The 98th Academy Awards | 2026 Award-Winning Movies & Series to Watch on OTT

Genre: Black comedy, Action, Thriller Language: English Streaming on: JioHotstar Director: Paul Thomas Anderson Awards won: Best Picture Best Director - Paul Thomas Anderson Best Supporting Actor - Sean Penn Best Casting - Cassandra Kulukundis Best Film Editing - Andy Jurgensen Best Adapted Screenplay - Paul Thomas Anderson One Battle after Another follows a former revolutionary, Bob Ferguson, who is pulled back into conflict when danger closes in around his daughter. The film is loosely inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland and mixes politics, family tension, dark humour, and action in a way that feels both chaotic and emotional. A big reason the film landed so strongly through awards season is that it managed to feel ambitious without becoming cold. It was also Paul Thomas Anderson’s most commercially successful film, grossing over $200 million globally. At the Oscars, the film became the night’s biggest winner with 6 awards. Paul Thomas Anderson won Best Director, his first directing Oscar after many nominations, and One Battle after Another went on to take Best Picture as well. The Best Picture award was accepted by producers Adam Somner, Sara Murphy, and Paul Thomas Anderson. The film also won Best Adapted Screenplay, with Paul Thomas Anderson coming on stage to accept it himself. The win felt deserved because the film turned Thomas Pynchon’s dense Vineland into something cinematic. In his speech, Anderson thanked Pynchon and his family, and said he had written the film for his children as both an apology for the world they are inheriting and a note of hope. It also picked up the Best Film Editing, with Andy Jurgensen accepting the award on stage. That win reflected how sharply the film balanced political tension and dark comedy. One of the most notable wins attached to the film was Best Casting, the first-ever Oscar for casting. Cassandra Kulukundis won for building the film’s talented cast, and in her speech, she dedicated the moment to casting directors who never got the chance to stand on that stage before. Sean Penn also won Best Supporting Actor for playing Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw, but he was not at the ceremony. He was in Ukraine, so Kieran Culkin accepted the Oscar on his behalf. That absence itself became part of the post-show conversation, especially since it marked Penn’s third acting Oscar. After the Best Picture win, Teyana Taylor ran up with Paul Thomas Anderson and playfully wrapped her arms around his neck on the way to the stage, which quickly got picked up online.

Genre: Period horror, Supernatural, Drama Language: English Streaming on: JioHotstar Director: Ryan Coogler Awards won: Best Actor - Michael B. Jordan Best Cinematography - Autumn Durald Arkapaw Best Original Score - Ludwig Göransson Best Original Screenplay - Ryan Coogler Sinners is set in 1932 Mississippi and follows twin brothers Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B. Jordan) as they return home to open a juke joint, only to face a supernatural threat. It became a major commercial success, grossing more than $368 million worldwide, while winning awards throughout the season. At the Oscars, Sinners won 4 awards and became one of the night’s biggest stories. Michael B. Jordan won Best Actor for playing the twin brothers, making history as the first actor to win for portraying twins. In his speech, he thanked Ryan Coogler, his family, and several Black artists who paved the way before him, including Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, Halle Berry, Jamie Foxx, and Will Smith. Michael B. Jordan’s win also created one of the night’s memorable moments, as he shared a hug with fellow nominee Leonardo DiCaprio after the ceremony. The film also won Best Original Screenplay, with Ryan Coogler coming on stage to accept the award. The win carried extra weight because it made him only the second Black writer ever to win in that category. In his speech, Coogler thanked his cast and crew and gave heartfelt tributes to his wife Zinzi, his parents, and his children. For Best Cinematography, Autumn Durald Arkapaw accepted the Oscar, making history as the first woman and the first Black person to win the category. Her work on Sinners was widely praised for its scale and visual ambition, especially with the film’s use of IMAX and Ultra Panavision 70. In her speech, she thanked the women who supported her and dedicated the moment to her family and to young girls who could now see themselves in that space. The fourth win came in Best Original Score for Ludwig Göransson, whose music gave the film much of its tension, which is why Sinners connected so strongly with both audiences and the Academy.

Genre: Historical, Drama Language: English Streaming on: JioHotstar Director: Chloé Zhao Awards won: Best Actress - Jessie Buckley Hamnet is based on Maggie O’Farrell’s novel and centers on Agnes, the wife of William Shakespeare, as the family deals with the grief of losing their son. That emotional setup gave Jessie Buckley one of the most praised performances of the season, and by the Oscars, she had already built serious momentum with wins at other major awards. At the Academy Awards, Jessie Buckley came on stage to accept Best Actress, becoming the first Irish performer ever to win in that category. The win felt natural because her performance was seen as the emotional center of the film, carrying its grief, motherhood, and devastation without ever overplaying it. In her speech, she thanked her husband Freddie and their baby daughter, said she wanted to have “20,000 more babies” with him, and dedicated the win to “the beautiful chaos of a mother’s heart.” That warmth made the speech memorable online as well, especially since it landed on the U.K. Mother’s Day.

Genre: Supernatural, Horror, Thriller Language: English Streaming on: JioHotstar Director: Zach Cregger Awards won: Best Actress in a Supporting Role - Amy Madigan Weapons is a supernatural horror film built around mystery, dread, and a deliberately hidden twist, which is why Amy Madigan’s role as Aunt Gladys became such a standout once audiences actually saw the film. Her performance was intense, unsettling, and key to the movie’s payoff, and that helped make her one of the rare horror performers to win in an acting category at the Oscars. At the Academy Awards, Amy Madigan came on stage herself to accept Best Supporting Actress. The win was notable not just for the performance, but also because it came about 40 years after her previous nomination, setting a record for the longest gap between nominations for an actress. In her speech, she thanked director Zach Cregger, her fellow nominees, her daughter, and her husband Ed Harris, calling him her “beloved.” The popularity of weapons was already strong before the ceremony. Madigan’s character had become a meme during the film’s run, and Conan O’Brien even referenced the movie in his opening monologue, dressing up as her character for one of the night’s jokes.

Genre: Sports, Drama Language: English Streaming on: Apple TV Director: Joseph Kosinski Awards won: Best Sound F1 is built around speed, immersion, and race-day intensity. The film follows veteran racer Sonny Hayes as he returns to Formula 1 to help a struggling team, and a huge part of its appeal comes from how convincingly it puts the audience inside the car and on the track. The Oscar was accepted on stage by Gareth John, Al Nelson, Gwendolyn Yates Whittle, Gary A. Rizzo, and Juan Peralta. The win made sense because the film’s sound design was central to the experience: engines, radio chatter, crowd energy, and track acoustics all helped make it feel visceral rather than generic. One live-blog note from the ceremony even mentioned that one of the winners appeared to let out the F-word on stage, which gave the moment a tiny bit of extra buzz online.

Genre: Science-fiction, Adventure, Action Language: English Streaming on: Currently still in theatrical circulation in India Director: James Cameron. Awards won: Best Visual Effects Avatar: Fire and Ash continued the franchise’s Oscars strength by winning Best Visual Effects. That outcome was hardly surprising, since the Avatar films are almost always judged first on world-building, scale, and technical innovation, and this one was again seen as a benchmark in those areas. The Oscar was accepted by Joe Letteri, Richard Baneham, Eric Saindon, and Daniel Barrett, who said they were accepting it on behalf of the roughly 2,200 visual artists who worked on the film, highlighting just how massive the film’s effects operation was. The speech itself was brief, slightly awkward in timing, and one winner was even noted as seeming to cut himself off mid-exit.