Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, the frontrunner throughout the film awards season, emerged victorious at the 98th Academy Awards on March 15, winning Best Picture and five other Oscars, holding off a late-season charge by Ryan Coogler’s Sinners.
One Battle After Another had 13 total nominations, one short of the record before Sinners set a new standard this year with 16. Coogler’s film, however, won the Oscar in just four of those categories.
Anderson won three Oscars, for Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and for producing the film. It echoed wins at the Golden Globes and the British Academy Awards, the latter on Feb. 22 and often seen as a predictor of what will happen on Oscar night.
One Battle After Another, about generational struggle against societal oppression, was also honored for Best Supporting Actor (Sean Penn, his third win, tying him for the most ever for male actors), Best Casting, and Best Film Editing.
Coogler’s pseudo-vampire movie, with the narrative conceit symbolizing the struggle faced by African Americans in the Jim Crow era, won four awards: Best Original Screenplay (Coogler), Best Actor (Michael B. Jordan), Best Cinematography (Autumn Durald Arkapaw, the first woman ever honored in the category), and Best Original Score.
One Battle After Another prevailed despite late momentum from Sinners, which was given top prize (best cast) by the Screen Actors Guild on March 1. The fact that Anderson had 11 Oscar nominations without a win going into the ceremony may have helped him, with sentiment being that it was finally his time 28 years after his first nomination.
Coogler, who has a reputation as one of Hollywood’s true nice guys, was not worried about his film winning more Oscars.
“Just trying to enjoy the days as they come,” he told The Associated Press, adding that he was just trying to “stay in the present moment.”
