These are this year's Oscar winners

One Battle After Another triumphed at the Oscars on Sunday, winning six awards, including the coveted best picture statuette, besting Sinners in a thrilling finale to one of the most competitive awards seasons in recent years.

Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle - a wild tale of leftist revolutionaries, white supremacists and immigrant detention centres - felt to many filmgoers like it offered a window on modern America.

But the zany political satire - chock full of heart-pounding car chases, gunfights and harrowing escapes - also features romance, offbeat humour, and a touching story of a father's unconditional love for his daughter.

That potent mix earned the movie a best picture Oscar - and overall top honours with a total of six golden statuettes.

"The thing that gets me really excited about making films is collaborating with people," Anderson told reporters backstage.

The director rallied a cast of megawatt A-listers, including past Oscar winners Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn (who won again on Sunday) and Benicio Del Toro. He also got a searing breakthrough turn from Oscar nominee Teyana Taylor.

The film's Oscar success seemed preordained.

Despite Ryan Coogler's Sinners leading the nomination tally with a record-setting 16, One Battle racked up the precursor awards, from the Critics' Choice Awards to the Golden Globes to the BAFTAs.

Loosely based on Thomas Pynchon's novel Vineland, the movie follows the story of the fictional French 75, a radical leftist revolutionary group staging a series of bombings in support of liberal causes.

Their work starts to go off the rails when they rescue a group of immigrants from a facility on the US-Mexico border, and firebrand Perfidia Beverly Hills (Taylor) makes an enemy of the fantastically named Colonel Steve Lockjaw (Penn).

Perfidia vanishes, and her explosives expert lover Pat (DiCaprio) goes into hiding with their daughter Willa (newcomer Chase Infiniti).

Lockjaw, meanwhile, slowly picks off each member of the French 75 and gets involved with a group of white supremacists called the Christmas Adventurers.

Cut to 16 years later, and Pat, known now as Bob Ferguson, is off the grid and in a constant state of paranoia. Lockjaw, however, locates him - and isn't afraid to stage bogus immigration crackdowns to catch him.

Willa, now a teen, vanishes, but Bob, his brain addled by years of alcohol and drug use, struggles to reconnect with his revolutionary pals to find her. DiCaprio goes on a journey - in his bathrobe and an unfortunate man bun - to salvage his family.

"I love the idea that you expect this character's going to use massive espionage skills, but he cannot remember the password," DiCaprio told reporters in September when the film opened.

Michael B Jordan battles his way to Oscar

Michael B. Jordan on Sunday won the best actor Oscar for playing twins confronted with pure evil in the vampire race fable Sinners - tortured fighters typical of the roles director Ryan Coogler has repeatedly created for him.

Jordan made good on the momentum he gained by winning the SAG Actor Award two weeks ago to bring home an Academy Award in his first try.

He bested Marty Supreme star Timothee Chalamet, who had been the frontrunner for most of Hollywood's awards season, along with Leonardo DiCaprio of One Battle After Another, Wagner Moura (The Secret Agent) and Ethan Hawke (Blue Moon).

At age 39, Jordan joins a small circle of Black actors who have won the prestigious Best Actor Oscar, after Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, Forest Whitaker and Will Smith.

"I stand here because of the people who came before me," an emotional Jordan told the audience.

Sinners, a supernatural tale of racial segregation in 1930s Mississippi, was a box office success in large part due to Jordan's compelling performances as Smoke and Stack, World War I veterans who return home after working in organised crime in Chicago.

The brothers want to open an off-the-books juke joint, smack in the middle of the Prohibition era.

Of course, they want to make some money, but they also want to help the locals drown their sorrows in alcohol and the blues.

Things quickly go sour when white vampires come calling, looking to quench their thirst for blood and music.

'Charisma'

The twin roles fall right in line with other characters designed for Jordan by Coogler, who has featured the actor in all of his films - always a complicated, imperfect man.

The pair started their collaboration with Fruitvale Station (2013), in which Jordan played Oscar Grant, a young Black man battling fate until he is shot dead by a police officer.

They moved on to the titular boxer in Creed, tormented by his father's legacy, and the villainous Killmonger of Black Panther, traumatised by being an orphan in a racist world.

Coogler says Jordan's success in tough roles is a "testament to his charisma".

"As soon as you put the camera on him, you just naturally care about the guy, he told The New York Times in April last year, when Sinners debuted.

The filmmaker has turned Jordan into a star over the last decade, even when the actor doubted he could overcome the perennial obstacles for Black performers in Hollywood.

Coogler "gave me the reassurance and the confidence that I needed," Jordan told the Times in the same interview.

"It made me double down and fueled this fire that I had to make it a reality."

KPop Demon Hunters wins two Oscars

Netflix's smash hit KPop Demon Hunters - a tale of good and evil incorporating traditional Korean mythology and set to a thumping soundtrack - on Sunday won the Oscar for best animated feature.

It snapped up a second Academy Award for best original song for Golden, the film's infectious anthem about empowerment, self-reliance and personal growth. It was the first K-pop song to win the category.

The movie - co-produced with Sony Pictures Animation - premiered on Netflix in June 2025, but quickly found a massive global following and is currently the streaming giant's most-watched original film of all time.

When a special sing-along version was released in North American theatres for one weekend only, it easily topped the box office chart.

"This is for Korea and Koreans everywhere," co-director Maggie Kang told the audience, with co-director Chris Appelhans and producer Michelle Wong at her side.

South Korean news channel YTN praised Kang's "heartfelt message to Korea", and the Hankook Ilbo newspaper featured the quote in a headline.

The movie tells the tale of HUNTR/X, a popular K-pop girl group whose members live double lives as weapons-wielding demon slayers. Their songs help create a magical barrier called the Honmoon that protects humanity.

The role of demon hunter is passed down over the generations.

The current trio - Rumi, Mira and Zoey - are sassy women who dress well but also are goofy and wolf down Korean food between performances and hunting missions.

They must square off against a demon boy band, the Saja Boys, who are sent by the demon lord Gwi-ma to weaken the Honmoon. A battle for humanity ensues.

The film borrows from the idea of shamanism - the tradition of having intermediaries to interact with the spiritual world, and features sweeping recreations of Seoul's skyline.

Kang has explained that the project was years in the making.

"This silly K-pop movie idea could represent so many aspects of my culture. Once I realised that, it was full force, making the most Korean movie I could make," she told The New York Times in an interview published in January.

"I wrote a lot of things in Korean first, in my head, and thought about what is the best way to translate this emotion or dialogue into English?"

The main cast is made up mostly of Korean actors.

Oscar winners in main categories

Here are the winners in key categories for the 98th Academy Awards, which were handed out in Hollywood on Sunday.

One Battle After Another emerged as the big winner with six awards, followed by Sinners with four.

Best picture: One Battle After Another

Best director: Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another

Best actor: Michael B. Jordan, Sinners

Best actress: Jessie Buckley, Hamnet

Best supporting actor: Sean Penn, One Battle After Another

Best supporting actress: Amy Madigan, Weapons

Best original screenplay: Ryan Coogler, Sinners

Best adapted screenplay: Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another

Best international feature film: Sentimental Value (Norway)

Best animated feature: Kpop Demon Hunters

Best documentary feature: Mr Nobody Against Putin