‘Sinners’ makes history with 16 Academy Award nominations

Hollywood woke up early on Thursday for one of its biggest days: the 2026 Academy Award nominations. At 5:30 a.m. Local time, the names of those vying for an Oscar on March 15 were announced. Sinners, a bloody vampire horror drama set in the 1930s in the southern United States and directed by Ryan Coogler, has earned no fewer than 16 nominations, setting a new record as the most nominated film in the 98-year history of the Oscars. Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another has secured 13 nominations. The two most nominated films are from Warner, the studio that Netflix and Paramount are currently fighting to buy.

Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein has secured nine nominations, although the filmmaker did not get a nod for Best Director. Marty Supreme is up for nine nominations, while Hamnet and the Norwegian film Sentimental Value have eight.

In the Best International Feature Film category, Spain’s Sirât will have to compete against the favorite, Norway’s Sentimental Value, Brazil’s The Secret Agent (which won the Golden Globe), It Was Just An Accident (directed by Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, but competing for France) and the moving story of a Palestinian girl in The Voice of Hind Rajab (from Tunisia).

Up to 10 movies are in the running for the top prize of Best Picture. They are Battle After Battle, Hamnet, Frankenstein, The Secret Agent, Sentimental Value, The Sinners, Marty Supreme, Bugonia, F1, and Train Dreams. Surprisingly, blockbusters of the season such as Avatar: Fire and Ash and Wicked: For Good did not make the cut; in fact, the film about the witches of Oz did not receive a single nomination. James Cameron’s film, although not nominated for best film or director, received two technical nominations (costume design and visual effects). The Secret Agent (which received four nominations) means that Brazil has made it into the top 10 films of the year for the second consecutive year, after I’m Still Here last year.

Many firsts

Sinners breaks many barriers: Coogler is the seventh Black director to be nominated in this category and the sixth Black writer to be nominated for original screenplay. By co-producing the film with his wife, Zinzi Coogler (the first Filipino and third Black woman nominated for Best Picture), they are the first Black couple to be nominated in any category. In addition, production designer Hannah Beachler is the only Black woman ever to be nominated in that category: she achieved it in 2018 thanks to Black Panther and now she has done it again. Wagner Moura (star of The Secret Agent) is the first Brazilian ever nominated and the sixth Latino person to do so. The sound team for Sirât, made up of Laia Casanovas, Amanda Villavieja, and Yasmina Praderas, is the first in the Academy Awards’ 98-year history to be entirely made up of women in the Best Sound category. In fact, the 2026 Oscars have the most female nominees in the history of the awards: a total of 74.

Many of the directors of these movies are also nominated themselves: Chloé Zhao for Hamnet, Paul Thomas Anderson for One Battle After Another, Joachim Trier for Sentimental Value, Ryan Coogler for Sinners, and Josh Safdie for Marty Supreme. Mexico’s Del Toro, however, has been left out. With her nomination, Chinese director Zhao becomes the 11th woman to be nominated in this category and the most nominated Asian woman in Oscar history.

Jessie Buckley is the favorite to win the Best Actress category for her heartbreaking performance as Agnes in Hamnet, and is running against Rose Byrne (who won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy) for If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. They are joined by Renate Reinsve for Sentimental Value and Emma Stone for Bugonia. Stone has two nominations, as actress and producer; at age 38, she has accumulated no fewer than seven nominations throughout her career. The surprise nomination goes to Kate Hudson for her role as aspiring singer Claire Sardina in Song Sung Blue.

Among the actors, 30-year-old Timothée Chalamet is nominated for the second consecutive year, this time for Marty Supreme (his third nomination overall; he was previously nominated in 2018 for Call Me by Your Name). This year, he also has good prospects. He shares the category with veterans such as Leonardo DiCaprio (One Battle After Another), Ethan Hawke (Blue Moon), Michael B. Jordan (Sinners), and Brazil’s Wagner Moura (The Secret Agent) Last year a fellow Brazilian, Fernanda Torres, won the Golden Globe for I’m Still Here, just as he has done this year.

Among the supporting actors, a tough battle is expected between Sweden’s Stellan Skarsgard for Sentimental Value and Sean Penn (with his sixth nomination) for One Battle After Another, for which Benicio del Toro is also nominated, for the third time after Traffic (which he won in 2001) and 21 Grams. Joining them is Jacob Elordi for Frankenstein, and Delroy Lindo for Sinners.

The supporting actresses are led by Teyana Taylor and her role as Perfidia Beverly Hills in One Battle After Another. Alongside them are two actresses from Sentimental Value: Elle Fanning, who at just 28 years old has been acting for over 20 years (but for whom this is her first nomination) and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas. Amy Madigan is in the running for her role as the very disturbing Aunt Gladys in the horror film Weapons, as is Wunmi Mosaku for Sinners. This leaves out the not-so-sweet Glinda from Wicked: For Good, played by Ariana Grande, and Odesa A’Zion in Marty Supreme.

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