“One Battle After Another” emerged as the standout winner at the 98th Academy Awards in Los Angeles. The dark‑humored action thriller by director Paul Thomas Anderson not only took home Best Picture, but also captured Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and the inaugural award in the new Casting category-presented to casting director Cassandra Kulukundis. With 13 nominations in total, the film secured six Oscars, giving Anderson the personal haul of three gold statuettes.
The second most successful film of the night was “Sinners”, which garnered four awards. In the Best Actor category, Michael B. Jordan-who played a dual lead role in “Sinners”-was crowned, a category that had been fairly open with strong contenders such as Timothée Chalamet for “Marty Supreme”. For Best Actress, Jessie Buckley won for her performance in the literary adaptation “Hamnet”, a prediction that had been widely accepted by experts.
Supporting actors Amy Madigan (for “Weapons”) and Sean Penn (for “One Battle After Another”) both took home awards, having been seen as clear favorites from the outset. In the animation field, “KPop Demons Hunters” won Best Animated Feature, while the foreign Oscar went to Norway’s “Sentimental Value”. Ludwig Göransson received the Oscar for Best Original Score for “Sinners”, keeping the German composer Max Richter (who worked on “Hamnet”) out of the final tally.
Political commentary was a notable element of the ceremony. Host Conan O’Brien warned in his opening monologue that the evening could contain political messages and urged the international filmmaking community to spread optimism. While the acceptance speeches remained largely restrained, a few remarks did surface: Jimmy Kimmel took a jab at U.S. President Donald Trump during the documentary category, and Russian filmmaker Pawel Talankin-who won for “Ein Nobody gegen Putin”-called for an end to all wars. Later, Javier Bardem repeated the slogan “No to war” and added “Free Palestine”.
As usual, there is much anticipation this year regarding television ratings for the awards broadcast. The only true blockbusters in the Best Picture field-“F1” (with a domestic gross of $633 million) and “Sinners” (with $370 million)-are the films that typically drive a ratings boost when they earn high revenue.