Conan hosts the 98th Oscars. "Sinners" leads with 16 noms. India eyes presenter Priyanka Chopra and Geeta Gandbhir’s dual doc nods. The first Best Casting award debuts tonight. Live on JioHotstar.

The 98th Academy Awards officially began on Monday, March 16, 2026, at the break of dawn in India. The ceremony at Los Angeles's Dolby Theatre, featuring returning host Conan O'Brien, feels like a clash between Hollywood's past and future reputation. At the event, Ryan Coogler's Sinners will take centre stage. The film has broken records with 16 nominations, surpassing Titanic and La La Land. A high-stakes Best Picture and Best Director battle is in the works, with Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another providing formidable opposition.
There is a lot of regional interest in the ceremony among Indian viewers of the live stream on JioHotstar. Along with Robert Downey Jr and Anne Hathaway, Priyanka Chopra Jonas makes her long-awaited return to the Oscars stage as a presenter. The industry is closely observing the launch of Best Casting, the first new competitive Oscar category in decades. The evening is living up to its billing as a night of nostalgic, high-octane Hollywood splendour, along with the much-anticipated reunions of the Bridesmaids and Marvel casts.
40 years after her first nomination, Amy Madigan made Academy Award history by clinching the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her haunting, orange-wigged turn as the malevolent Aunt Gladys in the supernatural horror hit Weapons setting a new record for the longest gap between nominations before a win.
From chart-topping idols to history-making hunters, the supernatural superstars of K-Pop: Demon Hunters officially grabbed the golden Oscar by taking home the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film.
Nearly two decades after their first nomination, the visionary Montreal duo Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski have finally secured the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film, proving that they still reign supreme in the art of stop-motion storytelling with the haunting and tactile fable The Girl Who Cried Pearls.
By weaving together high-fashion artistry and gothic horror, Kate Hawley has claimed the Oscar for Best Costume Design for her exquisite, tactile work in Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein marking a crowning achievement for the film
By breathing life into the "stitched" skin of a legend, Mike Hill, Jordan Samuel, and Cliona Furey have claimed the Oscar for Best Makeup and Hairstyling for their stunningly humanistic and tactile transformation of the Creature in Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein.
In a milestone moment that finally brought the "invisible" art of the ensemble to centre stage, Cassandra Kulukundis made history as the inaugural winner of the Best Casting Oscar for her masterful work on Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another.
In a rare and historic moment that split the Academy’s heart in two, the 98th Oscars crowned two winners for Best Live Action Short Film, as the barroom harmony of The Singers and the dystopian surrealism of Two People Exchanging Saliva both walked away with the golden statuette.
By completing his mission to join the most elite ranks of Hollywood history, Sean Penn secured his third Academy Award—and first in the Best Supporting Actor category—for his transformative, "sandblasted" turn as the corrupt and obsessive Col. Steven J. Lockjaw in Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another.
By breaking a legendary losing streak with a heartfelt "apology" to the next generation, Paul Thomas Anderson finally secured his first-ever Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, successfully taming Thomas Pynchon’s notoriously "unadaptable" novel Vineland into the action-packed, three-hour odyssey One Battle After Another.
By weaving a blood-soaked tale of redemption and rhythm, Ryan Coogler has made Academy Award history by taking home the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for his record-breaking supernatural thriller Sinners.
By transforming an abandoned water tower into a cathedral of mad science and a Toronto parking lot into the desolate Arctic "Farthest North," Tamara Deverell and Shane Vieau have claimed the Oscar for Best Production Design for Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein.
By pushing the boundaries of digital reality into the volcanic heart of Pandora, Joe Letteri, Richard Baneham, Eric Saindon, and Daniel Barrett have secured the Oscar for Best Visual Effects, proving that James Cameron’s Avatar: Fire and Ash remains the undisputed gold standard for world-building in the modern era.
By turning a camera toward the silent, sacred spaces of a national tragedy, Joshua Seftel and Conall Jones have won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Film for their heartbreaking and vital Netflix film, All the Empty Rooms.
By turning the lens of a whistleblower onto the state-mandated indoctrination of his own students, schoolteacher Pavel Talankin and co-director David Borenstein have secured the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature Film for their courageous undercover exposé, Mr. Nobody Against Putin.
By reaching back to the roots of his own childhood and the dust of the 1930s Mississippi Delta, Ludwig Göransson has secured his third Academy Award for Best Original Score for Ryan Coogler’s Sinners.
By shifting into a higher gear of movie immersion, Gareth John, Al Nelson, Gwendolyn Yates Whittle, Gary A. Rizzo, and Juan Peralta have claimed the Oscar for Best Sound for the high-octane blockbuster F1.
By finding the perfect rhythm for a sprawling, VistaVision-sized odyssey, Andy Jurgensen has captured the Oscar for Best Film Editing for his masterful work on Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another.
By shattering one of the Academy’s most enduring glass ceilings, Autumn Durald Arkapaw has made history as the first woman and the first woman of colour to win the Oscar for Best Cinematography for her breathtaking, large-format mastery in Ryan Coogler’s Sinners.
By proving that the deepest "sentimental value" lies in the complex bonds of family and film, director Joachim Trier has led Norway to a historic victory as Sentimental Value (Affeksjonsverdi) secured the Oscar for Best International Feature Film.
By hitting the high notes of a global cultural phenomenon, the anthem Golden has officially sealed its place in cinema history by winning the Academy Award for Best Original Song, making it the first K-pop track to ever claim the Oscar.
By finally turning a legendary "overdue" narrative into a double-gold reality, Paul Thomas Anderson has claimed the Oscar for Best Directing for his sprawling, political odyssey One Battle After Another.
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