‘Sinners,’ ‘One Battle After Another’ Win Precursor Awards

The 98th Academy Awards will air in just a couple weeks, and everyone is wondering who will take home the top prize: Best Picture. The odds-on favorites are Paul Thomas Anderson’s satirical epic drama One Battle After Another, which has 13 nominations; and Ryan Coogler’s prestige horror film Sinners, which has a record-setting 16.

With that many nominations, you might think that Sinners is destined for the top prize. And it is winning some pre-Oscar gold, including at the Guild of Music Supervisors Awards, where it won Best Music Supervision in Major Budget Films, for Niki Sherrod; and Best Song Written and/or Recording for a Film, for Raphael Saadiq’s “I Lied To You.” Per the AP, Saadiq was also given an Icon Award for his contributions to the film and music industries. Meanwhile, One Battle After Another only took home the award for Best Music Supervision in a Trailer (Film).

But One Battle After Another is winning big elsewhere. At last week’s BAFTAs (which had an award ceremony so memorable it was parodied on Saturday Night Live), One Battle After Another took home prizes for Best Director (for Anderson), Supporting Actor (for Sean Penn), Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Editing, and most importantly, Best Film. Meanwhile, Sinners won Supporting Actress (for Wunmi Wosaku), Original Score (for Ludwig Göransson), and Original Screenplay.

Warner Bros.

Finally, per Variety, One Battle After Another won the Daryl F. Zanuck award for best feature film at the 37th annual Producers Guild Awards. That one matters a lot, because the winner of that award has also won Best Picture at the Oscars for five years running. In the last 10 years, the PGAs have only failed to predict the Best Picture Oscar winner twice.

And yet twice isn’t never, so there’s still a chance that Sinners could triumph over One Battle After Another when the 98th Academy Awards air on ABC (and live on Hulu) at 7:00 p.m. EST on Sunday, March 15. But it is looking more and more like One Battle After Another’s battle to lose. One Battle After Another also took home top honors at the Golden Globes and the Directors Guild Awards.

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The nominations for the 98th Academy Awards are finally here.

This makes Sinners a bit of an underdog going into the Oscars, which may be exactly where it needs to be before it turns things around and wins in an upset. Apart from that rivalry, it’s just nice to see such a strong field of nominees battling for Best Picture this year. In addition to Sinners and One Battle After Another, nominees include Hamnet, Frankenstein, Marty Supreme, Sentimental Value, Bugonia, F1, The Secret Agent, and Train Dreams.

It’s also worth noting that Sinners, One Battle After Another, and fellow Best Picture nominee F1 were all distributed by Warner Bros. Discovery, which now looks like it will be bought out by Paramount. Hopefully Warner Bros. will still be able to produce great movies after Paramount buys them and makes whatever changes it’s contemplating.