Oscars 2026: “Sinners” and “One Battle After Another” Win Big, Lighting Running High at Afterparties, and a Tie

Chinyere Ibeh
7 minutes ago
4 min read

The 98th annual award ceremony took place at the Dolby Theater with celebrities heading to the Governor’s Ball and Vanity Fair’s Afterparty.

Ryan Coogler, Ludwig Göranssen, Autmn Durald Arkapaw, Michael B. Jordan holding their Oscars; Inlet: the cast of One Battle After Another accepting their Oscar for Best Picture. — The 2026 Oscars saw "Sinners" and "One Battle After Another" bring home 10 Oscars between the two of them.

Last weekend, celebrities and actors gathered to celebrate the work of their peers at the Dolby Theater for this year’s Oscars.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s political thriller “One Battle After Another” took home six statues, including the award of the night — Best Picture. “Sinners,” Ryan Coogler’s bloodsoaked vampire film based in the Jim Crow south, walked away with four statues, including Michael B. Jordan’s Best Actor.

“I wrote this movie for my kids to say sorry for the housekeeping mess that we left in this world — we’re handing off to them,” Anderson said while accepting the award for Best Adapted Screenplay. “But also with the encouragement that they will be the generation that hopefully brings us some common sense and decency.”

Cassandra Kulukundis, the casting director for “One Battle After Another,” would take home the award for Best Casting. The industry had predicted that “Sinners” casting director Francine Maisler would take home the award, according to Variety.

Cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw made history that night as she was the first Black woman to win Best Cinematography for her work on “Sinners.” This is also the first time in her career that Arkapaw won an Oscar.

“I really want all the women in the room to stand up,” Arkapaw said during her acceptance speech. “Because I don’t feel like I get here without you guys.”

Another heartwarming moment came when Jordan won his Best Actor award. Not only did he receive a standing ovation and thunderous applause when he accepted the award onstage, he received a similar reaction when he went backstage to speak with the press.

Reporters can be heard cheering for almost a minute, which is a rare thing for reporters to do for any actor. After the standing-ovation, Jordan answered various questions. Tanya Hart of Hollywood Live asked about the mental exercises he did to play the SmokeStack twins.

“I write a lot of journals for my characters, like backstories,” Jordan said. “So, I try to go from the earliest memory that I can conjure up, and think of, and I write up to the first page of the script.”

Michael B, Jordan answered a few questions about his role as the SmokeStack twins following his "Best Actor" win. [Courtesy of Oscars on YouTube]

Not only did he write journals, he did chakra work to understand the twins’ thought processes and childhood trauma. Jordan later described his win as timely, answering a question about the importance of his win. He also attributed previous Black winners, such as Halle Berry, Sidney Poitier and Denzel Washington.

With both “Sinners” and “One Battle After Another” having their historical night, “The Singers” and “Two People Exchanging Saliva” also made history that night. The two short films both won the Best Live Action Short award, marking the seventh time a tie has happened at the award ceremony.

As films and actors basked in the glory of raising their statues, one film walked away empty-handed: “Marty Supreme.” The Josh Safdie picture, starring Timothée Chalamet, follows Marty Mauser as he strives to become a table tennis world champion. “Marty Supreme” was loosely based on the life and career of table tennis champion Marty Reisman.

The film’s lack of wins came as a surprise, especially due to its campaign as well as the commentary surrounding Chalamet’s press run during said campaign. Chalamet said “no one cares about” ballet and opera during a Variety and CNN town hall with Matthew McConaughey.

“I admire people [saying], ‘Hey, we gotta keep movie theaters alive. We gotta keep this genre alive,” Chalamet said. “I don’t want to be working in ballet or opera where it’s like, ‘Hey, keep this thing alive, even though no one cares about this anymore’ — all respect to the ballet and opera people out there.”

The lack of wins for “Marty Supreme” did not stop Chalamet as he found himself at Vanity Fair’s afterparty. The silver-coded party featured metallic mirrors lining the carpet, a platinum carpet on the inside as well as a reflective bar.

Vanity Fair staff writer Elise Taylor described the various social interactions throughout the star-studded event. For one, she ran into Julia Fox at the bar, who was eating Domino’s pizza while wearing a Viktor & Rolf dress with high straps that went past her ears — straps that Taylor likened to a “modern-day Elizabethan collar.” As Taylor put it, Fox seemed surprised Taylor was interested in her look.

Those who attended the ceremony began to trickle into the event by 10 p.m, notably host Conan O’Brien who received a congratulations on a job well-done from Damson Idris. “One Battle After Another” star Teyana Taylor “danced in” and hugged “All’s Fair” co-star Kim Kardashian.

As the Oscars hype still lingers a week later, various award ceremonies are still on the horizon — notably the Tony Awards, BET Awards, and the MTV Video Music Awards.