By Jake Coyle
Ryan Coogler’s blues-steeped vampire epic “Sinners” led all films with 16 nominations to the 98th Academy Awards on Thursday, setting a record for the most in Oscar history.
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voters showered “Sinners” with more nominations than they had ever bestowed before, breaking the 14-nomination mark set by “All About Eve,” “Titanic” and “La La Land.” Along with best picture, Coogler was nominated for best director and best screenplay, and double-duty star Michael B. Jordan was rewarded with his first Oscar nomination, for best actor.
Paul Thomas Anderson’s father-daughter revolutionary saga “One Battle After Another,” the favorite coming into nominations, trailed in second with 13 of its own. Four of its actors — Leonardo DiCaprio, Teyana Taylor, Benicio del Toro and Sean Penn — were nominated, though newcomer Chase Infiniti was left out in best actress.
In those two top nominees, the film academy put its full force behind a pair of visceral and bracingly original American epics that each connected with a fraught national moment. Coogler’s Jim Crow-era film set in Clarksdale, Mississippi — the rare horror movie to win the academy’s favor — conjures a mythical allegory of Black life. In “One Battle After Another,” a dormant spirit of rebellion is revived in an out-of-control police state.
Both are also Warner Bros. titles. In the midst of a contentious sale to Netflix, the 102-year-old studio had one of its best Oscar nominations mornings ever, with 30 nods. As the fate of Warner Bros., which Netflix is buying for $72 billion, hangs in the balance amid a challenge from Paramount Skydance, Hollywood is bracing for potentially the largest realignment in the film industry’s history.
A coronation for Coogler
For Coogler, the 39-year-old filmmaker of “Fruitvale Station” and “Black Panther,” it was a crowning moment. One of Hollywood’s most esteemed yet humble filmmakers, Coogler has called “Sinners” — a film that he will own outright 25 years after its release — his most personal movie.
“I wrote this script for my uncle who passed away 11 years ago,” Coogler said in an interview Thursday morning. “I got to imagine that he’s listening to some blues music right now to celebrate.”
Coogler held three screenings of the movie in Clarksdale in May 2025 after local activist Tyler Yarbrough extended an invitation, accompanied by a petition signed by town residents, that couldn’t be refused. The town of 14,000 does not have a movie theater so the screenings took place at the Clarksdale Civic Center. Coogler and some cast and crew members attended the showings.
“Sinners” also received 18 NAACP Image Awards nominations.
Reached by phone an hour after the nominations were read, Coogler — speaking alongside his wife and producer Zinzi Coogler and producer Sev Ohanian — was still trying to process the movie’s record-breaking haul.
“I love making movies. I’m honored to wake up every day and do it. I was writing last night. That’s why I didn’t get too much sleep,” said Coogler, chuckling. “Honestly, bro, I still feel a little bit asleep right now.”
The other top nominees
The 10 films nominated for best picture are “Bugonia,” “F1,” “Frankenstein,” “Hamnet,” “Marty Supreme,” “One Battle After Another,” “The Secret Agent,” “Sentimental Value,” “Sinners” and “Train Dreams.”
Guillermo del Toro’s lush Mary Shelley adaptation “Frankenstein,” Josh Safdie’s period ping-pong odyssey “Marty Supreme” and Joachim Trier’s family drama “Sentimental Value” all scored nine nominations. Chloé Zhao’s speculative Shakespeare drama “Hamnet” collected eight nods. With the notable exception of del Toro, those filmmakers filled up a best director category of Anderson, Coogler, Safdie, Trier and Zhao, who in 2021 became the first woman of color to ever win the award.
The nine nods for “Marty Supreme” included a third best actor nod for 30-year-old Timothée Chalamet, the favorite in the category he narrowly missed winning last year for “A Complete Unknown.” With Jordan and Chalamet, the nominees are Leonardo DiCaprio for “One Battle After Another,” Ethan Hawke for “Blue Moon” and Wagner Moura for “The Secret Agent.”
Nominated for best actress was the category favorite, Jessie Buckley (“Hamnet”), along with Rose Byrne (“If I Had Legs I’d Kick You”), Kate Hudson (“Song Sung Blue”), Renate Reinsve (“Sentimental Value”) and two-time winner Emma Stone, who landed her sixth nomination, for “Bugonia.”
‘KPop’ leads a field light on big hits
The year’s most-watched movie, with more than half a billion views on Netflix, “KPop Demon Hunters,” scored nominations for both best song (“Golden”) and best animated feature. Sony Pictures developed and produced the film, but, after selling it to Netflix, watched it become a worldwide sensation.
Blockbusters otherwise had a difficult morning. Universal Pictures’ “Wicked: For Good” was shut out entirely. While “Avatar: Fire and Ash” notched nominations for costume design and visual effects, it became the first “Avatar” film not nominated for best picture. The biggest box-office hit nominated for Hollywood’s top award instead was “F1,” an Apple production that landed four nominations. The streamer partnered with Warner Bros. to distribute the racing drama.
This year, the Oscars are introducing a new category for casting. That new honor helped “Sinners” and “One Battle After Another” pad their already impressive stats. Along with those two films, the nominees are “Hamnet,” “Marty Supreme” and “The Secret Agent.”
The 98th Academy Awards will take place on March 15 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles and will be televised live on ABC and Hulu. YouTube’s new deal to exclusively air won’t take effect until 2029. This year, Conan O’Brien will return as host.
