Paul Thomas Anderson had been nominated 11 times without winning an Oscar. On Sunday night he won three, and the last one came with a toast. One Battle After Another took Best Picture to close the 98th Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre, and Anderson stood in front of a stage full of his cast and signed off with a request: “You guys, let’s have a martini,” as The Hollywood Reporter heard it.
It was the film’s sixth win of the night. Anderson also collected Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Director, his first Oscar wins ever, per Deadline, while Sean Penn took Best Supporting Actor without attending and the film added the first-ever Best Casting Oscar (Cassandra Kulukundis) and Best Film Editing (Andy Jurgensen).
The speech
Anderson used the last award of the night to tip his hat to the competition, naming the five Best Picture nominees of 1975, from Jaws to Nashville. Then he made good on an earlier slip: after forgetting to thank his actors during the Best Director speech, he thanked Leonardo DiCaprio, Benicio del Toro, Teyana Taylor, Regina Hall and Chase Infiniti from a stage crowded with the cast and crew.
There is no best among them
Paul Thomas Anderson, on the 1975 Best Picture nominees, The Hollywood Reporter
He singled out Infiniti, the film’s young lead, with the line “You are the heart of this movie.” Backstage, he told reporters why he keeps making movies at all, in remarks IndieWire reported:
I’ve been doing this long enough to tell you that the reason I continue to do it is because of the people I collaborate with
Paul Thomas Anderson, IndieWire
How it beat ‘Sinners’
The night was billed as a two-horse race between Warner Bros. films, and it ended 6-4. Ryan Coogler’s Sinners arrived with a record 16 nominations, two more than the previous all-time high, against 13 for Anderson’s film. It left with four: Best Original Screenplay for Coogler, Best Actor for Michael B. Jordan, Best Original Score for Ludwig Göransson and a historic Best Cinematography win for Autumn Durald Arkapaw.
The Hollywood Reporter’s post-show analysis argued that the Academy’s history explains a lot. Being the most-nominated film has rarely guaranteed a Best Picture win, a vampire movie may have been a stretch for the Academy’s oldest tastes, and Anderson was widely seen as an overdue filmmaker with a major work, in the mold of Martin Scorsese for The Departed or Christopher Nolan for Oppenheimer. By the time Sinners lost Best Casting and then Best Supporting Actor, the piece says, the result was clear.
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Warner Bros. still had the best night in town: its 11 wins, which include Amy Madigan’s Best Supporting Actress prize for Weapons, led all studios, per Deadline.
The acting races
Jordan’s win was the night’s other upset. He had trailed Timothée Chalamet earlier in the season, but the Academy sided with Sinners, and Marty Supreme went home 0-for-9 despite 11 nominations. Jessie Buckley won Best Actress for Hamnet, Madigan won for her clown-makeup turn in Weapons, and Penn’s victory made him one of only four men with three acting Oscars, alongside Walter Brennan, Jack Nicholson and Daniel Day-Lewis.
Netflix, K-pop and the rest
Netflix had a night of its own. It picked up seven Oscars, led by three for Frankenstein and two for KPop Demon Hunters, which won Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song for “Golden,” the first K-pop song to take the category. We have the full story on the song’s win and the live performances, and the studio has since confirmed the film’s sequel will reach theaters before it streams.
The show
The telecast itself earned good marks. Conan O’Brien hosted for the second year running, and THR’s post-show analysis praised his “amiable emceeing,” a tight In Memoriam segment and the Sinners and KPop Demon Hunters performances, in which Miles Caton and Raphael Saadiq recreated the juke joint and HUNTR/X’s singers brought light sticks to the Dolby. His quibbles: the Marvel “reunion” was overhyped, and winners were played off for the second year in a row.
A live-action short tie, only the seventh in Oscars history, was handled by Kumail Nanjiani, and the new Best Casting category gave Kulukundis the first statue. Netflix’s total of seven matches its company best, led by Frankenstein’s three craft awards.
Elsewhere, Mr. Nobody Against Putin won Best Documentary Feature, Sentimental Value took International Feature, and Warner Bros. Discovery’s $118 billion merger deal with Paramount, which Deadline notes was agreed the same year, makes it unclear how long a studio can sweep like this. Next year’s Best Original Song race is already taking shape.
- 98th Academy Awards
- March 15, 2026, Dolby Theatre, Los Angeles; host Conan O’Brien
- Best Picture
- *One Battle After Another* (six wins); *Sinners* won four from a record 16 nominations
- Studio count
- Warner Bros. 11 wins, Netflix seven
Sources
Added to the High Grailed archive on October 12, 2026.
