The 98th Academy Awards happen tonight. The ceremony begins at 7 p.m. ET at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, airing live on ABC and streaming simultaneously on Hulu at no extra cost to subscribers.
It is also available through ABC.com, the ABC app, YouTube TV, FuboTV, and DirecTV Stream. Conan O’Brien hosts for the second consecutive year. Tamron Hall and Jesse Palmer host the pre-show.
This is one of the most competitive Oscar races in years, a two-film battle between a record-setting vampire horror film rooted in Black American history and a political action epic from one of American cinema’s most revered directors.
Five of the six major categories are genuine toss-ups. Only one outcome tonight feels certain.
The Historic Frontrunner: Sinners
Ryan Coogler’s Sinners enters tonight as the most-nominated film in the history of the Academy Awards.
Its 16 nominations surpass the previous record of 14, shared by three films, All About Eve (1950), Titanic (1997), and La La Land (2016).
The record was broken by a film nobody expected to be in this position when it was released early in 2025.
Sinners is a supernatural horror film set in 1932 Clarksdale, Mississippi. Twin brothers, both played by Michael B. Jordan, return home to open a juke joint, only to find their community under siege from vampires while navigating racism, violence, and the blues culture of the Deep South.
Coogler has said he wrote the script as a tribute to his uncle who died eleven years ago. The film is simultaneously a genre film, a period piece, and a meditation on Black American artistry, heritage, and survival.
Its 16 nominations cover virtually every category: Best Picture, Best Director for Coogler, Best Actor for Jordan, Best Supporting Actor for Delroy Lindo, Best Supporting Actress for Wunmi Mosaku, Best Original Screenplay for Coogler, Best Cinematography, Best Sound, Best Production Design, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Original Score, Best Visual Effects, Best Film Editing, Best Costume Design, Best Original Song for “I Lied To You,” and Best Casting, the category’s inaugural year.
No film in Oscar history has ever been nominated across this many categories simultaneously.
The momentum behind Sinners has been building for months. It won the Actor Awards, formerly the SAG Awards, for Outstanding Cast in a Motion Picture, which is historically the single strongest predictor of Best Picture.
It won the WGA Award for Best Original Screenplay. It won the ACE Eddie for Best Edited Feature Film.
Both Warner Bros. films, Sinners and One Battle After Another, also represent a remarkable night for the studio regardless of outcome.
A victory for Sinners in Best Picture would make producer Zinzi Coogler the first Black woman to win Best Picture as a lead producer, and would deliver Ryan Coogler his first Oscar after directing four films with Oscar nominations including Black Panther, Creed, and Fruitvale Station.
The Competition: One Battle After Another
Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another has 13 nominations and has dominated the precursor awards in a way that few films in history have.
It won the Critics Choice Award, the Golden Globe for Best Picture, the BAFTA for Best Film, the ACE Eddie for Best Edited Documentary Feature, the Directors Guild Award for Anderson, the Producers Guild Award, and the Writers Guild Award.
No film in Oscar history that has won that specific combination of precursor awards has ever lost Best Picture. That is the statistical case for One Battle After Another, and it is a very strong one.
The film is a political action epic based loosely on Thomas Pynchon’s novel Vineland, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and featuring Benicio Del Toro, Sean Penn, and Teyana Taylor.
Its 13 nominations include Best Picture, Best Director for Anderson, Best Actor for DiCaprio, Best Supporting Actor for both Del Toro and Penn, Best Supporting Actress for Taylor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Casting, Best Sound, and Best Production Design.
The predictor split heading into tonight is the most dramatic in years. One Battle has the guild sweep.
Sinners has the SAG ensemble. No film has ever lost Best Picture with the SAG ensemble win.
No film has ever lost Best Picture with the DGA, PGA, and WGA sweep. Both statements are simultaneously true tonight, which means one historical record will fall regardless of the outcome.
The Full Best Picture Field
All ten nominees for Best Picture tonight, with their studios:
Bugonia (Focus Features) — Director: Yorgos Lanthimos. Stars Emma Stone. Lanthimos and Stone’s follow-up to Poor Things.
F1 (Apple Original Films/Warner Bros.) – Director: Joseph Kosinski. Stars Brad Pitt. The summer blockbuster surprise nominee. Kosinski’s team developed an entirely new camera system for the racing sequences.
Frankenstein (Netflix) — Director: Guillermo del Toro. Stars Jacob Elordi. Nine nominations, no directing nod for del Toro — the most-discussed snub of the nominations cycle.
Hamnet (Focus Features) — Director: Chloé Zhao. Stars Jessie Buckley. Based on Maggie O’Farrell’s novel about Shakespeare’s son. Eight nominations.
Marty Supreme (A24) — Director: Josh Safdie. Stars Timothée Chalamet as a narcissistic ping pong prodigy. Seven nominations.
One Battle After Another (Warner Bros.) — Director: Paul Thomas Anderson. 13 nominations.
The Secret Agent (Neon) — Director: Kleber Mendonça Filho. Stars Wagner Moura. Based on Joseph Conrad’s novel.
Sentimental Value (Neon) — Director: Joachim Trier. Nine nominations — the most for any Norwegian film in Oscar history — despite being shut out of the Casting category even though four of its actors received individual nominations.
Sinners (Warner Bros.) — Director: Ryan Coogler. 16 nominations.
Train Dreams (Netflix) — Director: Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar. A portrait of a railroad worker on the Idaho frontier at the start of the 20th century.
Best Director Nominees
Nominees: Chloé Zhao (Hamnet), Josh Safdie (Marty Supreme), Paul Thomas Anderson (One Battle After Another), Joachim Trier (Sentimental Value), Ryan Coogler (Sinners).
Anderson won the Directors Guild Award, the strongest single predictor in this category.
Best Picture and Best Director have gone to the same film in the vast majority of Oscar years.
The prediction markets give Anderson roughly 70% odds. Coogler is the primary alternative, and a Coogler win would be one of the most celebrated in recent Oscar history given his previous near-misses.
Best Actor Nominees
Nominees: Timothée Chalamet (Marty Supreme), Leonardo DiCaprio (One Battle After Another), Ethan Hawke (Blue Moon), Michael B. Jordan (Sinners), Wagner Moura (The Secret Agent).
This race has inverted completely over the course of awards season. Chalamet, who plays table tennis prodigy Marty Mauser and became the youngest actor since Marlon Brando to receive three Best Actor nominations, won the Golden Globe and Critics Choice Award and was considered the runaway frontrunner for months.
Then he missed out at BAFTA and at SAG, where Jordan won. Chalamet’s public profile also became complicated by viral comments he made dismissing opera and ballet, a controversy that dominated entertainment coverage for days and reportedly irritated some Academy voters.
“He’ll get one when he’s older,” one voter told Variety. Jordan is now the narrow favorite. Gold Derby gives him roughly 67% odds.
DiCaprio, in his first Oscar-nominated performance in nearly a decade, is considered a long shot but remains present in every final prediction.
Ethan Hawke’s nomination for Blue Moon represents one of the year’s most acclaimed supporting performances promoted to lead contention.
Best Actress Nominees
Nominees: Jessie Buckley (Hamnet), Rose Byrne (If I Had Legs I’d Kick You), Kate Hudson (Song Sung Blue), Renate Reinsve (Sentimental Value), Emma Stone (Bugonia).
The one category tonight where consensus is essentially universal: Buckley is expected to win for her performance as a grieving mother in Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet.
She has swept virtually every precursor and the only real debate is whether Kate Hudson, receiving her first nomination in 25 years, since Almost Famous in 2001, could mount a late challenge.
Emma Stone, a two-time Oscar winner, is competing for her third. Rose Byrne’s nomination was one of the year’s most celebrated surprises.
When she won the Golden Globe for Best Actress, she revealed during her speech that her partner Bobby Cannavale had missed the ceremony because he was adopting a bearded dragon at a reptile expo in New Jersey.
Best Supporting Actor Nominees
Nominees: Benicio Del Toro (One Battle After Another), Jacob Elordi (Frankenstein), Delroy Lindo (Sinners), Sean Penn (One Battle After Another), Stellan Skarsgård (Sentimental Value).
Lindo’s nomination is one of the most emotionally significant of the evening.
The 73-year-old actor, widely considered one of the finest performers of his generation for work in films including Malcolm X, Clockers, and Get Shorty, had never previously received an Oscar nomination.
When his name was called in January, he said, “The best part of this process has been that people are so genuinely happy for me. It’s not an ego thing. It’s nothing to do with that. It has everything to do with affirmation.”
Penn and Del Toro are the primary competition. Sean Penn’s BAFTA win gives him momentum.
Best Supporting Actress Nominees
Nominees: Elle Fanning (Sentimental Value), Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas (Sentimental Value), Amy Madigan (Weapons), Wunmi Mosaku (Sinners), Teyana Taylor (One Battle After Another).
The most genuinely unpredictable supporting category. Mosaku won at BAFTA. Madigan won the Actor Award, which matters significantly.
Taylor is backed by the One Battle After Another momentum. All three are considered viable.
Fanning received her first nomination and responded on Instagram: “IS THIS REAL?!?!?! IS THIS A DREAM?!?!?! I can’t catch my breath. I am in absolute shock.”
Best Original Screenplay Category
Nominees: Ryan Coogler (Sinners), Ronald Bronstein and Josh Safdie (Marty Supreme), Joachim Trier and Eskil Vogt (Sentimental Value), Robert Kaplow (Blue Moon), Jafar Panahi and collaborators (It Was Just an Accident).
Coogler is expected to win. A victory here would be his first Oscar, regardless of what happens in Best Picture and Best Director.
If Sinners wins all three, Picture, Director, Screenplay. Coogler would become one of the rare triple winners in a single night.
Best Adapted Screenplay Nominees
Nominees: Paul Thomas Anderson (One Battle After Another), Chloé Zhao and Maggie O’Farrell (Hamnet), Will Tracy (Bugonia), Guillermo del Toro (Frankenstein), Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar (Train Dreams).
Anderson is expected to win. A screenplay-director-picture sweep for One Battle After Another remains the most predicted outcome of the night.
Best Original Score
Nominees include Ludwig Göransson for Sinners. Göransson is the heavy favorite.
A win would be his third Best Original Score Oscar, placing him among the most decorated composers in the award’s history, ahead of legends including Hans Zimmer and Trent Reznor.
Best Casting — The Historic New Category
Nominees: Sinners, One Battle After Another, Hamnet, Marty Supreme, The Secret Agent.
This is the first time in Oscar history that casting has been a competitive category.
The award will go to a casting director for the first time ever. Sinners is the favorite, currently at roughly 78% in prediction markets.
A win here would make casting director Francine Maisler the inaugural recipient of the Oscar in her field.
Notable Snubs And Surprises
The most-discussed omission of the entire nominations cycle was Wicked: For Good, Jon M. Chu’s sequel to the 2024 smash that earned 10 nominations and won two Oscars.
The sequel received zero nominations. A complete shutout. The first Wicked film earned 10 nods; its sequel earned none.
Guillermo del Toro directed one of the year’s most acclaimed films in Frankenstein, nine nominations, but did not receive a directing nomination.
Paul Mescal was not nominated for playing William Shakespeare in Hamnet.
Among the actors most widely considered snubs heading into the nominations: Paul Mescal, Chase Infiniti from One Battle After Another, and Jesse Plemons for Bugonia.
F1’s Best Picture nomination surprised many observers given the field of prestige competition. The racing drama’s inclusion reflects an Academy that has continued broadening its definition of what merits nomination.
The Oscars Musical Performance
Sinners will be performed at the ceremony in a tribute to Black artistry spanning generations and genres.
The performance will feature ballerina Misty Copeland, rocker Brittany Howard, and blues and jazz musicians including Eric Gales, Bobby Rush, and Alice Smith.
Predicted Winners Summary
Best Picture: One Battle After Another (predicted by most) / Sinners (late momentum)
Best Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Best Actor: Michael B. Jordan
Best Actress: Jessie Buckley
Best Supporting Actor: Sean Penn or Delroy Lindo
Best Supporting Actress: Wunmi Mosaku or Amy Madigan
Best Original Screenplay: Ryan Coogler (Sinners)
Best Adapted Screenplay: Paul Thomas Anderson
Best Original Score: Ludwig Göransson (Sinners)
Best Casting: Sinners
How To Watch
The 98th Academy Awards air tonight, Sunday March 15, at 7 p.m. ET / 4 p.m. PT on ABC.
It streams simultaneously on Hulu at no extra cost to subscribers. Also available on ABC.com, the ABC app, YouTube TV, FuboTV, and DirecTV Stream. The ceremony runs approximately three to four hours.
