Michael B. Jordan & Amy Madigan Among Biggest Surprises at 2026 Oscars

As always, the 98th Academy Awards were filled with unpredictable surprises and twist wins that nobody saw coming. While One Battle After Another's well-deserved Best Picture victory wasn't much of a surprise, there were some shockers in the earlier categories.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the night was Michael B. Jordan's victory in Best Actor—a category where TimothéeChalamet had been the perceived frontrunner since this year's awards season kicked off in January.

Chalamet won the Golden Globe and Critics' Choice Award, but his momentum stalled in the final stretch when he lost the BAFTA Award to Robert Aramayo and the SAG Actor Award to Michael B. Jordan.

Chalamet was ultimately unable to stop the cultural momentum of Sinners, which gave Jordan the edge and allowed him to pick up Best Actor towards the end of the ceremony.

But audiences didn't have to wait long for the Oscars to surprise them—the very first category that was announced, Best Supporting Actress, went to Amy Madigan for her role in Weapons.

While Madigan had already picked up a couple of precursors, she certainly wasn't the favorite to win. Not only does the Academy typically shy away from horror movie performances, but it seemed like Sinners' Wunmi Mosaku would be a logical choice given the film's undeniable momentum.

And knowing that One Battle After Another would end up being the night's big winner, it also would have made sense to see Teyana Taylor win here. Madigan's victory was a very unexpected way to kick the ceremony off, but a very welcome change from the typical frontrunners.

The other two acting categories were fairly predictable, with Jessie Buckley and Sean Penn picking up their trophies for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor as most people expected. Sean Penn wasn't around to receive his award, however, so host Kieran Culkin was forced to accept on his behalf.

There were a couple of shake-ups in the technical categories too, as Autumn Durald Arkapaw won Best Cinematography for Sinners and became the first female winner in the history of the category. Many were expecting Train Dreams or Hamnet to win here.

The screenplay categories went as expected, with Sinners picking up Best Original Screenplay and One Battle After Another picking up Best Adapted Screenplay—one for each of the night's biggest winners.

The Oscars' new category, Best Casting, went to One Battle After Another—despite Sinners just winning the SAG Actor Award for Best Ensemble. This was another surprise, but admittedly one that experts didn't have much data to base their predictions on since the category is brand new.