Oscars 2026: Michael B. Jordan Takes Home Best Actor Trophy for Sinners

Oscars 2026: Michael B. Jordan Takes Home Best Actor Trophy for Sinners

AP

Los Angeles : Michael B Jordan has been building toward a performance like "Sinners" for over 20 years. Now he has the best actor Oscar as his reward.

Jordan got one trophy for playing identical twins Smoke and Stack in the blues-seeped supernatural horror film set in 1930s Mississippi that earned a record 16 Academy Award nominations. The 98th Academy Awards was held Sunday night.

Jordan is the sixth Black man to win the best actor trophy. He joins Will Smith ("King Richard", 2020), Forest Whitaker ("The Last King of Scotland", 2006), Jamie Foxx ("Ray", 2004), Denzel Washington ("Training Day", 2001) and Sidney Poitier ("Lillies of the Field"), who was the first in 1963.

The other nominees were Timothee Chalamet in "Marty Supreme", Leonardo DiCaprio for "One Battle After Another", Ethan Hawke of "Blue Moon" and Wagner Moura in "The Secret Agent".

Jordan, a 39-year-old who also produces and directs, was born in Santa Ana, California, and grew up in Newark, New Jersey.  In a pop-culture moment, he was named People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive" in 2020.

Meanwhile, Jessie Buckley claimed her first Oscar for her "Hamnet" performance that prompted almost anyone who saw it to blow through a box of tissues.

The prize for best actress went to second-time nominee Buckley for her role as William Shakespeare's wife, Agnes, in the drama directed by Chloe Zhao.

A front-runner in the category, Buckley was nominated alongside first-time nominees Rose Byrne for "If I Had Legs I'd Kick You" and Renate Reinsve for "Sentimental Value". Two-time winner Emma Stone was also nominated for "Bugonia", as was two-time nominee Kate Hudson for "Song Sung Blue".

Buckley, who is Irish, had swept the awards circuit leading up to the ceremony, winning in her category at the Critics Choice Awards, Golden Globes, BAFTAs and Actor Awards. She is the first Irish performer to win a best actress Oscar.

Paul Thomas Anderson's "One Battle After Another" was crowned best picture at the 98th Academy Awards, handing Hollywood's top honour to a comic, multi-generational American saga of political resistance. Before Sunday, Anderson had never won an Oscar.

The Oscar night belonged to Warner Bros, the studio of "One Battle After Another" and Ryan Coogler's vampire tale "Sinners". It was an oddly poignant note of triumph for the fabled studio, which weeks earlier agreed to a sale to Paramount Skydance, David Ellison's rapidly assembled media monolith. The deal, which awaits regulatory approval, has Hollywood bracing for more layoffs.

Jordan’s long collaboration with Ryan Coogler

"Sinners" reunited Jordan and writer-producer-director Ryan Coogler. They go back to their first collaboration in 2013.

That was Jordan's breakthrough film role in Coogler's "Fruitvale Station" for which he received critical praise playing a real-life man who was killed by police. It was Coogler's directorial debut, and they followed with "Creed", "Black Panther" and now "Sinners".

Jordan's initial acting success came in television. He had a small yet pivotal role in "The Wire" in 2002, followed by the daytime drama "All My Children", in which he replaced Chadwick Boseman, and "Friday Night Lights".

He and Boseman later acted together in "Black Panther" and were close friends until Boseman's death from colon cancer in 2020. Jordan dedicated his acting award from this year's NAACP Image Awards to Boseman.

Buckley’s emotional win for ‘Hamnet’

Buckley burst into a fit of laughter before beginning her speech, saying, "This is really something."

"It's Mother's Day in the UK today, so I would like to dedicate this to the beautiful chaos of a mother's heart," she said. "We all come from a lineage of women who continue to create against all odds. Thank you for recognising me in this role."

"Hamnet", an adaptation of Maggie O'Farrell's prizewinning historical fiction novel from 2020, dramatises the mysterious private life of the famed playwright and poet Shakespeare and his wife Anne Hathaway (who was also called Agnes). The plot centres on the death of the couple's 11-year-old son, Hamnet, and the intense grief that followed.

Fellow Irish actor Paul Mescal plays William as the story imagines a connection between Hamnet's tragic death and the birth of what many consider to be Shakespeare's greatest tragedy, "Hamlet". (The two names were virtually interchangeable in England during the 16th century).

The film developed a reputation for leaving audiences in tears, due in large part to the potency of Buckley's performance. She was previously nominated for the supporting actress Oscar for her turn in the 2021 film "The Lost Daughter".

The drama received eight Oscar nominations, including for directing, adapted screenplay and best picture.