Warner Bros, the studio currently in the final stages of talks over a buyout by rivals Paramount, has taken a record 11 prizes from the 98th Academy Awards.
It ties the record for most wins by a studio at the Academy Awards with MGM, who took that number in 1959 with Ben-Hur, Paramount for 1997’s Titanic and New Line Cinema with The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King in 2003. That outfit was later absorbed into Warner Bros.
The studio went into the evening with 30 nominations, beating its previous record of 28 from 1943, when the studio’s drama Casablanca took best picture. Neon went into the 2026 ceremony with the second highest number of nominations, having 18, and came away with just one win, for Sentimental Value’s foreign language Oscar.
In the end Netflix – who recently backed away from a proposed takeover of Warner Bros – came second with six wins, while Disney, Apple and Focus Features (which is owned by Universal) joined Neon in going home with one award. Paramount had no nominations.
Twenty-nine of Warner Bros’ nominations came from the two main rivals for the big awards: Sinners (16 nominations) and One Battle After Another (13), while Amy Madigan’s supporting actress nomination for Weapons accounted for the last nod.
Sinners ended up with four Oscars, One Battle After Another with six and Weapons with one.
The triumph looks set to strengthen the studio’s hand in their talks with Paramount Skydance over the proposed $111bn acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery, the parent group which owns HBO, HBO Max, CNN, TBS and Food Network, as well as the Warner Bros TV and film studios.
