Oscars 2026: One Battle After Another, Sinners, and the Death of Media Literacy

This year’s Oscars landed right in the middle of a cultural minefield, and somehow the night still delivered a ceremony I genuinely enjoyed. One Battle After Another took Best Picture, Sinners had a huge night, and the online discourse promptly set itself on fire from both ends of the political spectrum.

Winners, controversy, and culture‑war noise

On the awards side, the big narrative was the duel between One Battle After Another and Sinners. One Battle After Another walked away with Best Picture, Paul Thomas Anderson finally scored Best Director and Adapted Screenplay, and Sinners still had a strong showing with Michael B. Jordan winning Best Actor and several other trophies. I was happy with those choices, but you wouldn’t know it from the way both films were talked about online, where people argued as if the Academy had been politically obligated to reward them.

‍What struck me is how these takes often came from people who clearly hadn’t really watched the movies, or maybe watched ten minutes while scrolling their phones. Sinners got dismissed in some corners as a From Dusk Till Dawn knock‑off, with people even tossing around nonsense like “black people think they invented the blues.” It’s hard to take that kind of criticism seriously when the film is obviously a soulful, genre‑bending tribute to music, set in a tense, tragic moment where everyday people just want to live normal lives while evil forces close in.‍ ‍

One Battle After Another and the white‑savior debate

One Battle After Another has managed the rare feat of being attacked from both sides of the political aisle. Before it won, the right was calling it “woke”; once it did win, parts of the left pivoted to branding it a “white savior” movie and trying to psychologize Paul Thomas Anderson’s family life. That leap—from film criticism to armchair diagnosis of the director’s supposed racial fetishism—is where I check out completely. It’s not just unfair; it’s a sign of how badly people want to project their own narratives onto a movie instead of engaging with what’s actually there.‍ ‍

What the film captures, to me, is the futility and exhaustion of a failed revolution. Anyone who has spent time around political activism or seen people targeted for their politics knows that point where you realize the romantic idea of “The Struggle” is no match for the basic need to live your life. The film uses past revolutions as reference points to talk about a modern one, and then undercuts the fantasy by showing how little ultimately changes for its characters. Yet it still tacks on a note of hope: the sense that maybe the next generation can do better, even if you couldn’t. That’s a much more interesting—and messier—idea than the neat label of “white savior story” allows.

‍Sinners, horror bias, and a historic cinematography win

Sinners came into the night with a stack of nominations and serious momentum, yet it still ran into the old genre wall that horror and horror‑adjacent films have been hitting for decades. Even when the Academy recognizes titles like The Exorcist or Rosemary’s Baby, there’s a lingering reluctance to treat horror as “respectable” enough to sweep the major awards. That said, Sinners did make history in a way that really matters: its cinematographer, Autumn Durald Arkapaw, became the first woman—and the first woman of color—to win the Oscar for Best Cinematography.‍ ‍

That win felt completely deserved. Sinners is a beautifully shot film, full of rich, moody compositions and a tactile sense of place that elevates the whole story. When the credits rolled, I immediately wanted to know who shot it, and discovering how new she is to the scene made the achievement even more impressive. Sinners wasn’t alone in looking great, either; I thought Frankenstein was visually stunning, despite the number of people acting like it shouldn’t even have been nominated. It’s hard not to suspect that a lot of viewers are half‑watching movies on laptops while staring at their phones and then pronouncing the cinematography “nothing special.”

‍Conan, In Memoriam missteps, and everything around the awards

Stepping outside the individual movies, I actually had a good time with this year’s show. Conan O’Brien continues to be a strong Oscars host, bringing a mix of silliness and sharpness that fits the weird tone the ceremony has to strike. The night wasn’t perfect—there were some flat presenter bits and a musical performance or two that felt more like algorithm bait than genuine celebration—but overall, it worked.‍ ‍

The In Memoriam segment, though, remains a constant source of frustration. Every year, it seems like the show chooses to heavily spotlight a few figures while leaving out others you’d expect to see honored. I’m increasingly convinced they should just move the whole thing to a dedicated video or online piece instead of trying to cram it into a stylized live number. The way it’s produced now almost guarantees hurt feelings and baffling omissions.

Media literacy and what these Oscars revealed

The real throughline of this year’s Oscars isn’t just which films won; it’s how people talked about them. The discourse around One Battle After Another and Sinners shows how badly media literacy has eroded, even as people treat media as if it were literal reality. Instead of reading films as layered works of art, a lot of viewers seem intent on scanning for political tripwires and then flattening everything into a culture‑war talking point.

What I took away from this year is that we’re at a boiling point in how we discuss cinema. You have films about revolution and failed activism being stripped of nuance and pressed into service for whichever side wants a quick outrage hit that day. You have historic wins in cinematography and acting being overshadowed by bad‑faith arguments about obligation and tokenism. And you have people loudly insisting they “didn’t see what the fuss is about” in movies they clearly only half‑watched.

Despite all that noise, I walked away from the 2026 Oscars feeling pretty good about the winners and the ceremony overall. One Battle After Another and Sinners are both worth engaging with seriously, not just as fodder for social media battles but as films wrestling with revolution, futility, hope, and the cost of trying to change the world. If anything, they’re a reminder that movies are still capable of stirring up real conversation—we just have to be willing to meet them halfway.