Oscars 2026: Winners and Sinners

Robert Redford was not at the Academy Awards.

While Sean Penn also did not show up to collect his third Oscar (Best Supporting Actor, One Battle After Another) — possibly because he prefers events where he can chainsmoke, like the Golden Globe awards — Redford had a better reason. He died last September, and was celebrated on the Oscar stage by his The Way We Were co-star Barbra Streisand, who called the actor, producer and environmentalist an “intellectual cowboy.”

The Sundance Film Institute — part of Redford’s effort to encourage and support independent filmmaking — made two social media posts while the Academy Awards were handed out. One congratulated Paul Thomas Anderson from the “1993 Sundance Institute Directors Lab” and the other congratulated Ryan Coogler from the “2012 Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab.” Both writer-directors won their first Oscars this time, dominating the ceremony with Coogler’s Sinners and Anderson’s One Battle After Another. When Redford had passed, I had written that no movie star has ever done more for the movies. That legacy continues. We’re still being wowed by Sundance’s kids.

Through the night, Sinners and One Battle traded alternating prizes. Both won Screenplay awards. Sinners won for Cinematography — marking the first time that a female cinematographer, the fantastic Autumn Durald Arkapaw, won the prize — while One Battle won for Editing. Personally, I would swap those two prizes in a heartbeat, but the neck and neck feeling continued, making this a two-movie prizefight.

Then I started seeing signs pointing, vaguely, to Anderson. Phantom Thread actress Vicky Krieps was on stage to collect Best Live-Action Short Film (for Two People Exchanging Saliva), and later, Anderson’s wife, the gifted comic actor Maya Rudolph, showed up to present an award. Granted, these signs may not have been as clear as frogs raining down from the sky, but PTA did go on to sweep the big awards, winning Best Director and Best Picture. It’s been a magnificent career — with masterworks as Boogie Nights, Magnolia, There Will Be Blood, Phantom Thread — and his latest film is an explosion loud enough to resound with any jury. It’s heartening to see him win one Oscar after another.

Conan O’Brien was a first-class host, finding the precarious balance between doing a job well and not taking it at too seriously. “F1 did so well,” he kidded, “that they’re making a sequel called ‘Caps Lock.’” He poked fun at Netflix and movies being designed for second-screen viewing, crowned Leonardo DiCaprio “the king of memes,” and referred to the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood as the “HasASmallPenis Theatre,” saying “Let’s see [the President] put his name in front of that.”

The ceremony only felt like a real party once the Sinners musicians stormed the stage. Miles Catton, Raphael Saadiq, Eric Gales and Buddy Guy performed the film’s sublime I Lied To You number, featuring ballet legend Misty Copeland, who stepped out of retirement for this performance, and was spectacular. In the front row sat Best Actor nominee Timothée Chalamet, who has recently received great backlash for being disparaging toward ballet and opera. He eventually — and poetically — lost to Sinners actor Michael B. Jordan.

Jordan played twins, a feat of nuance and physical craft where, besides different personalities, one brother has dimples and one doesn’t. He’s superb, though I would have voted for DiCaprio, so understatedly brilliant in One Battle After Another as the stoner ex-anarchist who has forgotten the password to the revolution. Jessie Buckley won Best Actress for Hamnet, and to all newly minted Buckley fans, I would strongly recommend Charlie Kaufman’s I’m Thinking Of Ending Things.

One Battle After Another also won a brand new award. Best Casting is an addition to the Oscars that feels overdue and exciting, applauding casting directors who put together the best ensemble. Oscar night’s finest ensemble, though, came for a filmmaker, not a film. A whole lineup of actors from Rob Reiner movies, led by Billy Crystal of When Harry Met Sally, stepped out to commemorate the late filmmaker and his movies that continue to resound with audiences. Between this, Streisand’s song and Rachel McAdams’ heartfelt celebration of Diane Keaton, the ‘In Memoriam’ section felt genuinely special this year.

Then again, the Academy’s decision to leave out Brigitte Bardot — like they left out Alain Delon the year before — is unforgivable. One assumes these expulsions have been made because both legacies are tainted by problematic political stances, but excluding icons with dazzling careers from a final goodbye feels far too censorious. And who gets to draw the line of what is considered acceptable?

Politically, the most was said by director David Borenstein. “You lose your country through countless small acts of complicity,” he said, winning Best Documentary Feature for Mr Nobody Against Putin. “When we act complicit when a government murders people on the streets. When oligarchs take over the media and control how we produce and consume it. We all face a moral choice.” That choice includes playing it safe, like Priyanka Chopra Jonas, who smiled vacuously while standing next to a vocal Javier Bardem, who declared “No to war, and free Palestine.”

Paul Thomas Anderson is now the only director to ever win Best Director at Cannes, Venice, Berlin and the Oscar stage. He underlined the arbitrariness of victory, and reminded us of 1976, where Jaws, Barry Lyndon, Dog Day Afternoon, Nashville and One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Next vied for the big prize, each contender a champion. “There will always be some doubt in your heart that you deserve it,” admitted Anderson, but added, with a perfectly timed smile: “There is no question at the pleasure of having it for myself.”

Robert Redford would be proud.

Raja Sen is a critic, screenwriter and columnist. His first play, a murder mystery called The Simla Affair, recently opened in Delhi. He is currently writing a horror film.