Sinners might have missed out on best picture, but make no mistake – the 2026 Oscars were the best yet for horror

Although it undoubtedly enjoyed a great night overall, there will be a few film fans who woke up this morning disappointed that Ryan Coogler's Sinners didn't ultimately take home the top honour at last night's Academy Awards.

The critically acclaimed, politically charged vampire flick might have been second favourite in the best picture race for much of this seemingly endless awards season, but talk of a late surge – brought on in part by its win in the best ensemble category at The Actor Awards – had led some to believe it might pull off an impressive upset and pip Paul Thomas Anderson's magnificent One Battle After Another to the hugely coveted gong.

Ultimately it wasn't to be: One Battle prevailed, and surely stands as one of the finest best picture winners of recent years. But we shouldn't for one minute let the fact that Sinners missed out on this award dampen what has nonetheless been an exceptionally successful season for the passionately supported movie.

Much has been made about the fact that, having been nominated for a record-breaking sixteen Academy Awards – a quite remarkable feat – the film ultimately failed to convert 12 of those into wins. But looking at any of those as "losses" – a word that often does the rounds in Oscars post-mortem discussions – is quite frankly a nonsensical way of looking at things.

A film that gets nominated but doesn't win is by no means a loser, and indeed being honoured as one of the best five or ten films in each individual category is a major accomplishment in itself. To be nominated for sixteen of those speaks to the overwhelmingly high esteem in which the film is held, something not undone by the fact that another terrific movie from a beloved director narrowly secured more votes when all is said and done.

In the third of his three acceptance speeches of the night, Anderson himself said: "There is no best among them. There is just what the mood might be that day." He went on to reference the infamously stacked 1975 best picture line-up – which consisted of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Barry Lyndon, Dog Day Afternoon, Jaws and Nashville – but it was clear he was suggesting the same applied this time around; it's ultimately rather arbitrary to choose between the nominees, most of which had very solid cases for being the pick of the bunch.

But even if we do look exclusively at those that won their categories, there was plenty to celebrate for Sinners last night. The headline was undoubtedly the best actor win for Michael B Jordan, who beat one-time hot favourite Timothée Chalamet to the award and in doing so became only the sixth Black actor to win that prize, following Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, Jamie Foxx, Forrest Whitaker and Will Smith.

Meanwhile, there was also something of a surprise win in best cinematography, a category which had seen One Battle After Another enlisted as the bookmakers's favourite but which ultimately saw Autumn Durald Arkapaw become the first ever woman to win this award. And then there were the expected, and very much deserved, wins for Ryan Coogler in original screenplay and composer Ludwig Göransson in best original score.

All of this is even more impressive when we consider the genre to which Sinners belongs. As has often been pointed out, horror films have rarely been treated with the respect they deserve by the Academy, and The Silence of the Lambs is the only previous best picture winner win that can truly claim to meet the criteria for inclusion in the genre (though some might make the argument for Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water).

But in the last decade or so, it's clear old attitudes have begin to shift. Various nods – and a best original screenplay win – for Get Out back in 2018 set the tone, while multiple nominations for Coralie Fargeat's unashamedly excessive body horror The Substance last year proved how far we'd come, even if best makeup and hairstyling was the only one it converted into a win.

And whichever way you look at things, last night was a terrific one for horror – the best yet for the genre in 98 editions of this storied awards show. Not only were there the aforementioned victories for Sinners, but there were three craft awards for del Toro's take on one of the most iconic horror tales of all, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, in production design, makeup and hairstyling and costume design.

But perhaps the most exhilarating win of all for horror fanatics – and the one that proves once and for all that the genre truly does now have a seat at the table for major awards shows – is Amy Madigan's best supporting actress victory for her gleefully deranged turn in Zach Cregger's Weapons. This wasn't a performance that merely gestured at horror, but a fully committed embodiment of a terrifying witch who became an immediately iconic villain, in a film that completely embraced the trappings of its genre.

Of course, for some horror fans this still won't quite be enough; a best picture win for Sinners would have been the icing on the cake, and there were some other great performances – such as Sally Hawkins's chilling role in Bring Her Back – that failed to muster much attention throughout the season despite their obvious merits.

But don't let that get in the way of what was a tremendous night; one that added the most compelling evidence yet that horror is finally held in just as high a regard as other, more traditionally prestigious genres.

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