Greetings, reader!
Well, the 98th Academy Awards were held Sunday night. Some of the awards went to very deserving winners, whereas with some others, I personally would've gone with a different pick (*cough cough*, Best Picture, *cough*). Out of all the winners, these are the ones that I felt to be the most well-earned / the ones that I'm the happiest about!
P.S. for those interested, I got a whopping 17 predictions right (out of 24), tying my record from 2022 and 2023 and beating my scores from 2020, 2021, 2024 and 2025. I'm feeling good about next year in terms of finally beating that record!
Here are my honorable mentions: Best Casting (Cassandra Kulukundis, One Battle After Another), Best Film Editing (Andy Jurgensen, One Battle After Another), Best Supporting Actor (Sean Penn, One Battle After Another), Best Supporting Actress (Amy Madigan, Weapons).
10. Best Costume Design (Kate Hawley, Frankenstein)
I was glad to see Guillermo Del Toro's Frankenstein adaptation getting the recognition it deserved (not to mention that it won the exact three awards that I predicted for it, heh)! The costume design in this film was extravagant and sublime, really bringing out the lavish aesthetic that Mary Shelley's source material called for.
9. Best Music, Original Song (Golden from KPop Demon Hunters)
Honestly, Golden isn't even my favorite song from KPop Demon Hunters - but it's up there, and I was thoroughly happy to see it winning. The only reason why this isn't ranked even higher is that I personally would've given the award to I Lied to You from Sinners over this one, as that is an even superior original song written for a motion picture in my view. Still, it's a tight margin as both songs are so great, so it's no robbery (unlike Best Director, which you most definitely won't be seeing on today's list).
8. Best Makeup and Hairstyling (Mike Hill, Jordan Samuel & Cliona Furey, Frankenstein)
First of all, I'm relieved that I am now 7 for 7 in my annual "Sharknado bet", so I won't have to watch all nine films in the Sharknado! expanded universe and rank them in excruciating detail! I live to play with fire another day.
Furthermore, this no-brainer was a deserving winner for this category if I ever saw one. The artistry that this team did with Jacob Elordi, transforming him into this particular version of Frankenstein's monster, was pretty f**king next-level.
7. Best Production Design (Tamara Deverell & Shane Vieau, Frankenstein)
The three Frankenstein wins were hard to rank, as they're pretty much in the same tier for me, but Production Design one ended up on top. Out of the sixteen categories where Sinners was nominated, this is one of the very few ones where I would've definitely disagreed with the choice if it had won - not that there's anything wrong with the very fine production values in that film, but because the art direction and set decoration in Frankenstein is so unbeatable. The aesthetic in every scene looks amazing, with the overarching theme of the set design reading as "Mary Shelley's iconic vision clashes violently with Del Toro's wild imagination".
6. Best Documentary Short Film (Joshua Seftel and Conall Jones, All the Empty Rooms)
This harrowing documentary short takes an honest look at school shootings, as the filmmakers visit the homes of families who lost a child to America's death-cult relationship with firearms. The footage of the empty rooms, ones that the parents haven't dared to touch even years after losing their child, is enough to stop anyone's heart, and underscores how a complete lack of heart in our leaders is the only possible explanation for why this still keeps happening on such a regular basis.
It's a powerful and thought-provoking documentary, and the winning speech was just as gripping as you'd expect with this subject matter. An extremely well-earned win, this one.
5. Best Animated Feature (Maggie Kang, Chris Appelhans & Michelle L.M. Wong, KPop Demon Hunters)
I watched this film twice in one week with my students, and honestly, I wanted to watch it for a third time right after. The animation here, by many of the same people who brought us the groundbreaking Spider-Verse films, is groundbreaking and zany, and as a whole, the movie is one of last year's finest overall offerings. The themes of empowerment and cultural identity, the utterly fantastic musical numbers, all the fun that the film has with its lore - it's amazing stuff, and I'm thoroughly glad that such a blast of fun within the art of animation got recognized by the Academy.
4. Best Leading Actor (Michael B. Jordan, Sinners)
More like Michael B. deserving, am I right!
Look, I wouldn't have been overtly upset if Chalamet had won - I haven't seen Marty Supreme, but he's had a handful of arguably Oscar-worthy performances already and I do appreciate him as an actor no matter how tone-deaf he is as a person. I'm saying this to underscore that I had made my peace with his status as frontrunner - but you better believe I was 100% rooting for Michael B. Jordan to pull an upset.
What a career this man has already had, just shy of forty years of age. From a captivating teenage performance on The Wire, through his acclaimed leading role in Creed all the way to being an all-timer among Marvel villains in Black Panther, this f**king guy is ridiculously good in every project he lands. He's most definitely one of the most skillful actors working in Hollywood, and I was moved to tears when watching his acceptance speech. His role in Sinners was a whirlwind of complexity, heart, humor and nuance, and Best Actor could not have gone to a better film this year.
3. Best Cinematography (Autumn Durald Arkapaw, Sinners)
Let's hear it for the first-ever woman to win this category! It's pretty crazy that it took 98 years, but oh man, what a milestone moment. Watching Arkapaw's acceptance speech, I immediately became a fan of her as a person, but going into the Oscars, I knew exactly one thing about her - she knows her way around a camera, and she better f**king win an Oscar for her work on Sinners.
It says something that the category felt like a total no-brainer, even though the year featured films like Frankenstein and One Battle After Another, both of which had excellent cinematography (I've heard it was one of Marty Supreme's biggest strengths as well). But Autumn Durald Arkapaw's delicate artistry with the camera throughout Sinners was just next-level, and the way she mashed conventions of horror, musical and drama shooting styles into a cohesive melting pot is just beyond me. Bravo.
2. Best Music, Original Score (Ludwig Göransson, Sinners)
I'm inevitably biased here, as I've been the most passionate Ludwig Göransson fan you'll ever meet ever since I discovered his work on Community. To give you some idea of how much I love this man, I can tell you that I'm not joking when I call him the best Ludwig in music history, for me personally.
But it's not just that I'm a fan of his - if his work on Sinners had been bad, or even mediocre, or even above-average, or even really good, I wouldn't have been pulling for him to win with such a passion. But the thing is - his work on Sinners was divine. Do you know what a cool dude you have to be in order to Ryan Coogler to hire you, for a Black film with a Black cast and a Black story celebrating Black culture and Black music in particular, even though you're a white nerd from Sweden? Of course, Coogler had gotten a front-row seat to Göransson's widely reported skills in composition based on respect and constantly educating oneself when they worked together on the Black Panther films. But still, when you listen to the Sinners score, it is absolutely mind-blowing that a white guy composed that.
As a musician, I'm always happy when this particular award goes to the right direction, and boy, did they nail it with this one. Out of the three Oscars Göransson has won so far, this score was probably my favorite, which is really saying something when you consider what behemoths of movie music the Black Panther and Oppenheimer scores were.
1. Best Writing, Original Screenplay (Ryan Coogler, Sinners)
I didn't plan for the four Oscars that Sinners won to be my top four today, but there was no way around it - they were the most well-earned wins of the night, with the widest margins, and the film could've won quite a few Oscars more if you ask me (*cough cough*, Best Picture and Best Director, *cough*). Choosing my #1 favorite out of these was a difficult task, but eventually, I had to listen to the writer in me.
It's a bit cliché to reason this by saying "without the script, none of the other things would've been possible", because that's true for every film every made. But it somehow rings extra true here - a lesser script can make for a film that still wins multiple awards due to other factors becoming the film's biggest strengths, but with Sinners - not to take away from everything else the film does well - it really does all come back to that screenplay.
I mean, Ryan Coogler imagined a story that asks profound questions about race in America, the role of the church in racial inequality, and the ruling class pitting migrants against other migrants. He then decided that metaphorical vampires, out of all things, is the best way to convey this story, and gave his political film an overtone of suspenseful, well-written horror. He also made the film into a celebration of Black culture, filling the story with real-feeling human characters and balancing the bleak parts out with a heavy dose of humor and heart. And this - a Black vampire horror musical - got a record-breaking sixteen Oscar nominations. So yes, the script that made all of this possible deserves, well, all the acclaim in the world.
Ludwig Göransson's exquisite score was possible because there was this incredible screenplay for him to draw inspiration from. Autumn Durald Arkapaw got free hands to commit remarkable acts of artistry with the camera, because the script called for such bold strokes. And Michael B. Jordan acted his heart out, all the way to an Oscar win, by interpreting two thoroughly fascinating characters written by Ryan Coogler. When ranking all the scripts that have won Best Original Screenplay at the Oscars, I'd rank Coogler's work in Sinners ahead of On the Waterfront, The Sting, even Citizen Kane - into the very highest tier, among giants such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Dead Poets Society.
Thank you for reading! Tune in next week as I shamelessly continue to ride out the Oscar hype, with a post where I rank all 50 Best Picture winners I've seen, based on how deserving they were of the prestigious award.
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