The Tamesis
The 2026 Oscars were a satisfying night of firsts. Jessie Buckley became the first Irish woman to win the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as Shakespeare’s bereaved wife Agnes Hathaway in “Shakespeare.” Hamnet. Meanwhile, Autumn Durald Arkapaw became the first woman and first black person to win the photography award for her work on the Depression-era vampire blockbuster sinner.
family drama emotional value It was the first Norwegian film to win the International Feature Film Award and the first time a new Oscar was awarded for casting. one battle after another Casting director Cassandra Kurukundis. Then, 75-year-old Amy Madigan won her first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the thriller armsIt has been 40 years since she was last nominated. Best of all, after 14 years and 11 nominations, director Paul Thomas Anderson won his first Oscar. In fact, he won three.
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“You get a guy working for one of these,” he joked as he picked up a best director statue, one of six Oscars he won. one battle after anotherhis comedy thriller inspired by the works of Thomas Pynchon winelandA satirical look at American activism and resistance at the hands of a sinister police state. The film also won Best Picture, making it the night’s big winner, winning Best Adapted Screenplay (Anderson), Best Editing (Andy Jergensen), and Best Supporting Actor for Sean Penn’s performance as a racist soldier.
Payne didn’t go to collect his award (“He couldn’t come tonight, or didn’t want to come,” said host Kieran Culkin) and thus missed out on celebrating his own history as the fourth actor to win three Oscars, after Daniel Day-Lewis, Jack Nicholson and Walter Brennan.
Even so, the rest of the cast, led by Teyana Taylor, flocked to the stage to celebrate the Best Picture win with joy. In his third speech of the night, Anderson compared this film-rich year to 1975, finding just the right words to sum up the atmosphere at the awards show. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Barry Lyndon, dog day afternoon, great white sharkand nashville,” he said, “There is no best among them. That was the mood that day. But we’re happy to be a part of it; a wonderful, wonderful journey. “
It’s a classy tribute to the other Best Picture nominees, especially the work of Ryan Coogler sinnerIt ties themes of African-American identity to music and a vampire narrative and is another front-runner in the Oscar race. in the end, sinner The film received four of a record 16 nominations, including Coogler for Best Original Screenplay, Ludwig Goransson for Best Score, Best Cinematography for Best Cinematography, and Best Actor for Michael B. Jordan (who plays the twin owners of Delta Jukebox, Smoker and Stark).
