{"id":145223,"date":"2026-01-22T21:19:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T21:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/145223\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T21:19:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T21:19:08","slug":"oaklands-ryan-coogler-delroy-lindo-among-sinners-record-16-oscar-nominations-times-herald-online","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/145223\/","title":{"rendered":"Oakland\u2019s Ryan Coogler, Delroy Lindo, among \u2018Sinners\u201d record 16 Oscar nominations \u2013 Times Herald Online"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oakland native Ryan Coogler,<\/a> and his Southern-gothic, musical horror epic \u201cSinners\u201d were the big winners in 2026 Oscar nominations<\/a> announced Thursday, scoring a record 16 nominations<\/a> for best picture, director and screenplay, along with a \u201cdark horse\u201d nomination for Oakland\u2019s Delroy Lindo for supporting actor.<\/p>\n

Coogler has indeed rewritten Academy Awards history<\/a> with \u201cSinners,\u201d an R-rated, genre-defying film that was a box office hit and a critical success as well, landing on many year-end Top 10 lists.<\/a> Coogler said in a previous interview with the Bay Area News Group it was his most personal and ambitious film yet.<\/a><\/p>\n

Prior to Thursday, three films in the Academy Award\u2019s 98-year history had managed to score 14 nominations: \u201cAll About Eve\u201d in 1950, \u201cTitanic\u201d in 1997 and \u201cLa La Land\u201d in 2016. Trailing \u201cSinners\u201d in number of nominations was Paul Thomas Anderson\u2019s \u201cOne Battle After Another,\u201d which received a total of 13.<\/p>\n

Among the other nominations for \u201cSinners\u201d was a nod to star Michael B. Jordan, who collaborated with Coogler on \u201cFruitvale Station,\u201d \u201cCreed\u201d and \u201cBlack Panther.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jordan plays flashy twin brothers in the film, World War I veterans with a shared criminal past, who return to their Mississippi hometown in the Deep South in 1932. During a packed 24-hour period, the brothers, \u201cSmoke\u201d and \u201cStack,\u201d use money stolen from Chicago criminal syndicates to purchase a sawmill with the dream of starting a juke joint for the local Black community. But amid warnings about the sins of blues music, they soon find themselves confronting a supernatural evil.<\/p>\n

In the film, Lindo plays Delta Slim, an old town harmonica player and musical legend. The London-born actor has long made the Bay Area his home, after studying acting at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco and becoming associated with Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Another acting nomination, in the best supporting actress category, went to Nigerian actor Wunmi Mosaku, who plays Annie, Smoke\u2019s estranged wife and a Hoodoo practitioner.<\/p>\n

Coogler, who also attended Saint Mary\u2019s College in Moraga before earning his undergraduate degree at Sacramento State and his MFA in film at USC, scored personal nominations for best director, best original screenplay and for producing \u201cSinners.\u201d His film additionally scored nominations for casting; production design; cinematography; costume design; film editing; makeup and hairstyling; sound; visual effects; original score; and original song for \u201cI Lied to You.\u201d<\/p>\n

With \u201cSinners,\u201d Coogler becomes only the second Black filmmaker nominated in the same year in the producing, directing and original screenplay categories, following Jordan Peele\u2019s triple recognition for \u201cGet Out\u201d in 2017,\u00a0 according to Variety<\/a>. He also is the seventh Black director to receive a best director nomination, following John Singleton for\u00a0 \u201cBoyz n the Hood\u201d;\u00a0 Lee Daniels for \u201cPrecious\u201d; Steve McQueen for \u201c12 Years a Slave\u201d; Barry Jenkins for \u201cMoonlight\u201d; and Jordan Peele and Spike Lee for \u201cBlacKkKlansman\u201d in 2018. None of those directors won.<\/p>\n

But perhaps Coogler will rewrite history in other ways by winning the best director prize, and for a film that was very much his personal conception. In an interview with this news organization last April,<\/a> Coogler said \u201cSinners\u201d was inspired by his memories of hanging out with an uncle, who grew up in Mississippi, while listening to the blues in their Oakland home. Coogler said he couldn\u2019t help but soak up the music, the mood and the stories he heard from his Uncle James.<\/p>\n

\u201c(My uncle) came West and worked at a steel factory and we\u2019d listen to blues records,\u201d Coogler recalled in the interview. \u201cThat was like his pastime. That, and he was a San Francisco Giants fan. We\u2019d watch games on TV and if they weren\u2019t on TV we\u2019d listen to them on the radio. It was Giants and blues music and Old Taylor Whiskey.\u201d<\/p>\n

To make \u201cSinners,\u201d Coogler said he wanted to surround himself with people whom he respected and with whom he had collaborated before, including Jordan.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to make something great and I felt like I was running out of time to be able to give myself so completely (over) to a project that was so personal,\u201d he said. \u201cI felt like all my collaborators were getting older and\u2026our lives were becoming more complicated and I just had this instinct that now was the time. It was like now or never. Like (making) something this bold and crazy with all the people I loved and trusted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like Coogler, those collaborators also scored Oscar nominations Thursday: Costume designer Ruth E. Carter (a previous two-time winner for Coogler\u2019s \u201cBlack Panther\u201d and \u201cBlack Panther: Wakanda Forever\u201d; director of photography Autumn Durald Arkapaw (who also made Oscars history<\/a> as the first woman of color to be nominated for best cinematography);\u00a0production designer Hannah Beachler, also a previous Oscar winner for \u201cBlack Panther\u201d; editor Michael P. Shawver; and composer\u00a0 Ludwig G\u00f6ransson, a past two-time Oscar winner for \u201cBlack Panther\u201d and \u201cOppenheimer.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oakland native Ryan Coogler, and his Southern-gothic, musical horror epic \u201cSinners\u201d were the big winners in 2026 Oscar…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144768,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[7,967,181,1399,993,266,143,145,144,2720,420,3627],"class_list":{"0":"post-145223","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-latest-headlines","11":"tag-movies","12":"tag-north-bay","13":"tag-northern-california","14":"tag-oakland","15":"tag-oakland-headlines","16":"tag-oakland-news","17":"tag-solano-county","18":"tag-things-to-do","19":"tag-vallejo"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}