Michael B. Jordan in Sinners
As always, a bunch of interesting narratives, diversions, and “Huh?”s were to be found in the annual announcement of Academy Awards nominees. But to be sure, the biggest story regarding contenders for the 98th Oscars, which were revealed this morning by Danielle Brooks and Lewis Pullman at 7:30 a.m. CT, is Sinners. And it's quite literally The Biggest Story, as Ryan Coogler's period vampire musical flew away with 16 nods – the most citations for one movie in Academy Awards history.
[Scroll past the commentary for the full lineup of nominees for the March 15 Oscars, with my correct predictions in boldface.]
Many were thinking that Coogler's critical, box-office, and industry smash would tie the previous record of 14 – a record that stood firm for 75 years – held by 1950's All About Eve, 1997's Titanic, and 2016's La La Land. Some of us (ahem) even went further, anticipating 15 nominations. Who would've guessed we were all low-balling it? Sinners wound up in every category it was eligible for: Best Picture, Directing, Actor (Michael B. Jordan), Supporting Actress (Wunmi Mosaku), Supporting Actor (Delroy Lindo – yes!), Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Film Editing, Production Design, Costume Design, Sound, Original Score, Original Song (“I Lied to You”), Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, and the brand-new Best Casting. This marks only the seventh time that a film has contended for all of the technical categories – and only the second time, after Titanic, if you include Best Original Song in the mix. We all remember how James Cameron's Oscars ride turned out that year, don't we? (Certainly better than it will this year.)
But Sinners' precedent-setting doesn't end there. Coogler becomes only the seventh Black filmmaker ever cited by the directing branch, and the first Black director to now have two of his films (2018's Black Panther is the other) nominated for Best Picture. Autumn Durald Arkapaw, only the fourth woman nominated for Best Cinematography, also becomes the first woman of color cited in that category. Hannah Beachler is the sole Black woman to ever be nominated for Best Production Design – just as she was when she won in that division for Black Panther. Legendary costumer and two-time Oscar winner Ruth E. Carter, with her fifth nod, is now the most-nominated Black woman in Oscars history.
As they're cited together (alongside Sev Ohanian) for producing, Ryan and Zinzi Coogler become the first Black married couple to share a Best Picture nod. Michael B. Jordan finally scored Oscars acknowledgment after being previously deserving for Black Panther, Coogler's 2013 breakout Fruitvale Station, and 2015's Creed. And 73-year-old Delroy Lindo, who had been ignored by the precursors all season (and was insultingly ignored for 2020's Da 5 Bloods), finally, finally, finally earned Academy attention despite being owed at least since Spike Lee's 1995 Clockers. Those Sinners vampires do like their blood. This morning, I presume they switched to champagne.
All of a sudden, a Best Picture race that was looking like a gimme for One Battle After Another doesn't appear to be quite so done a deal, and will be even less of one if Sinners nabs the Best Ensemble prize at SAG-AFTRA's newly named Actor Awards (ugh) next month. With 13 nominations, though, Paul Thomas Anderson's comic thriller definitely had an excellent morning, too, only suffering a couple of minor misses and one significant miss, the latter likely for a reason we'll get into in a bit.
With widely expected, much-merited citations for first-timer Teyana Taylor, Leonardo DiCaprio (his seventh overall and first in six years), Sean Penn (sixth overall, first since 2009), and Benicio del Toro (third overall, first since 2004), One Battle scored for two-thirds of its central cast – and I'm pouring one out for Regina Hall this very minute. Meanwhile, director/writer/producer Anderson himself is now a 14-time nominee whose recognition dates back to 1998 … and he's still without a win. (Whatever happens with Best Picture, however, it's assured that Anderson's drought will end in roughly seven-and-a-half weeks' time.) Between One Battle, Sinners, and Amy Madigan's it-really-happened! nod for Weapons, Warner Bros. consequently scored 30 of 110 available nominations for feature films. Anybody wanna bet that, as of this morning, the studio's asking price was just upped by a billion or two?
In this year in which the major hauls for nominees were indeed major, three movies tied for nine nominations apiece. With Jacob Elordi now the first of Euphoria's castmates able to preface his name with “Academy Award nominee,” Frankenstein got everything that was expected – except a Directing nod for Guillermo del Toro, who can at least console himself with his Picture and Adapted Screenplay citations. Marty Supreme missed out on a few (Original Score, Makeup & Hairstyling, supporting actresses Odessa A'zion and Gwyneth Paltrow) but landed in several categories that were maybes at best, its recognition beyond lead Timothée Chalamet extending to Production Design, Costume Design, and, in a crazy-competitive year, director Josh Safdie.
And like One Battle, nominated writer/director Joaquim Trier's Sentimental Value – which garnered the most nods among 2025's many, many high-profile foreign-language options – scored four acting nominations. Unlike One Battle, however, they went to the film's entire central ensemble: Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgård (the 74-year-old's first Oscars recognition, and it's about damned time), Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, and, in a moderate surprise, Elle Fanning. I would've preferred Fanning's first acknowledgment to have come for playing that chatty half-'bot in Predator: Badlands, but hey, she's great in Trier's Norwegian drama, too.
Close behind that trio was Hamnet, its tally of eight nods including one for director Chloë Zhao, whom I thought would just miss, and not including one for co-star Paul Mescal, whom I thought would just squeak by. Only three performers this year failed to receive nominations after being included among the traditional quartet of Golden Globes, Critics' Choice, Actor Awards, and BAFTA-longlist precursors: Mescal; One Battle's Chase Infiniti; and Wicked: For Good's Ariana Grande. But I think they all came up short for the same reason.
For many, Supporting Actor contender Mescal actually wasn't a supporting actor in Hamnet. He was a co-lead, if one with slightly less screen time than Best Actress front-runner Jessie Buckley. Also for many, Infiniti, given her character's frequent absence (it takes a half-hour for her to simply show up) and the reactive nature of her role, was a supporting-actress play mistakenly placed in lead. And for anyone who saw it, Wicked: For Good was way more Grande's movie than Cynthia Erivo's: she had more screen time, had more to play, and made an almost unquestionably stronger impact. While campaigning Grande as a supporting actress was even more ludicrous than it was for last year's Wicked, my guess is that she, Mescal, and Infiniti still earned a sizable number of votes. It's just that their votes came in two separate categories each, and Academy rules dictate that the tallies from the two can't be combined; arguable category fraud effectively sliced their chances in half. There might be another reason Grande was slighted, but we'll eventually get to that, too. (Sneaky, isn't it, how I keep cajoling you into reading further?)
Fittingly, four 2025 titles nabbed four nods apiece. Bugonia found 37-year-old Emma Stone setting records for being the youngest woman to score seven career nods and, between this film and Poor Things, the first to be nominated twice for producing and acting in the same movie. The Secret Agent one-upped last year's Brazilian entry I'm Still Here by scoring that film's trifecta of Picture/International Feature/Leading Performer (the latter for Wagner Moura) recognition plus placement in the debuting Best Casting category. Train Dreams received the four nods it was most assured of, though star Joel Edgerton sadly fell by the wayside of a ridiculously stacked Best Actor field. And F1: The Movie also made a totally decent showing, including getting a Best Picture nomination with nothing in the way of directing, writing, or performance nods. Never underestimate the Academy Awards appeal of an unquestioned Dad Flick, especially if it's a blockbuster hit, and especially especially in a year that found Nuremberg blessedly ignored.
With the 10 titles that scored four or more nods also the Best Picture contenders, that left 25 full-length features recognized for the 30 remaining nominations. And while there were no citations for such legitimate options as No Other Choice, Jay Kelly, Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, The Testament of Ann Lee, Superman, Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, A House of Dynamite, Nouvelle Vague, Hedda, or Sorry, Baby (indeed), those responsible for far-outside fringe options such as Kokuho, The Ugly Stepsister, and Viva Verdi! have to be feeling slightly chipper about at least scoring one nomination. Hell, that's one more than Wicked: For Good got.
Oh yeah … what happened there?! While I may have gone overboard in predicting five mentions (and that was without predicting Grande!), I don't think anyone considered the possibility that Jon M. Chu's smash would be skunked entirely. Even Jurassic Park's kajillionth followup got something! But whether it was intentional or not, voters clearly sent a message: Don't simply cut a movie – in this case, an adaptation of a stage musical broken into feature-length Acts I and II – in half and expect to get similar recognition two years in a row. Given the Wickeds' collective box-office haul, filmmakers probably won't take this lesson to heart. But the goose egg was at least heartening to those of us who, to quote Nathaniel Rogers' oft-stated refrain on his The Film Experience blog, “don't want the Oscars to turn into the Emmys.” Give us something new, please! And for those wondering, as a friend did this morning, why the same sort of dissing didn't happen for Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings sequels … . Well, you got me. Those movies were just better? They kept introducing new characters and locales? They were designed for boys rather than girls?
Regarding my own success at guessing this year's crop of Academy Awards contenders, there was good news and bad news. The good news was that I set a new personal best for correct predictions: 88, topping last year's 87! The bad news was that, with the addition of Best Casting, I made 110 guesses compared to last year's 105 … so percentage-wise, I actually did a little worse. (Damned math.) But I'm still holding my head up high for so so almost averaging four-out-of-five per category, and for predicting a full seven categories with bullseye accuracy – even Picture, with its field of 10, and Casting, which had no Oscars precedence to turn to.
Plus, so much that happened this morning felt like gifts picked out specifically for me. Ethan Hawke and his Blue Moon script! Rose Byrne for If I Had Legs I'd Kick You! Amy Madigan! Elle Fanning! It Was Just an Accident for International Feature and Original Screenplay! Bugonia's score! The Smashing Machine's makeup! Wunmi Mosaku! Michael B. Jordan! Delroy! Freaking! Lindo!
Here's to all the nominees. Here's to Danielle Brooks (looking ravishing in red) and Lewis Pullman (his shirt unbuttoned in a seeming salute to Wagner Moura's signature Secret Agent pose) for their smooth, charming company at 7:30 a.m. And here's to the Academy Awards, in its 98th year, continuing to treat us to wonderfully amusing titles in the short-film races. The Devil Is Busy is a pretty-good one. So is Jane Austen's Period Drama. (I imagine its story playing out at least a couple different ways.) But for my absolute favorite, let's go with Live-Action Short contender Two People Exchanging Saliva. Pullman got through that mention without embarrassment and with a perfect deadpan. Papa Bill should be proud.
BEST PICTURE
Bugonia
F1: The Movie
Frankenstein
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
The Secret Agent
Sentimental Value
Sinners
Train Dreams
BEST DIRECTING
Hamnet, Chloë Zhao
Marty Supreme, Josh Safdie
One Battle After Another, Paul Thomas Anderson
Sentimental Value, Joaquim Trier
Sinners, Ryan Coogler
BEST ACTRESS
Jessie Buckley, Hamnet
Rose Byrne, If I Had Legs I'd Kick You
Kate Hudson, Song Sung Blue
Renate Reinsve, Sentimental Value
Emma Stone, Bugonia
BEST ACTOR
Timothée Chalamet, Marty Supreme
Leonardo DiCaprio, One Battle After Another
Ethan Hawke, Blue Moon
Michael B. Jordan, Sinners
Wagner Moura, The Secret Agent
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Elle Fanning, Sentimental Value
Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Sentimental Value
Amy Madigan, Weapons
Wunmi Mosaku, Sinners
Teyana Taylor, One Battle After Another
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Benicio del Toro, One Battle After Another
Jacob Elordi, Frankenstein
Delroy Lindo, Sinners
Sean Penn, One Battle After Another
Stellan Skarsgård, Sentimental Value
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Blue Moon, Robert Kaptow
It Was Just an Accident, Jafar Panahi
Marty Supreme, Ronald Bronstein, Josh Safdie
Sentimental Value, Joaquin Trier, Eskil Vogt
Sinners, Ryan Coogler
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Bugonia, Will Tracy
Frankenstein, Guillermo del Toro
Hamnet, Maggie O'Farrell, Chloë Zhao
One Battle After Another, Paul Thomas Anderson
Train Dreams, Clint Bentley, Greg Kwedar
BEST CASTING
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
One Battle after Another
The Secret Agent
Sinners
BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM
It Was Just an Accident, France
The Secret Agent, Brazil
Sentimental Value, Norway
Sirât, Spain
The Voice of Hind Rajab, Tunisia
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Arco
Elio
KPop Demon Hunters
Little Amélie or the Character of Rain
Zootopia 2
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE FILM
The Alabama Solution
Come See Me in the Good Light
Cutting through Rocks
Mr. Nobody Against Putin
The Perfect Neighbor
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Frankenstein
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
Sinners
Train Dreams
BEST FILM EDITING
F1: The Movie
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
Sentimental Value
Sinners
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
Frankenstein
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
Sinners
BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Avatar: Fire & Ash
Frankenstein
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
Sinners
BEST SOUND
F1: The Movie
Frankenstein
One Battle After Another
Sinners
Sirât
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Bugonia
Frankenstein
Hamnet
One Battle After Another
Sinners
BEST ORIGINAL SONG
“Dear Me,” Diane Warren: Relentless
“Golden,” KPop Demon Hunters
“I Lied To You,” Sinners
“Sweet Dreams of Joy,” Viva Verdi!
“Train Dreams,” Train Dreams
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Avatar: Fire & Ash
F1: The Movie
Jurassic World Rebirth
The Lost Bus
Sinners
BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING
Frankenstein
Kokuho
Sinners
The Smashing Machine
The Ugly Stepsister
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILM
All the Empty Rooms
Armed Only with a Camera: The Life & Death of Brent Renaud
Children No More: Were & Are Gone
The Devil Is Busy
Perfectly a Strangeness
BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT FILM
Butcher’s Stain
A Friend of Dorothy
Jane Austen’s Period Drama
The Singers
Two People Exchanging Saliva
BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM
Butterfly
Forevergreen
The Girl Who Cried Pearls
Retirement Plan
The Three Sisters
Total Number of Nominations
Sinners – 16
One Battle After Another – 13
Frankenstein – 9
Marty Supreme – 9
Sentimental Value – 9
Hamnet – 8
Bugonia – 4
F1: The Movie – 4
The Secret Agent – 4
Train Dreams – 4
Avatar: Fire & Ash – 2
Blue Moon – 2
It Was Just an Accident – 2
KPop Demon Hunters – 2
Sirât – 2
The Alabama Solution – 1
Arco – 1
Come See Me in the Good Light – 1
Cutting through Rocks – 1
Diane Warren: Relentless – 1
Elio – 1
If I Had Legs I'd Kick You – 1
Jurassic World Rebirth – 1
Kokuho – 1
Little Amélie or the Character of Rain – 1
The Lost Bus – 1
Mr. Nobody Against Putin – 1
The Perfect Neighbor – 1
The Smashing Machine – 1
Song Sung Blue – 1
The Ugly Stepsister – 1
Viva Verdi! – 1
The Voice of Hind Rajab – 1
Weapons – 1
Zootopia 2 – 1
