LOS ANGELES: Paul Thomas Anderson and Ryan Coogler each won their first Oscars, moving tributes were paid to Robert Redford, Diane Keaton and Rob Reiner and an absent Sean Penn won best supporting actor at the 98th Academy Awards on Sunday.
One Battle After Another came into the show the best picture favorite, and it picked up three wins in the first half of the ceremony. Anderson, the film's writer-director, earned a standing ovation for his first win in 14 nominations.
"I'm incredibly honored to be part of this history," said Anderson, who loosely adapted Thomas Pynchon's Vineland. "I wrote this movie for my kids to say sorry for the housekeeping mess but hopefully they will be the generation that brings some common sense and decency."
The film also won best supporting actor for Penn, and the Oscars first award for best casting, for Cassandra Kulukundis.
Immediately after Anderson's first Oscar, Ryan Coogler notched his first Academy Award, too. Coogler, the writer-director of Sinners won best original screenplay, and earned his own standing ovation.
KPop and Frankeinstein win for Netflix
From the start, when host Conan O'Brien sprinted through the year's nominees as Amy Madigan's character in the horror thriller Weapons in a pre-taped bit, Sunday's ceremony was quirky. There was, of all things, a tie for best live-action short film.
As expected, the Netflix sensation KPop Demon Hunters, 2025's most-watched film, won best animated feature. It was a big win for Netflix but a more qualified victory for the movie's producer, Sony Pictures. Though it developed and produced the film, Sony sold KPop Demon Hunters to the streaming giant instead of giving it a theatrical release.
On Netflix, KPop Demon Hunters became a cultural phenomenon and the streaming platform's biggest hit. It has more than 325 million views and counting.
"This is for Korea and Koreans everywhere," said co-director Maggie Kang.
Another Netflix release, Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein picked up a pair of awards for its lavish craft, for costume design and makeup and hairstyling.
Amy Madigan won best supporting actress for her performance in the horror thriller Weapons, a win that came 40 years after the 75-year-old actor was first nominated, in 1986, for Twice in a Lifetime.
Letting out a giant laugh as she hit the stage, Madigan exclaimed, "This is great!"
O'Brien kicks off show
Hosting for the second time, O'Brien began the Dolby Theatre show alluding to "chaotic and frightening times." But he argued that the current geopolitical climate made the Oscars all the more resonate as a globally unifying force.
"We pay tribute tonight, not just to film, but to the ideals of global artistry, collaboration, patience, resilience and that rarest of qualities today — optimism," O'Brien said. "We're going to celebrate. Not because we think all is well, but because we work, and hope, for better."
O'Brien also joked, though, that the night could get political. As an alternative, like the Super Bowl halftime show, he said Kid Rock would be hosting an alterative Oscars at Dave & Busters.
Some of O'Brien's best digs came at the expense of the streamers. Netflix chief Ted Sarandos, he joked, was in a theater for the first time. O'Brien also lamented the lack of nominees for Amazon MGM: "Why isn't the website I order toilet paper from winning more Oscars?"
"I'm honored to be the last human host of the Academy Awards," said O'Brien. "Next year it's going to be a Waymo in a tux."
A Sinners, One Battle showdown
The 98th Academy Awards were steering toward a coronation for either Anderson or Coogler. Most would call that a win-win.
Anderson's One Battle After Another is the favorite heading into the ceremony at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. But Coogler's Sinners comes in the lead nominee with a record 16 nominations. Both filmmakers are poised to leave with their first Oscar.
But little else is assured at an Academy Awards where Michael B. Jordan or Timothée Chalamet (despite the ballet diss heard 'round the world) could win their first Academy Award in a too-close-to-call best actor race.
Theatrical looks to best streaming, again
It seemed all but certain that the night's final award wouldn't go to a streaming release; Apple's CODA remains the only streaming film to achieve that distinction. Instead, best picture is likely to go to an anomaly in today's movie industry: big-budget original films from a personal vision.
Sinners and One Battle After Another were both theatrical releases shot on film. And both came from Warner Bros., the legacy studio that's agreed to merge with David Ellison's new media colossus, Paramount Skydance. The $111 billion deal, which awaits regulatory approval, has rattled an industry already reconciling itself to the acquisitions of MGM (by Amazon) and 20th Century Fox (by The Walt Disney Co.).
Elegy may mark Sunday's Oscars. The in memoriam segment is expected to include, among many others, remembrances of Robert Redford, Diane Keaton and Robert Duvall. O'Brien, who had hosted a party attended by Rob and Michele Reiner the night before their deaths, has promised a "very powerful" tribute.
New this year is a best casting category. Another innovation is a requirement that Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences members watch all nominees before voting. On the academy's streaming platform — even Oscar voting is streamed — voters had to check a box attesting to having watched each nominee before voting in a category.
Though the Oscars often feel largely removed from their times, a crop of nominees that explicitly grapple with the current political moment will be center stage. That includes not just One Battle After Another, which opens with a raid on an immigration detention facility, but movies like Kleber Mendonça Filho's Brazilian political thriller The Secret Agent and Jafar Panahi's Iranian revenge drama It Was Just an Accident.
The war in Iran has particular meaning to Panahi, whose film is nominated for best international feature and for best screenplay. The esteemed Iranian filmmaker and last year's Palme d'Or winner has made films clandestinely in his native Iran despite repeated imprisonment, travel ban and even home arrest. While promoting the film, Panahi was sentenced to a year in prison. At least one of his cowriter nominees, Mehdi Mahmoudian, was unable to leave Iran to attend Sunday's awards.
Twenty three years ago, the Academy Awards were also held amid war in the Middle East. The 2003 Oscars took place just three days before the Iraq War began. Many in Hollywood protested the war. Chicago won best picture.
How to watch and stream the Oscars
The telecast is airing live on ABC and streaming on Hulu. (YouTube will be the new home of the Oscars beginning in 2029.)