{"id":462044,"date":"2026-02-11T11:15:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T11:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/462044\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T11:15:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T11:15:11","slug":"inside-the-2026-oscar-nominees-luncheon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/462044\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside the 2026 Oscar Nominees Luncheon"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the annual Oscar nominations<\/a> lunch, gauging the applause meter is part of the game, as the Academy rep (in this case, Lou Diamond Phillips) calls each nominee up to the riser for the class photo. This year, 197 Oscar nominees, including four international director nominees, made the trek to the Beverly Hilton.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour storytelling is the greatest truth we have,\u201d Academy president Lynette Howell Taylor told the gathering. \u201cGiving your time and energy to this art form is crucial because movies can change perspectives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Missing were \u201cOne Battle After Another\u201d star Sean Penn, \u201cSentimental Value\u201d star Renate Reinsve, and Original Screenplay nominee \u201cIt Was Just an Accident\u201d co-writer Mehdi Mahmoudian, who was sent to prison in Iran earlier this month. Writer\/director Jafar Panahi will return to Iran after the Oscars<\/a>, he told me soberly, knowing he may end up there as well.<\/p>\n

\"LONDON,<\/a> \"‘Sirat’<\/a> <\/p>\n

\"Writer-directorWriter\/director Jafar Panahi of \u2018It Was Just an Accident\u2019Anne Thompson<\/p>\n

The celebrities always score the most noise. \u201cSinners\u201d generated warm applause for Michael B. Jordan, Wunmi Mosaku, and my tablemate Delroy Lindo (who is writing his memoirs), as well as writer\/director Ryan Coogler. <\/p>\n

But so did \u201cOne Battle After Another\u201d writer\/director Paul Thomas Anderson and star Leonardo DiCaprio<\/a>, who is about to start his new Martin Scorsese movie with Jennifer Lawrence (\u201cWhat Happens at Night\u201d) and said he can\u2019t wait to see David Fincher\u2019s \u201cOnce Upon a Time in Hollywood\u201d sequel about Cliff Booth<\/a>, as well as Teyana Taylor, who hung out during the lunch with Kate Hudson (\u201cSong Sung Blue\u201d).<\/p>\n

Actress Emma Stone (\u201cBugonia\u201d) got a big round, along with the \u201cKPop Demon Hunters\u201d team, who gathered round for a photo with Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet. Also drawing cheers were \u201cFrankenstein\u201d director\/producer Guillermo del Toro, first-timer Jacob Elordi, and composer Alexandre Desplat, who has been nominated 12 times and won twice (\u201cThe Shape of Water\u201d and \u201cThe Grand Budapest Hotel\u201d).<\/p>\n

\"TimothéeTimoth\u00e9e Chalamet and the \u2018KPop Demon Hunters\u2019 gangAnne Thompson<\/p>\n

Steven Spielberg went up on the riser as the producer of \u201cHamnet\u201d after a chat with Lindo: it made his day. The Oscars planners saved the best for last as Chalamet, Coogler, Anderson, Del Toro, and Jessie Buckley all were called up at the end and brought down the house.<\/p>\n

Ethan Hawke and Chlo\u00e9 Zhao had a chat during the lunch, as did Chalamet and DiCaprio, Benicio Del Toro and Oliver Laxe (\u201cSirat\u201d), and Warners exec Michael De Luca and \u201cF1\u201d producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who has many sequels in the works including a new \u201cTop Gun,\u201d<\/a> \u201cHeat 2<\/a>,\u201d and a \u201cPirates of the Caribbean\u201d film<\/a> with Margot Robbie.<\/p>\n

Making the rounds instead of Bob Iger were newly appointed Disney CEO Josh D\u2019Amaro<\/a> and his content chief Dana Walden, whose ABC has a contract to run the Oscars through 2028. After that, the show will move to YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At long last, on March 15, the Oscars will give out the gold statue for Best Casting. The Oscar executive producers Raj Kapoor and Katy Mullan are back for their third consecutive year, and their second with host Conan O\u2019Brien. The producers promise some surprise visits from Oscar veterans and a special musical interlude \u2014 one reason they kept the song nominee performances down to just two (the most popular \u201cGolden\u201d from \u201cKPop Demon Hunters\u201d and \u201cI Lied to You\u201d from \u201cSinners\u201d).<\/p>\n

\"\"Teyana Taylor<\/p>\n

Ratings could pick up this year, because the Oscar leaders \u2014 \u201cOne Battle After Another,\u201d \u201cSinners,\u201d \u201cHamnet,\u201d and \u201cMarty Supreme\u201d \u2014 are all box office hits.<\/p>\n

While many major Oscar categories are easy to call right now (hello, \u201cHamnet\u201d star Jessie Buckley), winning your Oscar pool requires figuring out the winners of the craft categories, documentaries, and shorts. The VFX team from \u201cAvatar: Fire and Ash\u201d is one to count on.<\/p>\n

And on the documentary feature side, \u201cThe Alabama Solution\u201d <\/a>nominee Andrew Jarecki reported that after waiting a year after the film\u2019s debut at Sundance, the Alabama prison system did put his two lead activists, Melvin Ray and Robert Earl Council, back into solitary confinement, but that rousing protests eventually got them returned to their cells.<\/p>\n

The 98th Oscars air Sunday, March 15 on ABC. See more photos from inside the room below.<\/p>\n

\"EmmaEmma Stone of \u2018Bugonia\u2019Anne Thompson<\/p>\n

\"RonaldRonald Bronstein and Rose ByrneAnne Thompson<\/p>\n

\"\"Steven SpielbergAnne Thompson<\/p>\n

\"Oscar-nominatedWagner MouraAnne Thompson<\/p>\n

\"ElleElle FanningAnne Thompson<\/p>\n

\"TheThe 2026 Oscars nominee class photoCourtesy AMPAS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At the annual Oscar nominations lunch, gauging the applause meter is part of the game, as the Academy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462045,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[10546,236,88,2695,2942,215156,29506,57100],"class_list":["post-462044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-awards","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-film","tag-leonardo-dicaprio","tag-oscar-nominees-luncheon","tag-oscars","tag-timothee-chalamet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}