The 2026 Oscars Ended a Great Awards Season on a High Note

And with that, the 2025/6 Oscar season is over. One Battle After Another swept the big awards, Amy Madigan made horror history and so did Michael B. Jordan. KPop Demon Hunters continues its battle for world domination. And Barbra made us all cry.

Going into the evening, it was remarkable how up in the air much of it felt. This was not a year where the big races were set in cement months ahead of the ceremony. Indeed, as we inched closer to the Kodak Theatre, it seemed like some of the competition became even less certain. Races developed where we’d once had obvious frontrunners. Some categories had two or even three viable victors in contention. It’s hard to overstate just how rare that is. The excitement was increased by the fact that we also had a pretty dang good slate of movies nominated. We had one of the strongest Best Picture slates in years, one where any of the ten (except for F1) would have been a welcome and pretty uncontroversial winner. As it was, One Battle After Another felt like the right choice. The reviews truly speak for themselves.

First, let’s give it up for Conan, who continues to be a great host for this event. MC-ing the Oscars is one of the most thankless tasks in Hollywood, and even great TV hosts can suck at it. But for the past two years, Conan has killed it. He knows how to play the room without being too much of a suck-up, and still has the freedom to get weird (the Jane Lynch YouTube ad sections were classic late night-era Conan stuff). It’s clear that he loves films and has no interest in the shticky ‘ugh, aren’t award shows so stupid’ crap we so often get with ceremonies like this. Not every joke landed, but Conan is also great at moving things along or hanging a hat on the flops when the occasion calls for it.

It was also just incredibly well-staged. The performance of ‘I Lied To You’ from Sinners was stellar, and the joy of the long-awaited ‘Golden’ number was practically vibrating through the screen. The presentation of the first-ever Best Casting award put some long-awaited focus on the field by centring the nominees (it’s a rare women-dominated field in Hollywood, which might explain why it took so long for them to introduce this category, just saying.) The celebration of Rob and Michele Reiner, leading into a depressingly jam-packed In Memoriam segment, was moving in its simplicity and just heartbreaking from start to finish. The only downside seemed to be a weird sound issue that plagued the entire evening. Why did everything sound so muffled?

The night kicked off with a big one as Amy Magidan won Best Supporting Actress for Weapons. She was ebullient in her victory for an already-iconic horror-comedy performance that was the antithesis of Oscar bait. Who could have predicted that Aunt Gladys would be on that stage this time last year? Her speech was funny, full of gratitude, and highly emotional, and set the mood for the night. Sean Penn won his third Oscar and skipped the evening entirely, which saved us from an unbearable speech (a great performance, but, you know, he’s still Sean Penn.) Generally speaking, this was a night of good speeches, from Ryan Coogler’s rush of excitement during Best Original Screenplay to the moving and proudly political words from the documentary winners to the celebration of the first-ever woman to win Best Cinematography, Autumn Durald Arkapaw. And we had a tie! Best Live-Action Short was given to both The Singers and Two People Exchanging Saliva, a moment handled incredibly well by Kumail Nanjiani, who was presenting the category. Truly, it was an evening of joy and appreciation.

It didn’t take long for everyone to get the sense that it was going to be a big sweep for One Battle After Another. It was Paul Thomas Anderson’s time. 14 nominations before he won an Oscar! That’s kind of bizarre, right? This guy made Phantom Thread and There Will Be Blood, and the Academy just never got there with him until now. But what a crowning moment, with one of the most acclaimed movies of 2025 (and our #1 for the year) and his biggest commercial success by far. Yes, it was an ‘overdue’ win, but also a deserving one on its own merits, several times over.

Also a deserving win based on sheer merit: Michael B. Jordan for Sinners. Yes, there were a few ballet/opera jokes directed at Timothee Chalamet, but the idea that he would be snubbed because of those dunderheaded comments was always overblown. Jordan won because he was excellent, not because voters wanted to stick it to Timmy. And they just weren’t as hot on Marty Supreme, which went home empty-handed. Chalamet will be fine. He got humbled after a few years of being untouchable, and once Dune Part 3 is out, the universe will recalibrate to his side.

It’s been a while since I’ve been so generally happy with the Oscar wins. What a great year for horror, for women in the industry, for auteurs getting to do their own thing, for earworm songs that elevated their films, and for people who think film is worth caring about. Call me sappy, but this was a good Oscars, and the people in the room seemed to feel that way too. The excitement was evident in every giddy speech, with the crowd cheering at the mere mention of certain categories and Teyana Taylor’s delightful cheerleading. The film industry is a cesspool of corporate monopolies and conservative pandering, but the people on the ground doing the work of making movies keep you hopeful.