And thus concludes one of the more interesting Academy Awards in recent years. The 2026 Oscars had many things going for it; tight races, a rare tie, political jabs, self-deprecating humour, an infinitely likeable host, a saucy Epstein joke by said host, and a controversy borne of ballet and opera. Long overdue history was also made on the night, but before getting into that, allow me a moment to recognise what was a wonderful night for Canadian talent.
Canadians started out the night out strong, with a Canuck or two winning in three of the first five categories. The first winner was arguably one of the surest bets of the night, as South Korean and Canadian animator and filmmaker won Best Animated Feature for co-writing and co-directing KPop Demon Hunters alongside Chris Applehans, with Kang delivering a very impassioned speech on Korean representation in cinema.
What immediately followed was the award for Best Animated Short Film, going to Montreal natives Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski for writing and directing The Girl Who Cried Pearls, which they made through the painstaking use of puppets and stop-motion animation. They humourously but sincerely referenced in their speech, saying it took 5 whole years to make the 17-minute short, thanking their families for their patience, before finally thanking both Montreal and Canada as a whole.
The third and final Canadian to win an award on the night was in the fifth category, which saw production designer Tamara Deverell and set decorator Shane Vieau winning Best Production Design for their work on Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, marking the first win for Deverell, but the second for Vieau, who had previously won for his work on del Toro’s 2017 romantic dark fantasy feature, The Shape of Water.
Although this marked the final win of the night for Canadians, there were still many notable moments throughout. In fact, history was made right after the award for Best Production Design, as the first ever Oscar for Best Casting was won by frequent Paul Thomas Anderson collaborator Cassandra Kulukundis for her admittedly stellar work on the ceremony’s biggest winner, One Battle After Another.
Then, right after that, there was the award for Best Live Action Short Film, which wound up being a tie between The Singers and Two People Exchanging Saliva, marking the seventh time this has ever happened, with the very first instance being when Frederic March and Wallace Beery tied for Best Actor in 1932, while the last time this happened in 2013 when Skyall and Zero Dark Thirty shared Best Sound Editing. Surely the most famous tie in Oscar history, though, is when Barbra Streisand and Katharine Hepburn shared the Best Actress award for Funny Girl and The Lion in Winter respectively.
More history was made thereafter, as Autumn Durald Arkapaw’s win in the Best Cinematography for her positively stellar work in Ryan Coogler’s period piece vampire flick Sinners, marking the first time a woman has ever won the award, which is frankly shocking to hear given this is the 98th Academy Awards, so it is certainly long overdue. Overall, Sinners did very well, accruing the four wins, marking the second-most of the night behind only One Battle After Another, which won six, including Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Picture, finally earning Paul Thomas Anderson the award that somehow eluded him for so long.
This year’s ceremony had some of the most unpredictable categories in a while, yet the awards consistently went to the safest bets, so to speak. Perhaps the one exception would be Best Actor, which went to Michael B. Jordan over the early awards season favourite Timothée Chalamet, whose recent controversial comments on ballet and opera overshadowed what is his third nomination and loss in the category, although Jordan’s win was also not surprising given the momentum he had gained in weeks prior to voting. Many publications have pointed to the 30-year-old Chalamet as the biggest loser of the night, as admittedly unfair as it is to both him and Jordan.