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Oscars 2026 live: Conan O’Brien’s monologue, award tie, Sean Penn no-show, emotional in memoriam honours stars

Max CorstorphanThe Nightly
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VideoOscars 2026: Sinners and Rose Byrne tipped to win

Scroll down for the latest news and updates from the 98th Academy Awards.

Reporting LIVE

Wenlei Ma

Historical win for Sinners, and for an almost-Australian

Autumn Durald Arkapaw is the first woman to ever in the cinematography category, and she is only the fourth woman to ever be nominated.

She’s married to an Australian, so we will kind of claim her!

Durald Arkapaw mentioned Rachel Morrison, the first woman ever nominated for cinematography, and she asked all the women in the room to stand up.

“I really want all the women in the room to stand up because I feel like I don’t get here without you guys. I have felt so much love from all the women on this whole campaign, and gotten to meet so many people, and I just feel like moments like this happen because of you guys, and I want to thank you for that,” she said.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Frankenstein

Marty Supreme

One Battle After Another

Sinners - WINNER

Train Dreams

Sinners won in cinematography.
Camera IconSinners won in cinematography. Credit: AAP
Wenlei Ma

One Battle takes important precursor Oscars win

The Editing category is often seen as predictive of the eventual Picture winner, so could this be instructive of where this is going?

One Battle After Another is looking good for the big prize if that’s the case.

Never forget the incredible chase scene at the end, that was masterful editing, and that’s a huge part of why One Battle won this.

Winner Andy Jurgensen called out his aunt Barbara Hall who was an archivist for the Academy for 25 years.

“She loved her dog and she loved showing old movies and teaching me about film history, and I miss her every day.”

BEST FILM EDITING

F1

Marty Supreme

One Battle After Another - WINNER

Sentimental Value

Sinners

Wenlei Ma

Vroom vroom vroom

F1 takes the Oscar for sound. It definitely had quite the soundscape.

BEST SOUND

F1 - WINNER

Frankenstein

One Battle After Another

Sinners

Sirat

Wenlei Ma

Sinners scores in ... Score

Ludwig Goransson is no stranger to the Oscar stage. This is his third win, having previously collected victories for Oppenheimer and Black Panther.

He is a frequent collaborator of Ryan Coogler’s.

Goransson said, “My dad bought his first blues album in Sweden, 1964. It was a John Lee Hooker album, and even though it was on the other side of the world, from the place, my dad never been, and the place he could not relate to, the music was so powerful that it changed my dad’s life.

“He devoted his whole life to music, and when I was about 7 years old, a little boy, he put a guitar in my arms, and I loved the guitar, and it became everything to me, and it was the guitar that opened up the lot of doors for me.

“It was the guitar that brought me over to the States, and it was the guitar that eventually led me to one of the greatest storytellers of our time, Ryan Coogler.”

BEST SCORE

Bugonia

Frankenstein

Hamnet

One Battle After Another

Sinners - WINNER

Max Corstorphan

Holocaust joke sparks backlash

While presenting the Best Live Action Short Film award, Kumail Nanjiani joked that longer films would be better as shorts.

During his joke, he said “Schindler’s List” could have just been “Schindler’s Post It”.

“Can’t say that Schindler’s List joke was uh in any good taste!” one person wrote on X.

“At the #Oscars, they just made an offensive joke by swapping Schindler’s List for #SchindlerPostIt, and the translator didn’t translate it—she caught on instantly and just went silent during that part. Did you notice it?” another wrote online.

Wenlei Ma

Docos take on extra meaning in present moment

Jimmy Kimmel came out to present the documentary categories, and there was a huge round of applause for the categories.

“We hear a lot about courage at shows like this, but telling a story that could get you killed for telling it is real courage,” Kimmel said. “As you know, there are some countries whose leaders don’t support free speech. I’m not at liberty to say which. Let’s just leave it at North Korea and CBS.

“Fortunately, for all of us, there is an international community of filmmakers dedicated to telling the truth. Oftentimes, at great risk, to make films that teach us, that call out injustice, that inspire us to take action, and there are also documentaries where you walk around the White House trying on shoes.”

All the Empty Rooms won the shorts category, a film about the victims of school shootings.

The mother of Jackie Cazares said on stage, “My daughter, Jackie, was nine years old when she was killed in Uvalde.

“Since that day, her bedroom has been frozen in time. Jackie is more than just a headline. She has our light and our life. Gun violence is now the number one cause of death in kids and teens. We believe that if the world could see their empty bedrooms, it would be a different America.”

The feature category was won by Mr Nobody Against Putin.

Filmmaker David Borenstein said, “What we saw when working with this footage, it’s that you lose it through countless, small, little acts of complicity.

“When we act complicit, when a government murders people on the streets of our major cities. When we don’t say anything, when oligarchs take over the media and control how we can produce it and consume it. We all face a moral choice. But luckily, even a nobody is more powerful than you think.”

The subject of the film, Pavel Talankin, said through an interpreter, “In the name of our future, in the name of all of our children, stop all of these wars now.”

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT

All the Empty Rooms - WINNER

Armed Only With a Camera

Children No More: Were and Are Gone

The Devil is Busy

Perfectly a Strangeness

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

The Alabama Solution

Come See Me in the Good Light

Cutting Through Rocks

Mr. Nobody Against Putin - WINNER

The Perfect Neighbour

Wenlei Ma

Avatar triumphs in VFX

If not in visual effects, then where?

A shout-out from the team to Jon Landau, James Cameron’s long-time producing partner who died in 2024.

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

Avatar: Fire and Ash - WINNER

F1

Jurassic World Rebirth

The Lost Bus

Sinners

Wenlei Ma

Frankenstein takes third craft Oscar

This time, it’s for Production Design, and it’s nice that Mary Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein, got a shout out in the acceptance speech.

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

Frankenstein - WINNER

Hamnet

Marty Supreme

One Battle After Another

Sinners

Frankenstein has won three craft Oscars
Camera IconFrankenstein has won three craft Oscars Credit: Netflix
Wenlei Ma

Disney is really milking it

In case you missed it, Disney has some movies coming out soon, and they really want to remind you of it.

A lot of the presenters tonight have Disney projects upcoming, and the Oscars is being broadcast in the US on ABC, which is owned by ... you guessed it, Disney!

Sigourney Weaver and Pedro Pascal are both in the The Mandalorian and Grogu movie, and Robert Downey Jr and Chris Evans have Avengers: Doomsday coming up. No other real reason for any of them to be here otherwise.

And now we’re giving them a free shot here too. Guess it worked.

Wenlei Ma

I’m not crying, you’re crying

It was a momentous year of big losses. Huge names including Robert Redford, Diane Keaton, Val Kilmer, Robert Duvall and Gene Hackman died in the past year.

And, of course, Rob Reiner.

It was a really beautiful tribute on stage with Billy Crystal leading the casts of his previous films gathered on stage. Crystal said, “The loss is immeasurable, and to the millions who have enjoyed his films all these years, I want you to know, here and around the world, how many times Rob told me that it meant everything to him, that his work meant something to you.”

Those gathered on stage included Meg Ryan (When Harry Met Sally), Annette Bening (The American President), Kathy Bates (Misery), Cary Elwes, Carol Kane, Fred Savage and Mandy Patinkin (The Princess Bride), Jerry O’Connell and Wil Wheaton (Stand By Me), Kevin Pollak and Demi Moore (A Few Good Men), John Cusack and Daphne Zuniga (The Sure Thing) and Christopher Guest and Harry Groener (This is Spinal Tap).

Rachel McAdams came out to pay special tribute to Catherine O’Hara and Keaton. Of Keaton she said, “There isn’t an actress of my generation who is not inspired by and enthralled with her absolute singularity”.

Barbra Streisand was enlisted to speak about Redford, her co-star in The Way We Were.

“Bob had real backbone, on and off the screen. He spoke up to defend freedom of the press, protect the environment, and encourage new voices at the Sundance Institute, and some of whom are up for Oscars tonight.

“I called him an intellectual cowboy who blazed his own trail.”

Streisand closed off the emotional segment with a few bars of The Way We Were.

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