The 2026 Oscars pretty much followed my ruminations on the Oscars, which I published on January 25, just after the nominations were announced. Not a bad thing. As I had predicted, it was a big night for One Battle After Another and Sinners. I was delighted that Frankenstein won for costume design, hair and makeup and production design.
Although I saw 144 2026 movies, Weapons was not among them, so I was stunned by Amy Madigan’s Best Supporting Actress win. I never considered the possibility that Teyana Taylor wouldn’t win.
The one thing that got me out of my seat with indignation was when Sentimental Value won for Best International Picture. It’s a very fine movie, but there’s NO WAY it’s better than either The Secret Agent or It Was Just an Accident. The Secret Agent immersed us in the world of 1977 Recife, Brazil, with stunning, unsurpassed verisimilitude. It Was Just an Accident was filmed secretly, in plain sight of the repressive Iranian government. Sentimental Value, which is about an emotionally remote father, just seemed First World Whiny compared to the other, which are about people being hunted down and murdered by their own governments. I calmed down when the director Joachim Trier, one of my personal favorites, accepted his Oscar so graciously.
Some other highlights:
- Mr. Nobody Against Putin won for Best Documentary and director David Borenstein and his subject Pavel Talankan, a bona fide hero who risked his life for the footage, delivered calls for truth in public discourse, free speech and an end to wars of aggression.
- Autumn Durald Arkapaw won for best cinematography and recognized the significance of being the first woman to win (she was even the first to be nominated) with extraordinary dignity. (And I also think Jame Wong Howe was the only other person of color to win the cinematography Oscar.)
- Jessie Buckley’s wonderfully sincere, gracious and deeply felt acceptance speech.
- The broadcast did an excellent job presenting the Casting Oscar, the new category that I still haven’t gotten a handle on.
- A winner in a Short category thanked the La Habra Moose Lodge, which has to a first, if less historic than Arkapaw’s.
And the funniest moment – in his opening, Conan O’Brien savagely mocked Donald Trump’s untethered narcissism without ever mentioning his name. I wonder if someone had to explain it to Trump.