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LAST UPDATE | 16 Mar
MICHAEL B JORDAN has won the Oscar for Best Actor for his performance in Sinners.
The actor became the frontrunner to scoop the award in a tight race that ultimately tipped in his favour after his surprise win at the Actor Awards earlier this month.
He beat Timothée Chalamet, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ethan Hawke and Wagner Moura to win his first Oscar.
Jordan played twin brothers Elijah ‘Smoke’ and Elias ‘Stack’ Moore in Ryan Coogler’s vampire thriller, making him the first actor to win the Oscar for playing twins and the first since Lee Marvin in 1965 to win for playing multiple roles in the same film.
“God is good,” he said as he took to the stage after a huge standing ovation from the room.
The actor gave a shoutout to his mother in the audience as well as his father, who flew in from Ghana to be there, before thanking the cast and crew of Sinners.
“I’m glad to call you a collaborator and a friend. You gave me the space to be seen,” he told director Ryan Coogler in the crowd. “I love you to death.”
“I stand here because of the people who came before me,” he said, before listing black actors who have also won Oscars, including Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, Halle Berry, Jamie Foxx and Will Smith.
He concluded by thanking “everybody in this room and everybody at home for supporting my career”.
“I know you guys want me to do well, and I want to do that because you guys bet on me. So thank you for keeping on betting on me.”
He promised that he would “keep stepping up and keep being the best version of myself I can be”.
Earlier in the ceremony, Sean Penn won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor at the 98th Academy Awards – though he did not attend the ceremony to accept the award.
The veteran actor won for his performance in the action thriller One Battle After Another, in which he played the villainous Colonel Steven J Lockjaw.
It is Penn’s third Oscar. He previously won Best Actor for Mystic River in 2004 and Milk in 2009.
This year, he beat Benicio del Toro, Delroy Lindo, Jacob Elordi and Stellan Skarsgård in a category that was hard to call – though he won the BAFTA and the Actor Award for his performance.
Presenting the award, last year’s winner Kieran Culkin confirmed Penn “couldn’t be here this evening, or didn’t want to”, and accepted the award on his behalf.
Penn has been critical of the Academy in the past. In 2024, he said it had exercised “really extraordinary cowardice when it comes to being part of the bigger world of expression” and had been part of “limiting the imagination and very limiting of different cultural expressions”.
Amy Madigan was named Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars for her role in the supernatural horror film Weapons.
It was the first gold statuette awarded at the ceremony.
Madigan played the sinister Aunt Gladys, notable for her red hair, white makeup and big glasses. The character’s appearance became an online meme last year, and was impersonated by Conan O’Brien in his opening monologue.
Accepting the award, the 75-year-old said she had been asked by the media about the 40-year gap between now and her last Oscar nomination in 1986 for Twice in a Lifetime.
“What’s difference is I got this little gold guy,” she said, shaking her award.
“I was in the shower last night trying to think of something to say as I was shaving my legs. I’ve got pants on, I don’t need to worry about that.”
Madigan went on to thank her fellow nominees – Elle Fanning, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Wunmi Mosaku and Teyana Taylor, for making her feel like part of the fold, given she was the sole nominee for Weapons.
She also thanked her daughter Lily and her husband of over 40 years, fellow actor Ed Harris.
“He’s been with me forever, and that’s a long-ass time, and none of this would mean anything if he wasn’t by my side,” she said.
She added: “Thank you, I’m very overwhelmed.”
Ryan Coogler won Best Original Screenplay for Sinners, while Paul Thomas Anderson won Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Director for One Battle After Another.
There was a dramatic moment when there was a tie in the Live-Action Short category, which was won by both Two People Exchanging Saliva and The Singers.
After the winners left the stage, host Conan O’Brien congratulated them and said: “You just ruined 22 million Oscar pools.”
It is the first time since 2013 there have been tied winners, when Skyfall and Zero Dark Thirty shard the sound editing award.
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