Jessie Buckley has finally won the Oscar for best actress at a lively ceremony in Los Angeles. Awarded for her heart-rending turn as Agnes Shakespeare in Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet, Buckley, from Killarney, continued the run of amiable speeches that has taken her through a seemingly endless awards season.
“Thank you to the incredible women that I stand beside,” she said to her fellow nominees. “I am inspired by your art and your heart, and I want to work with every single one of you.”
Buckley, who wore a striking Chanel dress with a dramatic horizontal red sash, becomes, as the Oscars approach their centenary in 2028, the first Irish woman to take the best-actress prize. After wins at the Golden Globes, Bafta and the Actor Awards, she arrived an unbackable favourite, but she still seemed charmingly surprised to grab the prize that really matters.
From the stage, Buckley thanked her family and made reference to her husband, Freddie Sorensen, who has largely stayed out of the limelight.
“Mum, Dad, thank you for teaching us to dream, and to never be defined by expectation, but to carve from your own passion,” she said. “You, Fred, I love you, man, I love you. You’re the most incredible dad. You’re my best friend, and I want to have 20,000 more babies with you. I do. And to my little girl, who is eight months, who has absolutely no idea what’s going on and is probably dreaming of milk, but this is kind of a big deal.”
[ Oscars 2026: Full list of winners, including Jessie Buckley and Richard BanehamOpens in new window ]
Richard Baneham, from Tallaght in Dublin, winning in best visual effects for Avatar: Fire and Ash, becomes only the second Irish citizen, after Daniel Day-Lewis, to have three Oscars on the shelf. His previous two were also for films in James Cameron’s science-fiction cycle.
“First and foremost, thank you to our families,” he said after receiving the prize from a visibly moved Sigourney Weaver, star of the Avatar films. “This is a massive, massive collaboration on the VFX side. We also overlap with everybody on the movie. To all our families this is everything – truly, truly everything. Jim Cameron, go raibh míle maith agat. He literally informs every frame of the movie.”
[ Oscars 2026: Jessie Buckley finishes a job started by three other Irish starsOpens in new window ]
The big winner of the ceremony, presented adroitly by Conan O’Brien, was One Battle After Another, Paul Thomas Anderson’s sprawling political thriller, which took six Oscars, including those for best picture and best director.
Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, a highly original blend of vampire horror and social history, was just behind, with four, including best actor for the film’s star Michael B Jordan, who beat the early-doors favourite Timothée Chalamet. Autumn Durald Arkapaw, cinematographer on Coogler’s film, became the first woman to win in that category.
Oscars 2026: Jessie Buckley with her husband, Freddie Sorensen, as her best-actress win is announced. Photograph: Patrick T Fallon/AFP via Getty 
Oscars 2026: Jessie Buckley hugs Paul Mescal, her Hamnet costar, on her way to receive her best-actress award. Photograph: Patrick T Fallon/AFP via Getty
There was disappointment for the other Irish nominees. Maggie O’Farrell, nominated with Zhao for adapting Hamnet, her own novel, lost out in the best-adapted-screenplay category, but that was always likely to go to Anderson.
This marked his first Oscar after three decades as one of the United States’ most acclaimed film-makers. Andrew Freedman and John Kelly, up in best animated short for the amusing Retirement Plan, saw their film lose to The Girl Who Cried Pearls. The Irish producers Ed Guiney and Andrew Lowe, nominated in best picture for Yorgos Lanthimos’s Bugonia, lost out to Paul Thomas Anderson’s film.
Paul Mescal, Buckley’s costar in Hamnet, missed out on a supporting-actor nomination, but he was one of five on stage to present the first Oscar for best casting. That prize went the way of One Battle After Another and offered an early clue that the film was likely to take best picture.
By then it was Monday morning in Europe, but Buckley was keen to acknowledge that, in Hollywood, it was still an appropriate day to celebrate mothers and daughters.
“It’s Mother’s Day in the UK today,” she concluded. “So I would like to dedicate this to the beautiful chaos of a mother’s heart.”
You can read a full list of the winners here