The 2026 Oscars red carpet gets underway this afternoon and you can watch every arrival live right here. The first official coverage begins at 3:30 p.m. ET, just over two hours from now, with the main ceremony beginning at 7 p.m. ET on ABC and Hulu.
Full Red Carpet Schedule
3:30 p.m. ET — “On The Red Carpet at the Oscars: Countdown to Oscars” begins on ABC and ABC News Live, hosted by Tamron Hall and Jesse Palmer. This is the first official celebrity arrivals coverage of the day.
4 p.m. ET — CNN and Variety begin joint red carpet coverage. E! also launches its own red carpet special at 4 p.m. ET on E! and Peacock.
5 p.m. ET — “On the Red Carpet at the Oscars” continues on ABC.
6:30 p.m. ET — The official “Oscars Red Carpet Show” begins on ABC, hosted by British comedian Amelia Dimoldenberg.
7 p.m. ET — The 98th Academy Awards ceremony begins on ABC and Hulu, hosted by Conan O’Brien for the second consecutive year.
Who Is Walking The Carpet Tonight?
The acting nominees arriving this afternoon represent some of the most anticipated fashion moments of the year. Here is who to watch for.
Michael B. Jordan is the most anticipated arrival of the night. The Sinners star is the current narrow favorite to win Best Actor and arrives carrying the momentum of his Actor Awards win earlier this month.
His film, Ryan Coogler’s supernatural horror epic set in 1932 Mississippi, holds the all-time record for Oscar nominations with 16, more than Titanic and La La Land ever achieved.
Jessie Buckley, the consensus favorite to win Best Actress for Hamnet, is one of the most reliably interesting dressers on any red carpet.
Her 2023 Oscars appearance, a sheer black Rodarte gown with floral embroidery and dramatic statement shoulders, is still discussed as one of the best looks of that night.
Tonight she arrives as the single biggest individual favorite of the evening.
Kate Hudson walks the carpet as a first-time Oscar nominee in 25 years, since her Almost Famous nod in 2001.
With a legitimate shot at winning Best Actress for Song Sung Blue, expect her to arrive dressed for the occasion in a way that makes the 2001 Stella McCartney capelet-and-fringe moment look like a distant memory.
Timothée Chalamet arrives as a Best Actor nominee for Marty Supreme. He has been at the center of more off-carpet controversy this awards season than anyone after his comments dismissing opera and ballet went viral and reportedly alienated a portion of Academy voters.
His fashion has been consistently bold throughout the season regardless.
Emma Stone, a two-time Oscar winner competing for her third for Bugonia, arrives as one of the most consistently celebrated dressers in Hollywood.
Ryan Coogler and Paul Thomas Anderson, the two directors most likely to leave with the biggest prizes of the night, will both be on the carpet.
Emily Blunt, Wunmi Mosaku, Teyana Taylor, Delroy Lindo, Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro, Jacob Elordi, Chloe Zhao, Renate Reinsve, Elle Fanning, and Leonardo DiCaprio are among the other major nominees to watch.
The Presenters Tonight
Last year’s four acting winners return as presenters tonight and will also walk the carpet: Adrien Brody, Kieran Culkin, Mikey Madison, and Zoe Saldaña. Additional confirmed presenters include Anne Hathaway, Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Gwyneth Paltrow, Javier Bardem, Demi Moore, Maya Rudolph, Will Arnett, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Paul Mescal, Chase Infiniti, Rose Byrne, and Kumail Nanjiani.
Matt Berry of What We Do In The Shadows serves as the ceremony’s announcer.
The Most Iconic Oscars Red Carpet Looks In History
The Academy Awards red carpet is the single most scrutinized fashion event in the world, and tonight’s arrivals will be compared to decades of moments that have defined what Oscars fashion means.
Celine Dion in 1999 set the standard for Oscars fashion risk: a white Dior by John Galliano tuxedo worn deliberately backward, paired with a matching white fedora and diamond-encrusted Ray-Bans.
She has since described it as one of her proudest fashion moments. Halle Berry’s burgundy Elie Saab gown at the 2002 Oscars, the night she became the first Black woman to win Best Actress, remains one of the most photographed red carpet moments in Hollywood history.
Lupita Nyong’o’s custom pale blue Prada gown in 2014, the night she won Best Supporting Actress for 12 Years a Slave, is still cited by fashion critics as one of the all-time great Oscars looks.
Billy Porter’s tuxedo gown at the 2019 Oscars, a black velvet Christian Siriano creation combining a tuxedo jacket with a voluminous ball gown skirt, became an instant cultural landmark.
Tonight will produce its own additions to that list. A year defined by two films representing genuinely different visions of American cinema, Sinners and One Battle After Another, will likely produce fashion that reflects the energy of a night where genuine history is going to be made.
The In Memoriam For 2026
One of the most emotional moments of every Oscars ceremony is the In Memoriam tribute.
This year’s segment has been described by producers as particularly difficult to assemble following a devastating year of losses across the film industry.
Among those who will be honored tonight: Rob Reiner, Robert Redford, and Diane Keaton.
Oscars executive producer Katy Mullan told reporters this week: “It has been a really, really tough year. We’ve lost a huge amount of people who are so meaningful to so many in the film community.”
What Is At Stake Tonight
The nominees arriving on this carpet in the next few hours are about to find out whether they are going home with an Oscar. This is one of the most genuinely unpredictable races in years.
The Best Picture battle between Sinners, which holds the all-time record for nominations at 16, and One Battle After Another has no clean historical parallel, with both films holding precursor wins that have never before coexisted in the same race without one of them winning.
Five of the six major categories are too close to call. History will be made tonight regardless of the outcome, including the first-ever Best Casting Oscar, and potentially the first Black woman to win Best Picture as a lead producer if Sinners prevails.
The stream above goes live at 3:30 p.m. ET. The ceremony starts at 7 p.m. ET on ABC and Hulu. Stay here for updates throughout the night.
