Sinners Dominates The Oscar Nominations

Here are the Oscar nominations! Sinners received a record-setting 16 nominations but will that be enough to overcome the fashionable radical chic on One Battle After Another?

I’m happy that F1 and Train Dreams were nominated. I’m less happy that I’m going to have to sit through another Yorgos Lanthimos film. I haven’t seen Song Sung Blue but I like Kate Hudson and I love her mom and stepfather.

Wicked: For Good was pretty much shut out. Not even Ariana Grande made the list and I’m okay with that. Avatar: Fire and Ash received a few technical nominations and not much else so I guess the tyranny of Avatar at the Oscars is now finished.

Best Picture
“Bugonia”
“F1”
“Frankenstein”
“Hamnet”
“Marty Supreme”
“One Battle After Another“
“The Secret Agent”
“Sentimental Value”
“Sinners”
“Train Dreams”

Best Director
Paul Thomas Anderson – “One Battle After Another“
Ryan Coogler – “Sinners“
Josh Safdie – “Marty Supreme“
Joachim Trier – “Sentimental Value”
Chloé Zhao – “Hamnet”

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
Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas – “Sentimental Value”
Amy Madigan – “Weapons”
Wunmi Mosaku – “Sinners“
Teyana Taylor – “One Battle After Another”
Elle Fanning – “Sentimental Value”

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 Adapted Screenplay
“Bugonia” – Will Tracy
“Frankenstein” – Guillermo Del Toro
“Hamnet” – Maggie O’Farrell & Chloe Zhao
“One Battle After Another” – Paul Thomas Anderson
“Train Dreams” – Clint Bentley & Greg Kwedar

Best Original Screenplay
“Blue Moon” – Robert Kaplow
“It Was Just an Accident” – Jafar Panahi, Nader Saeivar, Shadmehr Rastin & Mehdi Mahmoudian
“Marty Supreme” – Ronald Bronstein & Josh Safdie
“Sentimental Value” – Joachim Trier & Eskil Vogt
“Sinners” – Ryan Coogler

Best Animated Feature
“Arco”
“Elio”
“KPop Demon Hunters”
“Little Amélie or The Character of Rain”
“Zootopia 2”

Best Documentary Feature
“The Alabama Solution”
“Come See Me in the Good Light”
“Cutting Through Rocks”
“Mr. Nobody Against Putin”
“The Perfect Neighbor”

Best International Feature Film
“It Was Just an Accident” – France
“The Secret Agent” – Brazil
“Sentimental Value” – Norway
“Sirāt” – Spain
“The Voice of Hind Rajab” – Tunisia

Best Casting
Gabriel Domingues – “The Secret Agent”
Nina Gold – “Hamnet”
Cassandra Kulukundis – “One Battle After Another”
Francine Maisler – “Sinners”
Jennifer Venditti – “Marty Supreme”

Best Cinematography
“Frankenstein”
“Marty Supreme”
“One Battle After Another”
“Sinners”
“Train Dreams”

Best Costume Design
“Avatar: Fire and Ash”
“Frankenstein”
“Hamnet”
“Marty Supreme“
“Sinners”

Best Film Editing
“F1”
“Marty Supreme”
“One Battle After Another”
“Sentimental Value”
“Sinners”

Best Make-Up & Hairstyling
“Frankenstein”
“Kokuho“
“Sinners”
“The Smashing Machine”
“The Ugly Stepsister”

Best Production Design
“Frankenstein”
“Hamnet”
“Marty Supreme”
“One Battle After Another”
“Sinners”

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 Sound
“F1”
“Frankenstein”
“One Battle After Another”
“Sinners”
“Sirāt“

Best Visual Effects
“Avatar: Fire and Ash”
“F1”
“Jurassic World: Rebirth”
“The Lost Bus”
“Sinners”

Best Animated Short Film
“Butterfly”
“Forevergreen”
“The Girl Who Cried Pearls”
“Retirement Plan”
“The Three Sisters”

Best Documentary Short Film
“All the Empty Rooms”
“Armed Only with a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud”
“Children No More: ‘Were and are Gone’”
“The Devil is Busy”
“Perfectly a Strangeness”

Live Action Short Film
“Butcher’s Stain“
“A Friend of Dorothy”
“Jane Austen’s Period Drama”
“The Singers”
“Two People Exchanging Saliva”

Far too many in the Academy worship ugliness and nastiness. Now, I know what some people are going to say. “You didn’t even watch all of those movies!” No, I didn’t, but guess what? Practically nobody from the general public has seen all those movies. I saw the previews for a number of the nominated titles. Sorry, but if your preview is uninteresting (or in the case of a certain movie nominated for Best Picture, complete garbage — I’ll let you guess which one), I’m not going to spend two or three hours with it.

Then you have Kokuho, a film that I was somewhat trepidatious about seeing. I had a free pass, so I went along. Nearly three hours later, I was aware that I’d experienced an excellent piece of cinema. Several weeks later, I revisited it and walked away thinking of it as one of the best movies I’ve seen. I revisited it once more a few days after that.

Here we have a Japanese language movie about the ancient art of kabuki, a movie that runs 174 minutes, a movie that was originally set for a strictly limited two week run at a handful of cinemas in my home country, yet a month after the proposed conclusion of its theatrical run, it can still be found on the big screen at various theatres. On a per screen basis, Kokuho has thrashed many Hollywood productions in terms of admissions — and has done so with extremely little advertising.

Kokuho is one of those rare pleasures: a fine film that has found a large audience outside its native Japan due to word of mouth.

I say all this not just to recommend Kokuho, I say all this to underscore the fact that far too many folks in the Academy do not recognise beauty and craft when they see it. Natalie Portman was given an Oscar for using a body double in Black Swan, an atrocious film that wallows in the grotesque. Ryo Yoshizawa and Ryuse Yokohama, the two central players in Kokuho, spent between 18 and 24 months learning the art of kabuki and used no body doubles — but no Oscar recognition for them. Never mind the costumes, the set designs, the work from Ken Watanabe, the cinematography, the editing and so on.

As if last year’s Oscar fiasco wasn’t enough to convince anyone that the Academy Awards are a joke (five Oscars, including the gong for Best Picture, to the worst film I’ve seen), this should do. The Oscars are about politics and ugliness. I know this comment could be its own article, yet this needs to be said.

To close on a cheery note, if you have the chance to catch Kokuho at the cinema, please do. Here is a picture that practically demands to be seen on the largest screen available — and you will walk away with a genuine appreciation for the art of kabuki.

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2 responses to “Sinners Dominates The Oscar Nominations”

Mark says:

January 22, 2026 at 08:21

Far too many in the Academy worship ugliness and nastiness. Now, I know what some people are going to say. “You didn’t even watch all of those movies!” No, I didn’t, but guess what? Practically nobody from the general public has seen all those movies. I saw the previews for a number of the nominated titles. Sorry, but if your preview is uninteresting (or in the case of a certain movie nominated for Best Picture, complete garbage — I’ll let you guess which one), I’m not going to spend two or three hours with it.

Then you have Kokuho, a film that I was somewhat trepidatious about seeing. I had a free pass, so I went along. Nearly three hours later, I was aware that I’d experienced an excellent piece of cinema. Several weeks later, I revisited it and walked away thinking of it as one of the best movies I’ve seen. I revisited it once more a few days after that.

Here we have a Japanese language movie about the ancient art of kabuki, a movie that runs 174 minutes, a movie that was originally set for a strictly limited two week run at a handful of cinemas in my home country, yet a month after the proposed conclusion of its theatrical run, it can still be found on the big screen at various theatres. On a per screen basis, Kokuho has thrashed many Hollywood productions in terms of admissions — and has done so with extremely little advertising.

Kokuho is one of those rare pleasures: a fine film that has found a large audience outside its native Japan due to word of mouth.

I say all this not just to recommend Kokuho, I say all this to underscore the fact that far too many folks in the Academy do not recognise beauty and craft when they see it. Natalie Portman was given an Oscar for using a body double in Black Swan, an atrocious film that wallows in the grotesque. Ryo Yoshizawa and Ryuse Yokohama, the two central players in Kokuho, spent between 18 and 24 months learning the art of kabuki and used no body doubles — but no Oscar recognition for them. Never mind the costumes, the set designs, the work from Ken Watanabe, the cinematography, the editing and so on.

As if last year’s Oscar fiasco wasn’t enough to convince anyone that the Academy Awards are a joke (five Oscars, including the gong for Best Picture, to the worst film I’ve seen), this should do. The Oscars are about politics and ugliness. I know this comment could be its own article, yet this needs to be said.

To close on a cheery note, if you have the chance to catch Kokuho at the cinema, please do. Here is a picture that practically demands to be seen on the largest screen available — and you will walk away with a genuine appreciation for the art of kabuki.

LikeLike

M - says:

January 22, 2026 at 09:04

Vampire movie nominated for Oscar(s)? Be still my heart.

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