed $28 million at the box office since its November release. Hamnet garnered eight Oscar nominations, including one for Buckley as best actress.

(Updates with internal Warner Bros. memo in sixth paragraph.)

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