Ryan Coogler’s Sinners managed a knockout over critical favorites One Battle and Hamnet | Oscars 2026

AWhether you agree with them or not, these Oscar nominations are a slap in the face to the accepted assumptions of awards season. The industry was anticipating landslides for high-end fare like Chloe Zhao’s “Hamnet,” Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Battle After Battle” and Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein,” as well as Josh Safdie’s rave-up comedy “Marty Supreme.” And that’s what they got.

But perhaps no one expected these titles to receive as much fanfare as director Ryan Coogler’s thrilling vampire drama Sinners: a violent, high-energy fantasy about racism, music and the black experience, which jumped ahead with 16 nominations — the most for any film in the 97 years of the Academy Awards. Whatever happened on the night itself, Ryan Coogler made Oscar history.

Despite the snubs of Paul Mescal (who was not nominated for playing Shakespeare), the second half of the Wicked saga, and Chase Infinity (who was snubbed for her beloved performance as Leonardo DiCaprio’s daughter in One Battle After Another), Sinners is now the big story of this Oscar season — and perhaps its only story.

During the annual season of backlash, contrarians have been unpacking their views that Hamlet was not inspired by Shakespeare’s dead son Hamnet, and that one battle after another does not address the truth of Trumpism. Meanwhile, Sinners was fighting and winning an entirely separate culture war, achieving a great achievement for a very individual film, a terrifying tale of supernatural evil that cleverly attacks the idea that the blues is a genre of music consumed by the enemies of its producers. As one character, played by Delroy Lindo, rightly puts it: “White people like the blues right, but not the people who make it.” Sinners fans will cheer for the subversion of the quiet realities of awards season.

I’ll admit, Sinners isn’t my favorite Coogler film – I prefer the world-conquering afro-futuristic superhero adventure Black Panther, the boxing drama Creed and his social realist essay Fruitvale Station. . But, yes, I must also admit that those films were of acceptable genres, and Sinners is arguably more structurally ambitious, in that it rejects these general expectations and challenges what is accepted in what at first appears to be a realistic drama. Sinners could still rule this awards season and reward a great director and his stylish leading man: Michael B. Jordan.

Otherwise, Anderson’s counterculture excursion “Battle After Battle” trails behind with 13 nominations, including Best Picture and Director: an oddity of weirdness and a delirious 162-minute beat of pure, vivid filmmaking technique — I predict it’s a directorial nod that might eclipse Coogler. But who knows?

Marty Supreme, Sentimental Value and Frankenstein are all close behind with nine nominations: Marty, for me, is the film of pure inspiration, and Timothée Chalamet delivers a sugar rush of pleasure. Sentimental Value is a good film, wonderfully acted by Renate Rensev, although it’s not as good as Joachim Trier’s previous film, The Worst Person in the World, and perhaps veers a little into sentimental cinema territory (yes) for George Clooney’s Jay Kelly. Frankenstein is a brilliantly crafted piece of cinematic furniture, though for me it lacks the spark of pure horror needed to bring it to life.

Hamnet gets an eight: that extravagant romantic fantasy adored by many, myself included, and hated by others who feel they are being trounced by a combination of emotional duress and literary prestige. It’s a beautiful film, and Jessie Buckley is still up for Best Actress, although I feel like she might fade at the Oscars and clean up more at the BAFTAs.

This year’s Best Picture received four nominations: Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Brazilian drama “Secret Agent” is vociferously disturbing but somehow fascinating — like Antonioni’s “Traveler,” rewritten by Elmore Leonard — with Wagner Moura receiving a nod for his performance as a scientist on the run from the authorities in 1970s Brazil. It’s a great film and it’s encouraging to see it continue to find friends since its debut at Cannes.