Vampire thriller Sinners made Oscars history on Thursday by securing a record 16 nominations, emerging as the leading contender for Best Picture and setting up a Best Actor showdown between Michael B Jordan, Timothée Chalamet and Leonardo DiCaprio.
Produced by Warner Bros, Sinners celebrates blues music and Black culture in the segregation-era American South. The film will compete for Best Picture against One Battle After Another, Frankenstein, Hamnet, Marty Supreme, Bugonia, F1, The Secret Agent, Sentimental Value and Train Dreams.
The previous record for the most Oscar nominations, 14, was held by All About Eve, Titanic and La La Land.
This year’s nominations span a wide range of genres, from historical drama and political thrillers to supernatural horror, reflecting the Academy’s growing openness to unconventional storytelling. Several nominees are also major box office successes, which could help boost viewership for the March 15 Oscars ceremony.
Michael B Jordan received a Best Actor nomination for his dual role as twin brothers who open a juke joint in 1930s Mississippi, sparking a violent clash between gangsters and vampires that serves as an allegory for segregation and racism. The film also earned nominations for director Ryan Coogler, supporting actors Delroy Lindo and Wunmi Mosaku, as well as cinematography, costume design, original screenplay and visual effects.
Jordan will face competition from Leonardo DiCaprio, nominated for his role in the offbeat action film One Battle After Another, which earned 13 nominations, and Timothée Chalamet for his performance in table tennis drama Marty Supreme.
Paul Thomas Anderson received a directing nomination for One Battle After Another, which stars DiCaprio as a former radical turned suburban father. Supporting acting nominations went to Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro and Teyana Taylor.
In the Best Actress category, Jessie Buckley was nominated for her portrayal of Agnes Hathaway, William Shakespeare’s wife, in Hamnet, while Kate Hudson earned a nod for Song Sung Blue, about a Neil Diamond tribute band.
Chloé Zhao received a directing nomination for Hamnet, a film imagining how Shakespeare’s family coped with the death of their 11-year-old son. Paul Mescal, who played Shakespeare, was not nominated.
In the international feature category, Tunisian film The Voice of Hind Rajab, which recounts the attempted rescue of a six-year-old girl killed in Gaza in 2024, was nominated alongside Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s crime thriller It Was Just an Accident.
Winners will be chosen by the Academy’s nearly 10,000 members, with the ceremony broadcast by ABC and streamed on Hulu. Comedian Conan O’Brien will host for the second consecutive year.
Warner Bros Discovery led all studios with 30 nominations. Netflix, still seeking its first Best Picture win, earned nominations for Frankenstein and Train Dreams. Two Best Picture contenders, Sentimental Value from Norway and Brazil’s The Secret Agent, are non-English language films.
The highest-grossing Best Picture nominee is Brad Pitt’s racing drama F1, which has earned nearly $632 million worldwide.
