The 98th Academy Awards are nearly here, and there’s a good chance that several Oscar records will be broken this year.
There are plenty of history-making moments on the line – from statuette records to individual performer achievements.
As the last night of awards season inches closer, Euronews Culture looks at some of the biggest potential record-breaking moments that could define the 2026 Oscars.
Can the all-time record be broken?
This year’s Oscar race comes down to Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another and Ryan Coogler’s Sinners. The former has 13 nominations, while the latter has already broken the Academy record for the most nominations ever achieved by a film with 16 nods.
Question is now whether one of them will break the all-time record of 11 wins – which was achieved by three films: Ben-Hur in 1959, Titanic is 1997 and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King in 2003.
How likely? Considering One Battle After Another has 13 nominations in 12 categories, as Sean Penn and Benicio del Toro are both nominated for Best Supporting Actor, it’s up to Sinners on this one. It’s possible, but still a stretch.
First Black director winner?
Ryan Coogler is the seventh Black nominee in the Best Director category, following John Singleton (Boyz n the Hood) in 1992; Lee Daniels (Precious) in 2010; Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave) in 2014; Barry Jenkins (Moonlight) in 2017; Jordan Peele (Get Out) in 2018; and Spike Lee (BlacKkKlansman) in 2019. None have won it and Coogler could succeed where they missed out.
How likely? It’s possible, but we’re betting that Paul Thomas Anderson will win his first (and overdue) Best Director Oscar.
A second win for a female director?
Chloé Zhao, who is nominated for Best Director for Hamnet, is the only female director nominated this year. If she were to win, she would become the first woman to nab Best Director twice.
For reference, only three women have ever won Best Director at the Oscars: Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker in 2010; Zhao for Nomadland in 2021; and Jane Campion for The Power of the Dog in 2022.
How likely? Unlikely. It’s between Anderson and Coogler this year, and our money is on Anderson.
Many acting records about to be broken?
There are several potential milestones in the acting categories this year.
Jessie Buckley, nominated for Hamnet, could become the first Irish actress to ever win in the Best Actress category. Brenda Fricker won Best Supporting Actress for My Left Foot and is – so far – the only Irish woman to have won an acting Oscar.
Emma Stone, nominated for Bugonia, could become only the third actress in history to win Best Actress three times (joining Katharine Hepburn and Frances McDormand). She previously won for La La Land and Poor Things.
Renate Reinsve, nominated for Sentimental Value, could become the first Norwegian actress to ever win in the Best Actress category.
Michael B. Jordan, nominated for Sinners, could become the first actor to win Best Actor for playing twin characters.
Should Timothée Chalamet win for his turn in Marty Supreme, he’ll become the second-youngest ever winner of Best Actor – the youngest being Adrien Brody for his performance in The Pianist in 2003. He was 29 years old. Chalamet turned 30 in December.
Wagner Moura, nominated for The Secret Agent, could become the first Brazilian to win in any acting category. Also, he would be the first Best Actor representing a non-English movie to win since 1997, when Roberto Benigni won for Life Is Beautiful.
In the supporting categories, Wunmi Mosaku, nominated for Sinners, could become the first Nigerian actress - and the first Nigerian in any category - to win an Academy Award.
Sean Penn, nominated for One Battle After Another, may become the fourth male actor to win three acting Oscars (joining Daniel Day-Lewis, Jack Nicholson, and Walter Brennan). Penn previously won Best Actor for Milk and Mystic River.
As for Stellan Skarsgård, nominated for Sentimental Value, he could make it as the first Swedish actor and the first Nordic male actor to win an Oscar for acting.
And then there's the wonderful Amy Madigan, nominated for Weapons, who could set the record for the longest gap between a first nomination and a first win - a stretch of 40 years since her nomination in 1986 for Twice in a Lifetime.
How likely? Deep breath... Jessie Buckley will break the record, meaning Emma Stone won’t; Michael B. Jordan will probably win Best Actor, so Wagner Moura and Timothée Chalamet won’t break their records; Teyana Taylor (One Battle After Another) and Amy Madigan are favourites in the Best Supporting Actress category, meaning it won’t be Wunmi Mosaku’s turn; Sean Penn will probably join the three-timers club, resulting in Skarsgård not making history; and Madigan looks set to break her record.
The first woman to win Best Cinematography?
One Oscar category has never been won by a woman: Best Cinematography.
Only three women have previously been nominated in the category: Rachel Morrison for Mudbound in 2017; Ari Wegner for The Power of the Dog in 2021; and Mandy Walker for Elvis in 2022.
This year, Autumn Durald Arkapaw has become only the fourth woman – and the first woman of colour - to receive a cinematography nomination for her work on Sinners.
How likely? There is a strong possibility that Autumn Durald Arkapaw will make history in this traditionally male-dominated field as both the first woman and the first woman of colour to win Best Cinematography.
The first Black female producer winner?
Should Sinners win the top prize on Sunday, Zinzi Coogler, Ryan Coogler’s wife, would become the first Black woman to win as producer.
Oprah Winfrey (Selma) and Kimberly Steward (Manchester by the Sea) were both nominated and lost.
How likely? It’s between Sinners and One Battle After Another ... Those odds aren’t bad.
Non-English language history about to be made?
Joachim Trier earned a whopping nine nominations for Sentimental Value and his film could become the most awarded international production at the Oscars.
In terms of nominations, the record is still held by Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma, which was selected for 10 categories. It only won three – including Best Director. As for wins, Bong Joon-ho's Parasite holds the record, as it won four Oscars, including Best Picture (the first non-English-language film to do so).
And before any clever clogs pull out the “Well, actually, The Artist is a foreign film as it’s a French production and it won five Oscars in 2012 including Best Picture”, it doesn’t qualify and wasn’t eligible for consideration for Best International Feature Film (then Best Foreign Film), as the few words that are in it are spoken in English.
We don’t make the rules. Back to this year’s potential record-breaker...
Sentimental Value looks set to win Best International Film and will become Norway’s first win in this category. And in case you were wondering, only one Norwegian film has ever won an Oscar: Thor Heyerdahl’s documentary Kon-Tiki in 1951.
Could it beat Parasite ’s record?
How likely? The odds are that Sentimental Value won’t follow in Parasite ’s footsteps to win both Best International Feature Film and Best Picture. It faces fierce competition this year in all its categories, so it’s unlikely that it will break any records.
The Oscars take place on Sunday 15 March (very early in the morning on Monday 16 March for European audiences). Stay tuned to Euronews Culture for more Oscar news in the leadup to the ceremony, including our predictions for this year’s winners.
