Awards season is a long slog. Kicking off not even a week into the new year with the Critics’ Choice Awards in January, followed in quick succession by the Golden Globes, BAFTAs and Actor Awards ceremonies, before culminating in the Oscars last night, each awards season is essentially a drawn-out 10-week race to see who will take home an Academy Award, aka cinema’s highest accolade. And, as I previously discussed here, the 2026 Oscars were impossible to predict. 

Last night’s glitzy event at Los Angeles’ Dolby Theatre saw a series of shock wins – such as Sinners’ Michael B. Jordan winning Best Actor, cementing Marty Supreme’s Timothée Chalamet’s fall from grace in a race which saw him pull ahead by winning the first two gongs before things went very wrong. There were also a number of industry firsts alongside highly-anticipated wins for Jessie Buckley and Paul Thomas Anderson. So who won what and when? We look back at 2026’s biggest winners – and how they’ve changed history and set the bar for the future. 

Jessie Buckley for Hamnet

Jessie Buckley as Agnes Hathaway

Image: Alamy

Award wins:

• Critics’ Choice – Best Actress
• Golden Globes – Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama
• BAFTA – Leading Actress
• Actor Awards – Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role 
• Oscar – Best Actress

By far the most decorated actress this year, Jessie Buckley made history at the 2026 Oscars, becoming the first Irish actress to win an Academy Award. It came as no surprise though; her storming performance as Agnes Hathaway in Hamnet, based on the Maggie O’Farrell novel of the same name, has seen her scoop every Best Actress gong since the Critics’ Choice Awards at the beginning of January. 

Her depiction of a grieving mother has captured the world, and there was no way the Academy – which previously nominated her for her role in The Lost Daughter (2021) alongside Olivia Colman – was going to miss the opportunity to complete her clean sweep. The Oscars coincidentally fell on Mother’s Day in the UK, and Buckley spoke of the tangible connection between the date and her role in Hamnet in her acceptance speech: “I would like to dedicate this to the beautiful chaos of a mother’s heart. We all come from a lineage of women who continue to create against all odds. Thank you for recognising me in this role. This is the greatest honour.”

Paul Thomas Anderson for One Battle After Another

Award wins: 

• Critics’ Choice – Best Director
• Golden Globes – Best Director - Motion Picture
• BAFTA – Best Director
• Oscar – Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay

Paul Thomas Anderson’s Oscar win has been a long time coming (see more here) but with One Battle After Another breaking so many awards season records, it was incomprehensible that he wouldn’t take home the Best Director statuette. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn (see below), Teyana Taylor and Chase Infiniti, the film broke the record for the most Actor Awards nominations ever with seven, and led the BAFTA longlist with a record-breaking 16 nods. At the Oscars last night, it scooped six awards, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing and Best Casting. It was nothing short of a monumental night for Anderson. 

Anderson’s portfolio, including Boogie Nights (1998), There Will Be Blood (2007), and Phantom Thread (2017), isn’t as heavy hitting as One Battle After Another, which could be one reason why the 55-year-old director hasn’t been awarded until now, despite earning multiple previous nominations. His latest work found favour with every voting bloc not only because of its stellar cinematography and cast, but also because of its timely political nods. 

Many comparisons have been drawn between the film and modern America, with Anderson depicting a deeply polarised, right-wing and authoritarian country while highlighting political extremism and radicalism. He said on stage at the Oscars: “I wrote this movie for my kids; to say sorry for the housekeeping mess we left in this world we’re handing off to them. But also with the encouragement that they will, hopefully, be the generation that brings us some common sense and decency.”

Sean Penn for One Battle After Another

Award wins: 

• BAFTA – Best Supporting Actor
• Actor Awards – Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role
• Oscar – Best Supporting Actor

The latter end of the 2026 awards season has seen Sean Penn come up trumps – yet, he was nowhere to be seen. His role as a corrupt colonel in One Battle After Another garnered a string of successes starting with the BAFTAs, upending a race that saw Jacob Elordi win for Frankenstein at the Critics’ Choice and favourite Stellan Skarsgård triumph for Sentimental Value at the Golden Globes. Last night marked Penn’s entry into an elite circle of triple Oscar winners, having already been awarded by the Academy for his leading roles in Mystic River (2004) and Milk (2009), joining the likes of Daniel Day-Lewis and Jack Nicholson. 

This, however, is by no means a mutual love fest. Having skipped both the BAFTAs and Actor Awards last month, despite winning at both, all eyes were on the Oscars red carpet to see if Penn would make an appearance. Spoiler: he didn’t. Penn has not been shy about his disdain for the Oscars, accusing the Academy in 2024 of “extraordinary cowardice when it comes to being part of the bigger world of expression, and in fact, have largely been part of limiting the imagination and very limiting of different cultural expressions.” 

The official reason for his notable absence at the Oscars ceremony was a trip to Ukraine; which he previously visited in 2022, giving President Volodymyr Zelenskyy one of his Oscars, after hinting to Variety that they could be “melted down to bullets” to help with the Ukrainian war effort. Last year’s Best Supporting Actor winner Kieran Culkin presented the absent actor with his award, before accepting it on his behalf and quipping: “Sean Penn couldn’t be here this evening. Or didn’t want to.”

Amy Madigan for Weapons

Amy Madigan at the Actors Awards in March 2026. Image: Alamy

Amy Madigan in Dior and Omega at the 2026 Oscars. Image: Dior/Getty Images

Award wins:

• Critics’ Choice – Best Supporting Actress
• Actor Awards – Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role 
• Oscar – Best Supporting Actress

The 75-year-old American actress has made no secret of the fact she was ready to hang up her acting shoes before she was cast as the terrifying Aunt Gladys in Zach Cregger’s horror Weapons. I bet she’s glad she didn’t, having won at the Critics’ Choice, Actor Awards and the Oscars, breaking the record for longest gap between nominations before a win(she was nominated in 1986 for her supporting role in Twice in a Lifetime) .

Her Oscar wasn’t always a sure thing: Wumni Mosaku won the category at the BAFTAs for Sinners and One Battle After Another’s Teyana Taylor scooped the Golden Globe. Both of these films have been frontrunners throughout awards season, unlike Weapons, which has been denied any wins beyond Madigan’s performance. Speaking about going it alone on the 2026 press circuit in her Oscars speech, Madigan said: “I also want to just give some tribute to Elle [Fanning], and Inga [Ibsdotter Lilleaas], and Wunmi [Mosaku] and Teyana [Taylor]. Because when I was doing all the Weapons stuff, I was kind of travelling on my own, and people from One Battle [...] and Sinners and all the films, they just kind of gave me a hug and said, ‘Yeah, come on in and let us know you and you can know us.’” It proves you’re never too old to achieve great things. 

Ryan Coogler for Sinners

Award wins:

• Critics’ Choice – Best Original Screenplay
• Golden Globes – Cinematic and Box Office Achievement
• Oscar – Best Original Screenplay

Paul Thomas Anderson may have taken home the Best Director awards, but that didn’t mean Ryan Coogler was left out in the cold. His 2025 film Sinners – led by Michael B. Jordan, who took home his first Oscar last night in a truly unpredictable Best Actor race which snubbed Timothée Chalamet and didn’t even recognise Leonardo DiCaprio and Ethan Hawke – has been the only rival to One Battle After Another. The latter’s aforementioned political stance may have finally seen Anderson awarded for his long-standing career, but Coogler’s imaginative horror about twins, both played by Jordan, returning to 1932 Mississippi to be confronted by a supernatural evil didn’t go unnoticed. Themes of racism, radicalism and extremism were prevalent throughout, and his scripts proved more than worthy of an award. 

Sinners has enjoyed an incredible 2026 awards season, having broken the record for the most Academy Award nominations with 16, surpassing the 14 that were held by All About Eve (1950), Titanic (1997), and La La Land (2016). It has also become the highest-grossing original film of the past 15 years, nodding to Coogler’s vivid script, and saw cast members Wunmi Mosaku and Delroy Lindo enjoy their fair share of the spotlight with a series of wins and nominations. From a filmmaker whose previous works, such as Black Panther (2018) and Creed (2015), were pipped to the post at awards season, it’s great to see Coogler recognised by the Academy – and we can’t wait to see what he does next. 

Read more: Inside the 2026 Oscars parties