Hollywood’s Biggest Night
Is Six Days Away

There are years when the Academy Awards feel like a formality — the same familiar prestige films jostling for the same familiar prizes, a procession of period dramas and inspirational biopics that leaves you wondering whether anyone in Hollywood has watched anything made after 1965. And then there are years like this one.

The 98th Academy Awards, to be held at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood on Sunday, March 15, 2026, is the kind of ceremony that reminds you why the Oscars still matter. The films nominated this year are not safe choices. They are a vampire western set in the Jim Crow South. A Norse-inflected grief drama that made Cannes weep. A Paul Thomas Anderson black comedy action film shot in the nearly-extinct VistaVision format. A ping-pong odyssey from Josh Safdie. Guillermo del Toro's long-awaited Frankenstein. And a Brazilian political thriller whose lead actor has just become the first person from his country ever nominated for Best Actor.

When nominations were announced on January 22, 2026 — read aloud by actress Danielle Brooks and actor Lewis Pullman at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills — the reaction from the industry was something between shock and exhilaration. Ryan Coogler's Sinners received sixteen nominations, shattering the previous record of fourteen that had been shared, for seventy-six years, by All About Eve (1950), Titanic (1997), and La La Land (2016). No film in the history of the Academy Awards has ever received more nominations in a single year.

But Sinners is not the only story. Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another, a delirious, VistaVision-shot adaptation of Thomas Pynchon's novel Vineland, received thirteen nominations. Josh Safdie's Marty Supreme, a kinetic A24 sports drama starring Timothée Chalamet as a Jewish ping-pong player on Manhattan's Lower East Side in 1952, received nine. Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein, made for Netflix, received nine. The field, taken as a whole, reads like a vintage.

The Academy has also done something new this year: Best Casting is now a competitive Oscar category for the first time in the ceremony's history — the 24th competitive category. It was a change long-lobbied for by the casting community, and its arrival feels fitting in a year when so many of these films found extraordinary, career-making performances in unexpected places.

“This is the best group of Best Picture nominees in twenty years. Maybe more.”
— industry consensus, awards season 2026

For viewers tuning in from home, this year's ceremony — hosted for the second consecutive year by Conan O'Brien — will air live on ABC and stream on Hulu beginning at 7:00 PM ET / 4:00 PM PT. The extended E! red carpet coverage begins at 4:00 PM ET. If you have been meaning to catch up on any of these films before Sunday, there has never been a better time: most of the nominees are now available to stream.

Coogler, who grew up in Oakland and broke through with Fruitvale Station (2013) before helming two Black Panther films, has called Sinners his most personal work. It was shot by Autumn Durald Arkapaw — also nominated for Best Cinematography — and features an original score by Ludwig Göransson, who won the Oscar for Black Panther. The original song “I Lied to You” from the film is also nominated. The film was released theatrically on April 18, 2025.

Its 16 nominations span picture, director, actor (Jordan), supporting actor (Delroy Lindo), supporting actress (Wunmi Mosaku), original screenplay, cinematography, production design, costume design (Ruth E. Carter), make-up & hair, casting (Francine Maisler), editing, sound, visual effects, and original song. This is one of the most complete nominations sweeps in Oscar history — representing every dimension of filmmaking, from conception to the costume rail.

Best Actor

The Best Actor race is one of the most genuinely competitive in years, with five radically different performances all making a credible claim. At the centre of it, however, stands Timothée Chalamet, who has already won the Golden Globe and the Critics’ Choice Award for Marty Supreme. This is his third Academy Award nomination, making him the youngest actor to reach that milestone since Marlon Brando did it in the early 1950s.

Best Actress

This is the clearest race of the night. Jessie Buckley, for her shattering portrayal of Agnes Shakespeare in Hamnet, has swept the precursors: Golden Globe, BAFTA, and Critics’ Choice. She has never been nominated before and has been, by all accounts, the most widely acclaimed performance of the entire season. The question is not if she will win — it is by how much.

Best Supporting Actor

The race here is genuinely open. Jacob Elordi has been widely praised for his work as del Toro’s Frankenstein Creature — a performance of uncanny physical grace and genuine pathos. But Benicio del Toro and Sean Penn, both from One Battle After Another, have split votes in their shared film. And Delroy Lindo, a longtime critical favourite who has never been nominated despite a career of extraordinary work, brings a weight to Sinners that may finally earn him his overdue recognition.

Best Supporting Actress

Wunmi Mosaku in Sinners has been cited widely as one of the most indelible supporting performances of the year. Teyana Taylor marks a remarkable crossover from music to major awards consideration for her work in One Battle After Another. Elle Fanning and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas are both from Sentimental Value, giving that film an extraordinary five acting nominations total.

The Oscar red carpet is the single most-watched fashion event in the world. Unlike the Met Gala, where experimental dressing is the point, the Academy Awards carpet operates on a different register: it is simultaneously a fashion show, a press junket, a political statement, and a deeply personal performance. The stakes are higher because the audience is bigger — an estimated 20 million people worldwide watch the arrivals.

This year, fashion observers are expecting a dynamic carpet. Jessie Buckley — the overwhelming favourite to win Best Actress — has made thoughtful, distinctive fashion choices throughout the season, leaning toward Irish and British designers. Timothée Chalamet, who has become the male fashion story of every awards season he participates in, will inevitably set trends with whatever he chooses. Michael B. Jordan, who has been dressing impeccably throughout the Sinners campaign, and his co-stars will likely arrive together as a powerful unified presence.

Wunmi Mosaku, nominated for the first time, will be watched closely: the industry loves a first-time nominee’s red carpet moment. Renate Reinsve, the Norwegian actress who has become one of Europe’s defining screen presences, brings her own distinctive sensibility. And Gwyneth Paltrow, returning to the Oscars as a presenter for Marty Supreme, will remind everyone of her legendary 1999 Ralph Lauren pink gown moment — twenty-seven years on and that dress is still discussed.

The carpet itself is located on Hollywood Boulevard outside the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood, the complex at 6801 Hollywood Boulevard that has housed the ceremony since the theatre opened in 2002. The theatre seats 3,300, and the arrivals process typically takes 90 minutes to two hours, with the biggest names arriving latest.

One to watch: For the first time, the ceremony’s producers — Raj Kapoor and Katy Mullan, returning for a second year — have indicated that the red carpet approach will be more architecturally integrated into the show’s opening than usual. Host Conan O’Brien has promised “some explosions.” We’ll take him at his word.

The History of the Red Carpet

It is worth noting, if only because the carpet’s ubiquity makes it easy to forget, that the Oscar red carpet as a global media event is a relatively recent phenomenon. For most of the Academy’s history, the arrivals were a modest, low-key affair. The modern red carpet — with its roped banks of photographers, its branded backdrops, its relay of TV crews — began taking its current form in the late 1980s and fully arrived as a cultural institution during the 1990s, when the rise of entertainment television and celebrity fashion coverage turned it into something closer to a second show.

The carpet has produced some of the most iconic images in Hollywood history: Audrey Hepburn in Givenchy, Cher in Bob Mackie, Halle Berry in the sheer Elie Saab gown she wore when she became the first Black woman to win Best Actress in 2002, Billy Porter arriving in a tuxedo gown in 2019, Lupita Nyong’o in Prada’s pleated column in 2014. The carpet is a text, and every year adds new pages.

Conan O’Brien, Hosting for the Second Year

When Conan O’Brien hosted the 97th Academy Awards in 2025, he was met with enormous goodwill and delivered a ceremony widely regarded as one of the most enjoyable in recent memory. His return for the 98th is a signal that the Academy found its formula: a host with genuine wit, self-awareness about the absurdity of Hollywood, and the improvisational instincts to handle anything the night throws at him.

O’Brien, who hosted Late Night on NBC for sixteen years, then Conan on TBS until 2021, is in his own way an ideal Oscar host for this moment. He respects the craft of filmmaking without being reverent to the point of dullness. He makes fun of himself as readily as he makes fun of the ceremony itself. And he has, after decades of late-night television, an instinct for reading a room that most comedians lack.

Executive producers Raj Kapoor and Katy Mullan, who oversaw last year’s well-received ceremony, return for a second year. The production team has promised a “bigger” show than last year — which, given that last year’s ceremony ran a crisp three hours, is reassuring rather than alarming.

Presenters: A Marvel Reunion and More

The confirmed presenter lineup reads like a survey of the last decade of cinema. Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans will share the stage together for the first time since their Marvel partnership concluded — presenting together in what is expected to be one of the evening’s most celebrated moments. Anne Hathaway returns to the Oscars stage. Paul Mescal, nominated for Hamnet last year and now presenting, has become one of the most sought-after screen actors of his generation. Gwyneth Paltrow, presenting for Marty Supreme, returns to a stage she last owned in 1999.

Further confirmed presenters include Adrien Brody, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Will Arnett, Mikey Madison, and Kieran Culkin. The full presenter list, as is traditional, will continue to be revealed through the week of the ceremony.

Where to Watch

The 98th Academy Awards airs live on ABC beginning at 7:00 PM ET / 4:00 PM PT on Sunday, March 15. For cord-cutters, the show streams live on Hulu — the first year that Hulu is offering full live access to the Oscars ceremony. The extended E! red carpet pre-show begins at 4:00 PM ET. International viewers can find local broadcast partners in most territories; check the Academy’s website for country-specific streaming options.

For live commentary, prediction threads, and reaction coverage, TVReviewer.com will be tracking all categories in real time. Our full nominees page has every name in every category, with links to each film.

The Oscars ceremony is, for all its pomp, a relatively contained affair — 3,300 people in a theatre, accepting statuettes and making speeches. What happens afterward is another matter entirely. In the hours that follow the final envelope opening, Los Angeles becomes a city of overlapping celebrations, each with its own dress code, guest list, and mythology. For those in the industry, the party circuit is as important as the ceremony itself — the place where deals are whispered, relationships cemented, and the emotional reality of winning or losing is finally processed in the company of peers.

Awards seasons can feel, in the long middle stretch of the campaign, like a relentless grind of guild screenings and voter dinners. But ceremonies like this one — when the films nominated are genuinely, undeniably excellent — remind you what the conversation is actually about. It is about what movies can do. What they can hold, and reflect, and make us feel.

Sinners is about race in America, the birth of the blues, the supernatural forces that have always pressed down on Black life in this country, and the love between brothers. Hamnet is about grief, and art, and how the stories men make from the women they love are never quite the whole story. One Battle After Another is about radicalism, paranoia, and the comedy of middle age. Sentimental Value is about fathers and daughters and the terrible intimacy of artistic confession. These are not small films with small ambitions.

The 98th Academy Awards are, by any reasonable standard, a celebration worth having. Six days from now, the Dolby Theatre will light up and Conan O’Brien will take the stage and someone will win Best Picture. If you have not yet seen Sinners, you have until Sunday. It is available right now on Amazon Prime Video and HBO Max. So is Sentimental Value on Prime Video. Train Dreams is on Netflix. Frankenstein is on Netflix. You have, if you are reading this on Monday, exactly six days. That is enough time to see them all.

We will be here covering every envelope, every speech, every outfit, and every upset. See the full nominees page →