by Bobbie Porterfield (Posted on April 13, 2026 @ 10:48 a.m.)

Out of 23 Oscar categories that are presented each year, only five are considered the most valuable. The ‘Big Five’ awards don’t just honor great performances, they create the actors and directors whose names will be remembered for their hard work.

Best Actor Award

One award that a lot of people hope to get is the best actor award. The best actor award nominees this year were Timothée Chalamet from the movie Marty Supreme, Leonardo DiCaprio from One Battle After Another, Ethan Hawke from Blue Moon, Wagner Moura from The Secret Agent, and lastly Michael B. Jordan from his role in Sinners. Michael B. Jordan ended up winning the award for the best actor because people said his performance was amazing.

Best Picture Award

Best Picture is one of the awards called the Big 5. Ten different movies competed for the best picture award. The nominees for the award were the racing movie F1, the movie Frankenstein, a movie called Sinners, which had 16 nominations. That is the record for the most nominations for any movie ever! Other films that competed were Bugonia, Hamnet, Marty Supreme, The Secret Agent, Sentimental Value, and Train Dreams. The competition was pretty hard because different people liked different movies. The winner ended up being One Battle After Another. The movie is a political movie directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. This movie’s win was unexpected because the movie Sinners won a lot of trophies like the Best Actor for Michael B. Jordan. Although all of the movies were good, One Battle After Another ended up taking home the prize at the end of the night.

Best Director Award

After 14 nominations without winning, Paul Thomas Anderson won the Best Director Oscar for his film One Battle After Another at the Academy Awards this year. It was important for him because he has been one of the most liked directors in Hollywood for a while. A lot of people felt like he should have gotten one of the awards sooner. Although some people felt like the other directors he competed against should have won the award, the fans still felt happy for him. The competition was hard this year. The other people he was competing against for the award were Ryan Coogler, Chloé Zhao, Josh Safdie, and Joachim Trier. Even though it was a close call, the Academy decided that Anderson’s film stood out and was a really good performance. The Academy gave him the award a bunch of his fans were waiting for.

Best Actress Award

The winner of the Best Actress award this year was Jessie Buckley. In the movie Hamnet, she was the wife of William Shakespeare. She is the first woman that is from Ireland to win this award. She had good competition for this award, and everyone was great, but the Academy thought she stood out. The other people who were competing this year were Emma Stone, Rose Byrne, Kate Hudson, and Renate Reinave. Her performance was one of the Academy’s favorites because of how emotional she was. Her performance stood out to the judges and got her the trophy.

Best Screenplay Award

The award for the Best Screenplay was won by Ryan Coogler from the movie Sinners. It won Best Original Screenplay. Another award that is called Best Adapted Screenplay was won by Paul Thomas Anderson for the movie One Battle After Another. The people who receive these awards are the writers who created the story and script for the movie. A lot of people thought that these wins were important because both of the movies are popular and very well made. The writers who won these awards try to create interesting stories and characters. Winning an Oscar for a screenplay award is a big deal because it means the story from the movie was one of the best of this year.