{"id":527225,"date":"2026-03-16T17:34:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T17:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/527225\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T17:34:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T17:34:07","slug":"how-one-battle-beat-sinners-jordan-overcame-chalamet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/527225\/","title":{"rendered":"How ‘One Battle’ Beat ‘Sinners,’ Jordan Overcame Chalamet"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAn awards<\/a> season that often felt like an endurance test \u2014 talk about one battle after another<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 came to an end on Sunday evening with the 2026 Oscars.<\/a> The results at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood confirmed that even though the Academy has changed significantly over the decade since it was rocked by #OscarsSoWhite \u2014 its membership today includes way more non-males, non-whites, non-Americans and non-AARP-members than ever before\u00a0\u2014 the statistics that have long offered clues about Oscars<\/a> outcomes remain dependable.<\/p>\n

\n\tIndeed, despite all the talk of a late Sinners<\/a> surge, One Battle After Another still won the top prize, best picture, just as it did at every other notable awards ceremony this season \u2014 from the Gothams to the Golden Globes to the guilds, not to mention all the major critics groups, plus the BAFTA Awards\u00a0\u2014 save for the Actor Awards (formerly the SAG Awards) two weeks ago.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt was easy to get swept up in the excitement of Sinners\u2019 best cast win at the Actor Awards \u2014\u00a0the reaction in the room was exuberant \u2014\u00a0but that prize has a terrible track record of predicting the best picture Oscar (now just 15 of 32 times). The fact that the best cast Actor Award did presage several of the biggest best picture Oscar surprises of yesteryear (including Shakespeare in Love, Crash and Parasite), and that this year\u2019s Actor Awards took place in the middle of the final round of Oscars voting, unfortunately gave Sinners supporters false hope.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhy did Paul Thomas Anderson<\/a>\u2019s film prevail<\/a> over Ryan Coogler<\/a>\u2019s when both were Warner Bros. releases that skipped the festival circuit, went directly to movie theaters and proved to be darlings of critics and audiences alike, and when Sinners grossed more money and landed more Oscar nominations (16 \u2014 two more than the previous all-time record \u2014 versus 13)? Let\u2019s unpack that\u2026<\/p>\n

\n\tFor one thing, being the most Oscar-nominated film of the year has limited significance. In the past decade, it didn\u2019t help Emilia P\u00e9rez against Anora, The Power of the Dog against CODA, Mank against Nomadland, Joker against Parasite, The Favourite and Roma against Green Book, La La Land against Moonlight or The Revenant against Spotlight. And this year, you couldn\u2019t fault One Battle for not having an original song or much in the way of makeup\/hairstyling or visual effects, the three categories in which Sinners landed noms but One Battle did not. Both films got nominated for everything they could have realistically hoped for (minus One Battle\u2019s newcomer Chase Infiniti in the crowded best actress race).<\/p>\n

\n\tAdditionally, One Battle had genre on its side. In the post-#OscarsSoWhite era, the Academy has embraced a wider assortment of films than ever before, rendering moot the notion of an \u201cOscar movie\u201d by awarding best picture to The Shape of Water, Parasite and Everything Everywhere All at Once. But a vampires-centric film \u2014 up against a dramedy\/thriller \u2014 was perhaps a bridge too far for even a hipper Academy.<\/p>\n

\n\tMost significantly, I think, One Battle was a major work \u2014 if not the best work \u2014 of a filmmaker widely regarded as overdue for recognition, not unlike The Departed (Martin Scorsese) or Oppenheimer (Christopher Nolan). Indeed, prior to One Battle, Anderson was already well-established as one of the greatest filmmakers of his generation \u2014 see Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love, There Will Be Blood, The Master and Phantom Thread, in particular\u00a0\u2014 and yet had gone 0-for-11 at the Oscars. One Battle provided voters with a sufficient excuse to right that wrong.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Sunday, it became clear pretty early in the show that Sinners\u2019 best picture prospects were in trouble. If the film had the juice to topple One Battle, then that probably would have manifested itself in the race for best supporting actress, but Sinners\u2019 Wunmi Mosaku came up short; shortly thereafter, it lost the inaugural Oscar for best casting \u2014 which every pundit of note had predicted it to win \u2014 to One Battle, no less; and by the time Sinners\u2019 Delroy Lindo lost best supporting actor to one of the two One Battle nominees in that category, the cake was baked.<\/p>\n

\n\tFortunately, both films\u2019 auteurs got moments in the sun \u2014 Anderson won best adapted screenplay and\u00a0Coogler won best original screenplay back-to-back before Anderson claimed best director and best picture later in the night. Plus, both films took home acting awards (best actor for Sinners and best supporting actor for One Battle) and craft awards (casting and film editing for One Battle, cinematography and original score for Sinners). The final score: One Battle 6, Sinners 4.<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking of the acting awards, though, it must be noted that the Actor Awards were, in fact, the only awards group to presage all four of this year\u2019s individual acting Oscar winners: Hamnet\u2019s Jessie Buckley for best actress, Sinners\u2019 Michael B. Jordan<\/a> for best actor, Weapons\u2019 Amy Madigan for best supporting actress and One Battle\u2019s Sean Penn<\/a> for best supporting actor.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s interesting that a group comprised only of actors (SAG-AFTRA, all 160,000 members of whom vote for the Actor Awards winners) and a group in which actors account for less than 12 percent of all voters (the Academy) both responded not only to the same performances, but to performances that might be described as Acting with a capital A: Buckley playing a grieving mother who wails upon losing a child and seems possessed by a theatrical production; Jordan playing twins with very different personalities; Madigan chewing scenery in clown makeup; and Penn sporting an erection and a glass eye.<\/p>\n

\n\tThey all took very different paths to their wins.<\/p>\n

\n\tPenn did not campaign or show up for any award shows except the Golden Globes, but gave such a memorable performance \u2014 and, despite being a difficult guy, is so highly regarded as an actor \u2014 that he still won BAFTA and Actor Awards en route to Academy members catapulting him into its rarified club of three-time male acting Oscar winners (the only other members of which are Walter Brennan, Jack Nicholson and Daniel Day-Lewis). It\u2019s just a shame he couldn\u2019t be bothered to show up at the ceremony and support his film and collaborators.<\/p>\n

\n\tIncidentally, Penn was up against four formidable fellow actors, including two septuagenarian first-time nominees, Sentimental Value\u2019s Stellan Skarsg\u00e5rd and Sinners\u2019 Lindo. But a path to victory was always going to be tough for a performance not in English (Skarsg\u00e5rd would have been the first such winner in the supporting actor category) and\/or a performer who wasn\u2019t even nominated for any other major award (Lindo hoped to follow in the 25-year-old footsteps of Marcia Gay Harden, the only person who has ever overcome that stat).<\/p>\n

\n\tMadigan, meanwhile, won early in the year at the Critics Choice Awards, in something of a surprise \u2014\u00a0many were still predicting Wicked: For Good\u2019s Ariana Grande at the time\u00a0\u2014 and only continued to build goodwill between then and the Actor Awards, when she won again.<\/p>\n

\n\tTo be sure, the other precursors were all over the place, with Sinners\u2019 Mosaku winning BAFTA, One Battle\u2019s Teyana Taylor winning the Golden Globe and Sentimental Value\u2019s Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas winning some big critics prizes. And it was a bit disconcerting that Madigan was her category\u2019s only nominee whose film wasn\u2019t also up for best picture.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut what proved to be more important is that she has been in the business forever (her prior Oscar nom came 40 years ago, before any of her fellow supporting actress nominees were even born), knows and is known by everyone (whereas most people had not even heard of three of her four fellow nominees a year ago) and is one-half of a great Hollywood couple (not unlike another veteran who won the same Oscar for another horror film 57 years ago, Rosemary\u2019s Baby\u2019s Ruth Gordon).<\/p>\n

\n\tAs for Jordan, he initially seemed to be trailing Marty Supreme\u2019s Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet<\/a>, given that Chalamet won at the Critics Choice and Golden Globe awards \u2014\u00a0but those two prizes were determined solely by journalists, of which there are virtually none in the Academy. The Academy clearly preferred Sinners to Marty Supreme \u2014 Marty Supreme ended up going 0-for-9 at the Oscars, a worse shutout than has been experienced by all but five films ever, The Turning Point (0-for-11), The Color Purple (0-for-11), Gangs of New York (0-for-10), the 2010 True Grit (0-for-10) and American Hustle (0-for-10). And many individual members said they were repelled by the character Chalamet played.<\/p>\n

\n\tAdditionally, it seems that the best actor race was jolted in the homestretch by a variety of factors, from Chalamet\u2019s unconventional approach to campaigning, which rubbed many the wrong way, to the terribly unfortunate incident that occurred while Jordan and Lindo were presenting at the BAFTA Awards, which evoked from many sympathy and admiration. Plus, seeing Jordan win the best actor Actor Award in the middle of the Oscars voting window presented a clear and appealing alternative to Chalamet for Academy members who were hoping for one.<\/p>\n

\n\tBuckley, meanwhile, was a no-doubter from the moment her film premiered at the Telluride Film Festival. Even people who disliked Hamnet liked her performance and her, and why not? In addition to being a tremendously gifted actress, she is also one of the most genuine and lovely people I encountered all season long. And my guess is that the Irishwoman, at just 36, will soon be back in the hunt for a sibling for her new statuette.<\/p>\n

\n\tElsewhere, best documentary feature went to the team behind Kino Lorber\u2019s powerful Mr. Nobody Against Putin (about Putin\u2019s impact on Russian schoolkids), my tablemates at the Oscar Nominees Luncheon, over another equally affecting expos\u00e9, Netflix\u2019s The Perfect Neighbor (about America\u2019s Stand Your Ground laws). It\u2019s the category\u2019s fourth consecutive winner made outside the U.S. (following Navalny, 20 Days in Mariupol and No Other Land) and third in four years connected to Russia\u2019s malevolent role in the world (after Navalny and Mariupol), suggesting to me that bloc of Academy members based outside the U.S. are tipping the scales.<\/p>\n

\n\tNetflix, however, dominated the remaining categories, picking up best costume design, makeup\/hairstyling and production design for Frankenstein; for KPop Demon Hunters, the most watched original film in its history, best animated feature and original song (\u201cGolden\u201d); best documentary short for All the Empty Rooms; and for The Singers, which Netflix was smart enough to acquire \u2014 probably for a pittance \u2014 late in the season, best live-action short (in a tie with Two People Exchanging Saliva). The streamer\u2019s total tally of seven matches a company-best (first achieved five years ago).<\/p>\n

\n\tSome final takeaways?<\/p>\n

\n\tI thought that this year\u2019s telecast, like last year\u2019s, was very solid, highlighted by returning-host Conan O\u2019Brien\u2019s amiable emceeing<\/a>; a skillfully executed In Memoriam segment (although the omission of Brigitte Bardot <\/a>was inexcusable); the Sinners and KPop Demon Hunters performances; and the suspenseful presentations and gracious acceptances of the big awards. Also, kudos to Kumail Nanjiani for his deft handling of the potentially treacherous terrain of a tie <\/a>(only the seventh in Oscars history, 13 years after the sixth, which I remember witnessing in 2013).<\/p>\n

\n\tMy only quibbles with the show: the Marvel \u201creunion\u201d was overhyped (just Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans?), the playing-off of winners was handled poorly for the second year in a row, and a bunch of presenter decisions seemed ill-judged to me. Bill Pullman and Lewis Pullman are fine talents, but don\u2019t rise to the level of accomplishment or familiarity that would justify them being Oscars presenters; Robert Pattinson and Zendaya were odd choices to present best director, as opposed to, say, recent winner and current Directors Guild president Christopher Nolan; and as much as I love Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman, I\u2019m not sure that the 25th anniversary of Moulin Rouge!, a film to which the Academy awarded only two Oscars (art direction and costume design), merited having them co-present best picture. (I wonder if they tried Tom Cruise, one of this season\u2019s honorary Oscar recipients?)<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019ll close with a few personal notes. (1) I was very pleased that the final Feinberg Forecast of the season<\/a> correctly projected 21 of 24 categories, including all of The Big Eight and all three shorts. (2) I was heartened to see so many past guests of my podcast Awards Chatter<\/a> take home Oscars, among them \u2014 and you can click their names to hear their episodes\u00a0\u2014 Jordan<\/a>, Buckley<\/a>, Penn<\/a>, Madigan<\/a>, Sentimental Value\u2019s Joachim Trier<\/a>, All the Empty Rooms\u2019 Joshua Seftel<\/a> and KPop Demon Hunters\u2019 EJAE<\/a>. I thank them for their time and insights, and encourage you to subscribe \u2014\u00a0for free \u2014 if you haven\u2019t already done so. (3) And lastly, I want to thank my THR colleagues, industry partners, readers\/listeners and friends\/family for their support over the course of this whole season \u2014\u00a0it was a grueling but mostly enjoyable ride that ended with my 15th trip to the Oscars, a privilege that I do not take for granted. And now \u2026 sleep!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An awards season that often felt like an endurance test \u2014 talk about one battle after another\u00a0\u2014 came…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":527226,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[10546,88,18924,89051,29506,85403,56940,41717,90136,21959,56103],"class_list":["post-527225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-awards","tag-entertainment","tag-michael-b-jordan","tag-one-battle-after-another","tag-oscars","tag-oscars-2026","tag-paul-thomas-anderson","tag-ryan-coogler","tag-sean-penn","tag-sinners","tag-timothu00e9e-chalamet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527225","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=527225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/527226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}