Oscars 2026: Sinners is vying for historic wins against rival One Battle After Another. Can it pull it off?

No matter what happens at the 98th Academy Awards this week, Sinners has already made history and Leonardo DiCaprio’s One Battle After Another can’t take that away.

The supernatural horror film by Black Panther director Ryan Coogler broke box-office records during its theatrical run, and its use of blood-sucking vampires in 1930s Mississippi as an allegory for racism in America made it the most socially important movie last year.

With two brilliant performances from Michael B. Jordan as identical twins, the film parlayed its commercial and pop cultural success into a record 16 Oscar nominations, including best actor for Jordan, best director for Coogler and, of course, best picture.

However, Sinners was released in April last year, and conventional wisdom suggests that’s a long time to keep members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences waiting until they can cast a vote the following February.

One Battle After Another, on the other hand, was released to considerable critical acclaim in late September, after months of breathless anticipation from film buffs eager to see the latest work from beloved auteur Paul Thomas Anderson.

There’s a reason the last quarter of the year is known as “Oscar bait season”, because it’s seen as the perfect launch pad for an Academy Awards campaign, with just enough time for momentum to build while staying at the forefront of voters’ memories.

No surprise, then, that One Battle After Another immediately vaulted to Oscar favouritism upon release, hitting prohibitive odds in the best picture category and for PTA to earn his first best director nod, after what most pundits would regard as an eminently worthy career.

Inspired by the 1990 Thomas Pynchon novel Vineland, One Battle After Another is a dark comedy in which DiCaprio is a bumbling far-left revolutionary trying to save his daughter (Chase Infiniti) from the clutches of a dastardly military officer played by Sean Penn.

Unlike Sinners, PTA’s film was a disappointment at the box office, yet this commercial flop has slayed during awards season, taking home the major prize at the Critics Choice, BAFTAs, Golden Globes, Directors Guild Awards and Producers Guild Awards.

For those keeping score at home, no film earning that exact set of accolades in a single awards cycle has failed to win best picture at the Academy Awards.

And, with 13 total nominations, it’s not like One Battle After Another struggled to find favour across the various branches of academy voters.

However, what once looked like a done deal has suddenly become a lot more interesting, because there has been a noticeable shift in momentum behind Sinners in recent weeks.

The film won the top prize for a drama at the American Cinema Editors’ awards, best ensemble at the Actors’ and took home best original screenplay at the Writers Guild Awards.

No film managing this combination of gongs has ever lost best picture at the Oscars.

On top of that, the BAFTAs scandal occurred just as many voters were finalising their ballots.

For those who came in late, Jordan and Sinners co-star Delroy Lindo, who is nominated in the best supporting actor category, were onstage at the BAFTAs when Scottish Tourette’s campaigner John Davidson’s involuntary tic made him yell the n-word loud enough to be caught on the broadcast.

Controversy erupted when it was subsequently revealed the BBC had hours to edit the offensive slur out of the telecast before it was aired but, for reasons that remain opaque, elected not to.

This horrible situation generated a groundswell of support for Jordan and Lindo and potentially galvanised support behind the Sinners Oscar campaign.

As an aside, the BAFTAs were also likely the final nail in the coffin of Marty Supreme, the Timothee Chalamet-led ping-pong movie that started as the darling of this awards cycle but has become the wayward cousin no one talks about.

No film has lost more at one BAFTAs than Marty Supreme, which went 0-11.

Chalamet’s PR campaign for the film has been about as thirsty as it gets, and the brilliant young actor is very lucky that voting closed on his best actor nom before his recent attack on opera and ballet as art forms, which was as unbecoming as it was unnecessary.

There’s no doubt this year’s Academy awards is a two-horse race between Sinners and One Battle After Another, with the latter having a slight edge in terms of historical precedents based on wins at precursor awards.

But we live in an age of such fluidity, where precedents are becoming increasingly irrelevant, so a more relevant comparison might be Everything Everywhere All At Once in 2023.

Like Sinners, it was a rare genre movie to receive critical acclaim and generated massive word-of-mouth buzz in theatres, while also leading all films in terms of nominations.

And it won best picture, best director and three of the four acting categories.

If Sinners can manage something similar, it’ll be a historic moment for Hollywood.

Coverage of the Academy Awards is on 7Plus from 6.30am on Monday, March 16.