Excitingly, the 2026 Oscars saw a number of performers and filmmakers picking up those iconic gold statuettes for the first time – some of whom are relatively early on in their careers, and others who’ve been waiting a long time to win an Academy Award.

While One Battle After Another and Sinners were the two biggest success stories of the night, there were plenty of other movies whose cast and crew picked up awards during Sunday night’s ceremony.

Here are just seven first-time winners from this year’s Oscars…

After a clean sweep at awards season this year, Jessie Buckley rounded things off with a win in the Best Actress category for her performance in the heartbreaking drama Hamnet.

The Irish performer had one Oscar nomination to her name already this year, off the back of her work in the Maggie Gyllenhaal movie The Lost Daughter, in which she played the younger version of Olivia Colman’s character.

The Best Actor category was one of the most open contests in the lead-up to the 2026 Oscars, but in the end, Sinners star Michael B Jordan beat stiff competition from Leonardo DiCaprio, Timothée Chalamet, Ethan Hawke and Wagner Moura to the prize.

Michael’s win was one of the night’s most emotional moments, following his performance as twins Smoke and Stack in the hugely popular musical vampire thriller.

Amy Madigan achieved something really rare at the 2026 Oscars, winning an Academy Award for playing a horror character, after stealing the show in last year’s Weapons thanks to her work as Aunt Gladys.

Before this year, Amy had earned one Oscar nomination previously, back in 1986, for the film Twice In A Lifetime.

Earlier this year, she broke the record for the longest gap between two nominations at the Academy Awards, joking on stage: “Everybody’s asking me in the press, ‘well, it’s been 40 years, what’s different about this time?’. What’s different is I got this little gold guy!”

Back in January, Sinners made Oscars history when it received more nominations than any other film since the Academy Awards started.

While sadly, it didn’t end up becoming the night’s top winner when the ceremony came around, it did pick up a respectable four awards, including Best Original Screenplay for Ryan Coogler.

Ryan’s first nomination was in 2020 as a producer on the Best Picture nominee Judas And The Black Messiah, with another following two years later for his work on the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever soundtrack.

“You make a guy work hard for one of these!” Paul Thomas Anderson joked during his first speech at Sunday night’s Oscars, quickly adding: “I really appreciate it.”

It’s been almost 30 years since Paul was first nominated for an Oscar as the director of Boogie Nights, consistently racking up more nods for movies like Inherent Vice, Phantom Thread and There Will Be Blood, none of which translated into a win until this year.

Of One Battle Another Another’s six wins, half of them were for Paul himself, who picked up three awards for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.

One of Sinners’ wins was in the Best Cinematography category.

Not only was this Autumn Durald Arkapaw’s first time winning an Oscar, it was the first time any female artist has triumphed in this category, which was not lost on the creator, who invited all of the women in the room to stand up with her to commemorate the moment.

What movie fans might not realise is that the Best International Feature Film prize doesn’t just go to filmmakers, but to actual countries.

So, this year’s triumph for Sentimental Value marks the first time a Norwegian film has won in this category – technically marking the first time Norway itself has received an Oscar, as well as its director, Joachim Trier.

Check out the full list of winners from the 2026 Oscars here.

This year’s Oscars ceremony featured a hilarious Bridesmaids reunion to commemorate the film’s 15th anniversary.

However, as fans of the hit comedy will no doubt have quickly noticed, the group was actually a bridesmaid down when they took to the stage during the awards show on Sunday evening.

During the broadcast, Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph were joined by former co-stars Melissa McCarthy, Ellie Kemper and Rose Byrne, the latter of whom was nominated for her first Academy Award at the event, for her performance in the dark comedy If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.

However, noticeably absent was Wendi McLendon-Covey, who went on to appear in The Goldbergs and St. Denis Medical in the years since her break-out performance as Rita.

Explaining Wendi’s no-show, Bridesmaids director Paul Feig told Entertainment Tonight on the Oscars red carpet: “I just heard that she was not available. She might even be traveling, I’m not sure.”

He quickly added: “But we will miss her terribly, because I love Wendi.”

Watch the Bridesmaids gang’s reunion skit for yourself below:

Upon its release in 2011, Bridesmaids was nominated for two Oscars, with Melissa McCarthy receiving an acting nod and screenwriters Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo also getting recognition for the script.

Melissa received a second Academy Award nomination in 2020 following her leading performance in Can You Ever Forgive Me?.

With six wins in total, the big winner at the 2026 Oscars was One Battle After Another, written and directed by Maya Rudolph’s long-term partner Paul Thomas Anderson.

After setting a new record for the most nominations in Oscars history, Sinners won four awards on the night, with Frankenstein and KPop Demon Hunters also coming away with multiple wins each.

Check out our full round-up of all the winners from this year’s Academy Awards here.

In the lead-up to this year’s Oscars, it looked like the Best Actor prize could have gone in one of several directions, after previous wins for Timothée Chalamet, Wagner Moura and Michael B Jordan at various awards shows over the last few months.

At Sunday night’s Academy Awards, it was Sinners star Michael who came out on top, in one of the night’s most memorable and emotionally-charged moments.

The US star was visibly stunned when his name was called by last year’s recipient Adrien Brody, first pausing to share the moment with his mum, who was seated to his right, before being wrapped up in a hug by Sinners director Ryan Coogler.

He and co-star Delroy Lindo then also shared a moment before Michael headed up to the stage to collect his award – but what really came across was just how much love there was for the Black Panther star from the whole auditorium.

Meanwhile, in his acceptance speech, he paid homage to the Black performers who have won Oscars for their leading performances in the past, name-checking Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, Halle Berry, Jamie Foxx, Forest Whitaker and Will Smith.

Michael played twins Smoke and Stack in Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, which made Oscars history as the most-nominated film ever at the Academy Awards.

In the end, it triumphed in an impressive four categories in total, but One Battle After Another was the year’s big winner, picking up six awards including Best Director for Paul Thomas Anderson and the coveted Best Picture prize.

Sean Penn also won his third Oscar on Sunday night for his work in One Battle After Another (but didn’t attend to accept it in person), while the hotly-contested Best Supporting Actress went to Amy Madigan for Weapons, over One Battle After Another’s Teyana Taylor and Sinners’ Wunmi Mosaku, as well as Sentimental Value’s Elle Fanning and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas.

Meanwhile, Frankenstein came away with three technical prizes, and family favourite KPop Demon Hunters won two awards in total.

Take a look at our round-up of all the winners from the 2026 Oscars here.

Javier Bardem gave this year’s Oscars its most explicitly political moment while presenting on stage at the awards show.

The Academy Award winner was among the A-list guests at Sunday night’s ceremony, where he made headlines before the event had even begun with his outfit on the red carpet, posing for photographers while sporting a badge with “no to war” written on it in Spanish.

“I’m wearing a pin that I first used in 2003, with the Iraq war, which was an illegal war” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “We are here, 23 years after, with another illegal war, created by Trump and Netanyahu with another lie.”

He also wore an additional badge expressing solidarity with the people of Palestine.

Later in the evening, he and Priyanka Chopra Jonas presented the award for Best International Feature Film, but before getting to his script, Javier declared “no to war, and Free Palestine” to rapturous applause from the Oscars audience.

The Spanish actor has been a vocal supporter of Palestine for some time, previously taking a stand at the Emmys last year.

At the annual TV awards, where he had been nominated for his work in the Ryan Murphy anthology series Monster, Javier walked the red carpet wearing a traditional Palestinian keffiyeh, and also gave an impassioned interview with The Hollywood Reporter as he made his way into the ceremony.

Calling out those in the industry who are scared to speak out, Javier lamented: “I know what I’m doing, I know what it can bring, it’s OK. Me not getting jobs is absolutely [irrelevant] compared to what is going on [in Gaza]. It’s that easy.”

He added: “[People’s] silence, because they are afraid, is their support to the genocide.”

Take a look at our full round-up of must-see moments from the 2026 Oscars ceremony here.

While her sense of humour is perhaps not the first thing that comes to mind when most of us think of Anna Wintour, she certainly managed to raise a smile while presenting at the 2026 Oscars.

Early on in Sunday night’s ceremony, the long-time Vogue editor came on stage to present two awards with Anne Hathaway.

Anne, of course, is the star of The Devil Wears Prada and its upcoming sequel, both of which feature the character Miranda Priestly, heavily rumoured to have been inspired by Anna.

Introducing the Best Costume Design prize, the Oscar winner told the audience: “A character’s costume is key to telling a story.

“One could argue that one’s wardrobe in real life is also key. Does it make one appear elegant and attractive on, say, the most important night in Hollywood, and say when the most important people in fashion will be judging how one looks?”

Turning to her co-host, she continued: “Anna, just curious, what do you think of my dress tonight?”

By way of response, Anna simply donned her sunglasses and declared: “And the nominees are…”

Following this, the duo then announced the winners for Best Makeup And Hairstyling, with Anna intentionally misnaming her co-presenter “Emily” in an even more explicit nod to The Devil Wears Prada.

In the original Devil Wears Prada film and the new follow-up, Meryl Streep plays Miranda Priestly, the editor of the fictitious Runway magazine, whose look and mannerisms have sparked comparisons with Anna Wintour for two decades now.

Last year, the award-winning journalist and Met Gala organised claimed: “I went to the [Devil Wears Prada] premiere wearing Prada, completely having no idea what the film was going to be about.

“I think that the fashion industry was very sweetly concerned for me about the film that it was gonna paint me in some kind of difficult light.”

Praising Meryl’s “fantastic” work in the movie, she then insisted: “I found [the film] highly enjoyable and very funny. It had a lot of humour to it, it had a lot of wit.

“I mean, [the actors are] all amazing. And in the end, I thought it was a fair shot.”

Take a look at the full list of winners from the 2026 Oscars here.

The Oscars may well have set a new bar when it came to “in memoriam” tributes during this year’s ceremony.

Regrettably, because the film world has lost so many iconic performers and filmmakers in the last 12 months, this year’s Academy Awards tributes section was extended, with Billy Crystal leading a star-studded homage to Rob Reiner and Rachel McAdams honouring Diane Keaton.

At the end of the segment, Oscar winner Barbra Streisand came out to remember her The Way We Were co-star Robert Redford.

While it had previously been rumoured that this would include a musical tribute, Barbra is notoriously reluctant to sing live in public these days, so we took the rumours with a pinch of salt.

However, the icon made a rare exception for her beloved co-star, concluding the tributes with a short blast of The Way We Were’s signature song, which won the Oscar for Best Original Song back in 1974.

There wasn’t a dry eye in the house after Barbra’s performance, and that apparently includes those watching along at home…

Before her performance, Barbra recalled: “After I read the first script of The Way We Were, I could only imagine one man in the role and that was Robert Redford. But he turned it down because he said the character had no backbone and didn’t stand for anything. And he was right.

“So, many drafts later, Bob finally agreed to do it. He was a brilliant, subtle actor, and we had a wonderful time playing off each other because we never quite knew what the other one was going to do in a scene. And I’m thrilled that The Way We Were is now considered a classic love story – but it’s also about a dark time in our history, the late 40s and early 50s, when people were informing on each other and subject to loyalty oaths.”

She continued: “Bob had real backbone – on and off the screen. He spoke up to defend freedom of the press, protect the environment and encouraged new voices at his Sundance Institute, some of whom are up for Oscars tonight, which is so great.

“He was thoughtful and bold. I called him an intellectual cowboy who blazed his own trail, and won the Academy Award for Best Director. And I miss him now more than ever, even though he loved teasing me. He’d call me ‘Babs’, and I’d say, ‘Bob, do I look like a Babs? I’m not a Babs’. But the way he said it made me laugh.

“Many years later, we were chatting on the phone about the usual – politics, art, our favourites – and as we were hanging up, he said, ‘Babs, I love you dearly and I always will’. And in the last note I ever wrote to Bob, I ended it with, ‘I love you, too’. And I signed it ‘Babs’.”

Check out the full list of winners from this year’s Oscars here.

Before the weekend, there had only ever been six ties at the Oscars.

However, on Sunday night, movie history was made when a seventh occurred.

During this year’s ceremony, Marvel star Kumail Nanjiani was welcomed to the stage to announce the winner in the Best Live Action Short category.

After opening the envelope, he revealed that two of the nominees had received the same number of votes from Academy members, meaning they’d each be awarded an Oscar.

“It’s a tie!” he exclaimed, before assuring the audience: “I’m not joking! It’s actually a tie, so everyone calm down!”

He then explained that he’d be announcing the winners one at a time, first welcoming the producers of The Singers to the stage before the crew behind Two People Exchanging Saliva collected theirs.

Uncomfortably, during the latter, the Oscars team attempted to cut the team’s acceptance speech short, before the night’s host Conan O’Brien then encouraged them to continue.

The Oscars’ most famous tie came in 1969, when screen icon Katharine Hepburn and then-newcomer Barbra Streisand split the win for Best Actress for their performances in The Lion In Winter and Funny Girl.

Back in 1932, the first tie at the Oscars came during the awards show’s fifth year, when Fredric March and Wallace Beery were both named Best Actor.

Technically, the former had received one more vote than the latter, but at this time, a rule was in place meaning that anyone within three votes of the winner would also receive an award.

So Much For So Little and A Chance To Live then split Best Documentary Short in 1950, while a similar draw occurred 37 years later when the features Artie Shaw: Time Is All You’ve Got and Down And Out In America got the same number of votes in the Best Documentary Feature category.

Trevor and Franz Kafka’s It’s A Wonderful Life were the two winners in the Best Live-Action Short category in the mid-1990s, while the latest tie was just over a decade ago, in 2013, with Zero Dark Thirty and Skyfall winning Best Sound Editing.

Check out the full list of winners from the 2026 Oscars here.