Final Recap of the 98th Academy Awards

Paul Thomas Anderson at the 98th Academy Awards (Source: The Hollywood Reporter)

An Abridged Recap of the Results

• Best Picture: One Battle After Another - Adam Somner (p.n.), Sara Murphy, and Paul Thomas Anderson, producers
• Best Director: Paul Thomas Anderson - One Battle After Another
• Best Actress: Jessie Buckley – Hamnet as Agnes Shakespeare
• Best Actor: Michael B. Jordan – Sinners as Elijah "Smoke" Moore / Elias "Stack" Moore
• Best Supporting Actress: Amy Madigan – Weapons as Gladys
• Best Supporting Actor: Sean Penn – One Battle After Another as Col. Steven J. Lockjaw
• Best Adapted Screenplay: Sinners – Ryan Coogler
• Best Original Screenplay: One Battle After Another – Paul Thomas Anderson; based on the novel Vineland by Thomas Pynchon
• Films With Multiple Awards:
  • (6) One Battle After Another
  • (4) Sinners
  • (3) Frankenstein
  • (2) KPop Demon Hunters

Just a Few Next-Day Takeaways

One Oscar After Another Capping off one of the most dominant awards season runs in recent memory, One Battle After Another led the charge at this year's Academy Awards, winning in six categories including, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Picture. It was an important moment for fans of Paul Thomas Anderson to hear his name and watch him walk up to the stage to get his flowers and collect some hard-earned hardware. His status as one of the foremost filmmakers alive and working today was already widely recognized, but, as he alluded to in one of his speeches, it's still nice to be minted. Many of the best filmmakers to ever do it lived and unfortunately died before they could have such a moment. Others get awarded well after they otherwise should have, and often after they've lost their fastball.

Today and forever, we can say happily, that this will not be part of Anderson's legacy. One Battle is a film that makes use of and maximizes all the tools he has developed and refined as a writer/director over the years. This is by far the largest budget Anderson has ever had to work with, and he made the absolute most of it. From start to finish, every storytelling decision is deliberate, every frame is intentional, and every emotional moment is earned. Despite it tackling themes of racial and social injustice, the power of revolution, and the scrutiny and hypocrisy of indulging one's self with a big ol' slice of American Pie, One Battle After Another, at it's true center, is about something else: family. It's about a broken family – a mother with a purpose beyond her family, a daughter coming into adulthood without her mother, and a father trying to be, well a good father. Put simply, it's about what it means to find family, lose family, and keep family. In that sense, the film actually has a lot in common with Anderson's previous work, though it's sturdy-but-intimate character building may have just resonated more deeply with viewers and voters than ever before. Let us be (perhaps the last) to say congratulations to the OBAA family for their much-deserved victory lap at the Oscars. Here's to many, many, many more, Mr. P.T. Anderson.

Winner Winner Sinners Sinners... & Air (B.) Jordan I know I just went on, and on, and on, and on about One Battle After Another and how this will be one of (if not the) signature moment of Paul Thomas Anderson's career (which is certainly true), but I still think the most iconic moment (or at least the moment I will remember the most) from last night's Oscars once the dust settles will be Michael B. Jordan winning Best Actor for his performance as twins, Smoke and Stack, inSinners, a film which ended up winning in four categories. Having been included but mostly passed over for most of this awards season, all of a sudden the winds seemed to change in the last few weeks. Perhaps some of that change in direction came into play due to one Timothée Chalamet sticking his ballet-slipper foot into his opera-belting mouth (not sure if that foot-in-mouth pun worked or not, you be the judge). But all of a sudden, Chalamet's momentum seemed to sputter and shift behind Michael B., whose Best Actor win at the SAG Actors Awards seemed like a precursory signal for what was to come. As turned out, that win was prophetic; Jordan became just the fourth black man to win Best Actor in 98 years at the Academy Awards (just sit in that). His reaction was priceless, his speech was flawless, and this win is timeless. Not often do we have the chance to be truly surprised on Oscar night, and while it did seem he had a good chance to win, Michael B.'s win is what I'll remember the most from last night.

Quickly, I want to circle back and reiterate that this win came in a year in which Sinners made history before making it to the ceremony. On top of it receiving sixteen nominations, the most ever by a film at the Academy Awards, the film also broke the record for the most Black individuals nominated for a single film with ten. Then on Oscar night, Sinners won three other awards beyond Michael B.'s Best Actor win, including: Autumn Durald Arkapaw won Best Cinematography, becoming the first woman and woman of color to win the award; Ludwig Göransson won Best Original Score, which is his third win, putting him on the fast track to becoming the most successful composer of his generation; and of course, Ryan Coogler won Best Original Screenplay, one of the most respected and well-regarded awards year-in and year-out, one that serves as showcase of talent and a bellwether for future heavyweight filmmakers. Despite not winning the top prize (which, despite the competitive strength of One Battle, still never felt out of the question in my eyes) the Sinners team still had a lot to celebrate, and I think it is more than fair to say that will be remembered fondly long past this awards and represents a high-water mark in the long, checkered history of the Academy Awards.

Ryan Coogler, Ludwig Göransson, Autumn Durald Arkapaw, and Michael B. Jordan at the 98th Academy Awards

Looking Back and Looking Ahead If you wanted, I could go through each category and tell you my thoughts about each winner – the snubs and the surprises, and even the chalk wins. But I don't think anyone wants that (myself included). As briefly as I can, I want to reflect on the moment and forecast what's ahead. Let's start with reflection: in the aftermath of this year's Oscars, I found myself in a conversation talking through the year in film, mulling over which film was my favorite, which was the best, and which was the most important. I know for some of you Letterboxd Lords, the margins between these distinctions grows thinner, the lines becoming blurrier with each day as we have more of an opportunity to publicly pontificate and force our tastes onto other people's palettes. Parsing through one's feelings about which films were your favorite, the best, and the most important requires a different form a discipline, a know thyself egoism mixed with a shrewd and informed objectivity is easier to assume than procure. Let me just say, this year's best of the best could easily be mixed-and-matched and slotted into any of the three buckets depending on the preferred flavors of your taste in movies. So while One Battle After Another most of the type prizes during this year's award season, there is an argument to be made (of course) that it isn't your favorite film of the year, nor may it be the most important. Why am I writing this soliloquy? Sometimes, I just start writing without having a clue where I'm going. I think I'm writing this down more for myself rather than anyone else, as a friendly reminder to know thyself and to stay informed when trying to be objective. And most importantly, always remember that your favorite, the best, and the most important may all be the same... or they may all be different. When you think about it, that's kind of what this is all about.

On to looking ahead! We're still only about ten weeks into 2026, so there isn't much to report yet. We're on the precipice of Project Hail Mary coming out, a few weeks away from The Drama, slowly getting closer to The Devil Wears Prada 2 and The Mandalorian and Grogu. This summer, we're looking forward to some obvious big budget spectacle, including Disclosure Day, Toy Story 5, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, and a little-known-and-hardly-talked-about movie called, The Odyssey. Later this fall, there'll be Resident Evil, Digger, The Social Reckoning, Sense and Sensibility The Great Beyond, and The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping. And then during the holidays we'll get Narnia: The Magician's Nephew, Madden, the next Jumanji sequel, Werewulf, and of course, DUNESDAY, a double-billing of Avengers: Doomsday and Dune: Part Three on December 18th. On paper, that's a hell of a good slate. Last year, the existential dread for movies felt overwhelmingly bleak (and for good reason, it is). We might say this every year, but 2026 is, in fact, an important year in cinema. Many of the films I just listed have to not only earn enough to cover their production costs, but they have to actually do good business. It's still hard to believe that Oscars following the Warner Bros. fiasco, WB had arguably it's biggest critical success and greatest number of accolades in the company's history. Which is to say, some things are easy to see coming and other things are difficult to anticipate. Let's hope that this year, the movies we expect to do well, do well, and that there are hits coming we that surprise us. My hope is that, like life, movies will find their way.

Our Predictions Tally

• Hopster: 20/24
• Isaac: 16/24

Hopster: LET'S GO! If you come at the king, you best not miss. Let me just say, it is truly an honor to carry the title of Film & Froth Oscars Ballot Contest over Isaac for a second year in a row (and this year, just missing the top spot by two picks). There was certainly a lot of chalk but a few big surprises went my way, and I firmly believe this is the start of a Neon-type dynasty here at F&F. Last year, I stated how I didn't just want to win back-to-back, I wanted to repeat! And now look where we are?! WE OUT HERE. This is big league ball. WOO! Alright, enough showboating.

Isaac: No comment.

Hopster: But do you know what might be even better than winning the championship belt (a championship belt that, mind you, can only be won by either Isaac or myself, lol)... Let me once again redirect you to last year's Oscars recap, because I'm starting to think we are have some otherworldly powers that we need to consider how to profit from. In your closing remarks, you said, and I quote: "Now its time to hit the theater, get some reps in, and come out the other side ready to put Paul Thomas Anderson's new movie as a lock for all 14 of its inevitable nominations." To which I said: "This is the year. Let's etch the letters "PTA" into the Oscars' lore." Holy shit! Now, maybe that bet isn't that wild, but what just happened?! One Battle After Another received 13 (not quite 14) nominations, and PTA swept all the major awards he was competing in. I don't want to say we're psychic, but maybe we are.

Isaac: No doubt about it, we're psychic.