IT WAS DELIGHTFUL TO SEE A LOT OF ASIAN REPRESENTATION THIS YEAR
Oozing with its usual glitz and glamour, the 98th Academy Awards were relatively smooth sailing, punctuated by soul-stirring performances, moving speeches, and historic moments. Here’s everything you missed from the 2026 Oscars.
I tuned into Hollywood’s biggest night at the Bytowne Cinema, one of Ottawa’s local independent theatres, along with a reported billion other viewers across the world. This year’s celebration of cast and crew achievements represented 31 countries across six continents.
Nearly every seat was full a half-hour before the show even began. The Bytowne offers a free screening of the Oscars every year, with a ballot you can fill out to predict the winners and trivia during the ad breaks. There were prizes to win, such as mini Oscar award figurines, Bytowne gift cards, and T-shirts.
Late-night show host Conan O’Brien returned to emcee for the Academy Awards for the second year in a row. He kicked the event off with an incredibly entertaining cold open, referencing a lot of the nominees this year, including Marty Supreme, One Battle After Another, Hamnet, F1, and Sinners. O’Brien dashes through iconic scenes from the different movies, dressed in a cherry-red wig and pasty white makeup, chased by a mob of screaming kids – a reference to Amy Madigan’s role in the horror movie Weapons!
O’Brien was reliable with well-timed and relevant jokes that had me laughing out loud, especially during his opening monologue. These included a jab at actor Timothée Chalamet’s recent derogatory remarks about ballet and opera, and calling out the Netflix CEO’s shameless monetization of his platform, hinting at its insidious erosion of the appeal of going to the movies by making at-home streaming so accessible and inexpensive. Later on, he made a quip about affordable healthcare and locking up pedophiles, in response to the recent scandals about the Epstein files.
Records
Sinners, Ryan Coogler’s vampire and genre-bending thriller, was nominated 16 times, making it the most Oscar-nominated film ever. It won 4 Oscars: Autumn Durald Arkapaw became the first woman, and the first woman of colour, to win Best Cinematography. She is also the first woman to shoot a film in large-format IMAX, mostly operating the refrigerator-sized camera weighing 65 pounds herself.
Ryan Coogler won his first Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, and Ludwig Göranssen won his third Oscar for Best Original Score (the other two were for Black Panther, 2018, and Oppenheimer, 2023).
Michael B. Jordan took home his first Oscar for Best Actor, becoming the first person in over 60 years to win the award for playing twins (the last person to do it was Lee Marvin in Cat Ballou, 1965).
Warner Brothers secured 11 Oscars, tying for the record of wins by a studio in one night with MGM (Ben-Hur, 1959), Paramount (Titanic, 1997), and New Line Cinema (The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, 2003).
There was also the first Oscar tie in over a decade, with both The Singers and Two People Exchanging Saliva winning Best Live-Action Short Film.
Jessie Buckley became the first Irish woman to win the Best Actress Award for her performance in Hamnet.
This was also the first year for a new category, Best Casting, which was won by Cassandra Kulukundis for One Battle After Another.
Norway secured its first win for Best International Feature with Sentimental Value.
Director Maggie Kang and producer Michelle L.M. Wong became the first South-Korean winners of the Best Animated Feature for KPop Demon Hunters, which is also the most watched animated movie on Netflix. “Golden”, the song featured in the film, became the first K-pop song to win Best Original Song.
Amy Madigan (Weapons) set the record for the longest gap between nominations before a win: 40 years.
Sean Penn was absent to accept his award for Best Supporting Actor In One Battle After Another, a win that allowed him to join the exclusive six-member club of actors having won three acting award Oscars (Daniel Day-Lewis, Meryl Streep, Frances McDormand, Jack Nicholson, Ingrid Bergman, and Walter Brennan).
Songwriter Diane Warren extended the record of nominations without a win to 17, all for Best Original Song. This year, she was nominated for the song “Dear Me” in her own documentary about her life.
Performances
Miles Caton, the 21-year-old gospel prodigy who gained visibility for his first film role in Sinners, set fire to the room with his deep, rich vocals during his rendition of “I Lied To You”. There were several cameos throughout the show, including from songwriter Raphael Saadiq, Shaboozey, and trailblazing ballerina Misty Copeland, who came out of retirement to take centre stage.
In a later performance, dancers whirled into view, wearing traditional Korean hanboks and wielding janggu, traditional Korean drums, for HUNTRIX to perform “Golden” from KPop Demon Hunters. The vocals, especially at the beginning, were of a transcendent beauty. Nearly everyone in the audience was waving a K-pop concert lightstick, including actor Leo DiCaprio and director Stephen Spielberg!
Blunders
It was delightful to see a lot of Asian representation this year, namely with Kpop Demon Hunters’ success, Kumail Nanjiani’s hilarious presentation of Best Live-Action Short Film, and Arkapaw’s cinematography win, who is of Filipino descent on her mother’s side.
However, the Oscars had their usual share of missteps, and didn’t treat the Asian winners fairly, especially when they cut off the songwriting team for “Golden”. Indeed, they mercilessly played them off and cut the video feed after barely a minute. It felt particularly absurd and cruel, given the painfully unamusing and wholly unnecessary 10 minutes granted to the Bridesmaids cast skit for the film’s 15-year anniversary.
This snub was reminiscent of the Japanese team behind the visual effects for Godzilla Minus One being rudely played off during the 2024 Oscars – can you imagine blinking back tears as you try to read the speech expressing your gratitude in a language that isn’t your own, on a stage in front of thousands of people, only for loud music to start playing before you’re even finished?
There is some flagrant preferential treatment going on – O’Brien even jokingly reminded us about Adrien Brody’s record for the longest speech in Oscars history, clocking in at 5 minutes and 36 seconds – they tried to play him off, but then let him finish talking, even though he had disrespectfully thrown his chewed gum at his partner before stepping onstage.
The Academy seems to take a sadistic pleasure in slashing the moment of a lifetime short for people who have worked tirelessly for years to earn their award, and stubbornly refuses to devise a better system. It smells distinctly of racism and classism, since it is often visible minorities or winners of the “less important” categories that get interrupted.
On top of that, whoever picks the clips shown as the nominees for an award is announced needs to be fired. Not only are the scenes chosen not the most concise nor impactful, but they lack tact. Right after Gloria Cazares spoke about her daughter being killed as a result of gun violence when All the Empty Rooms won for Best Documentary Short Film, highly graphic scenes of gun violence were shown for the next award.
It’s also worth mentioning that Marty Supreme was snubbed, having earned nine Academy Award nominations but winning none of them, even after 80-year old production designer Jack Fisk’s painstaking recreation of 1950s New York.
The “In Memoriam” segment was also the usual distasteful popularity contest, with disproportionate time given to the deceased cast and crew. Some photos of the departed were shown for longer and greeted with roars of applause, and others garnered only scattered applause, with some people not getting any at all.
Though I understand why more famous people might get a commemorative speech or longer segment, some people are inevitably left out or reduced to a single role or title; it feels disrespectful and always strikes a discordant note. Every human life is worth the same, though the lasting impact of the contribution made by each artistic voice may have been different. Perhaps a separate compilation or ceremony should be made to do a thorough and more respectful job.
Should you watch the Oscars next year?
This year’s ceremony lasted nearly four hours, and was peppered with ad breaks, jokes (some hit, others missed, like the time-wasting Bridesmaids skit), historic achievements, and shattered records.
However, many of the wins feel rigged, hollow, or blatantly unfair. For instance, Sentimental Value, a Norwegian film about an estranged father, won against the arguably more pressing and meaningful docudrama The Voice of Hind Rajab. In the latter, Red Crescent Volunteers try to keep a six-year-old girl trapped in a car under Israel Defense Forces fire in Gaza on the line while she pleads for help – the real audio from the calls are used throughout the film.
Given the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and President Trump’s travel ban against Palestinians that prevented actor Motaz Malhees from attending the Oscars, Norway’s win may read as willful ignorance or turning a blind eye to the most important voices politicians are trying to silence, in favour of the debatably lower-stakes problems privileged people deal with instead.
Let’s also mention Jafar Panahi, the Iranian director behind It Was Just An Accident, a rebuke of authoritarianism – it was nominated for Best International Feature Film and Best Original Screenplay. Panahi didn’t win either of them, and now faces a year of prison upon his return to Iran for engaging in “propaganda activities” against the Iranian regime and refusing to submit to censorship.
The serious subject matter addressed, and the courage and daring it takes to tell those stories, didn’t seem to weigh in as much as it should with the over 10,500 motion picture professionals that compose the Academy as of this year – though it seemed to during last year’s awards when No Other Land (2024), focusing on Palestine, won Best Documentary Feature.
More transparency in the voting process is in order, especially since it’s a well-known fact Academy members don’t always watch all the nominated films before voting, despite the new rule recently installed that requires them to do so before casting their ballot.
I’m not saying that films should win simply because they discuss something important – I just find it glaring that Sentimental Value, featuring an all-white star-studded cast (Elle Fanning, Stellan Skarsgård), cushioned by a multi-million-dollar budget and talking about family issues, won against The Voice of Hind Rajab, a docudrama of a six-year old girl trapped in a car while under fire in Gaza, pleading for her life over the phone.
That being said, the emotional speeches from artists having their dreams recognized on the world stage always bring a tear to my eye. It’s truly inspiring to see people rewarded for the years they have devoted to their craft.
Being Vietnamese-Goan myself, the Asian representation this year makes me hopeful that an increasing number of artists from different countries and backgrounds will be recognized in the future, especially in the most coveted categories (the “Big Five”: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Actor, and Screenplay, Original or Adapted).
Conan O’Brien is also an excellent host. Though it may just be an impression, he feels far enough removed from Hollywood to be relatable, and openly pokes fun at the wealthy, privileged, and disconnected elite.
There are also attention-grabbing political moments – for instance, this year, actor Javier Bardem said “No to war, and Free Palestine” before presenting the award for Best International Feature Film. Though the impact of such comments referencing the current social and political situation can be questioned due to time limits enforced on speeches and the fact that they’re often mentioned out of context, they’re a way to send a message the world might register.
If you’re interested in experiencing the most prestigious award show in cinema for free with a lively crowd, and at a local independent theatre, I would recommend checking out the Bytowne or the Mayfair for the Oscars next year.
For a full list of this year’s winners, click here.
