The actors, directors, producers, nominees and production crew have made their way to the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles to celebrate the biggest night in Hollywood. The 98th annual Academy Awards returns to ABC tonight to celebrate cinematic achievements in the film industry.
Academy Awards host Conan O’Brien, second from right, joins crew members to roll out the red carpet for Sunday’s Oscars telecast, on Wednesday, March 11, 2026, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)The official ceremony begins at 4 p.m. PT with Conan O’Brien returning as the host for the evening after hosting the 97th annual Academy Awards last year.
New to the ceremony this year will be the award for best casting, which recognizes the essential role casting directors play in making movies come to life. The inaugural nominees for the category include Nina Gold for “Hamnet,” Jennifer Venditti for “Marty Supreme,” Cassandra Kulukundis for “One Battle After Another,” Gabriel Domingues for “The Secret Agent” and Francine Maisler for “Sinners.”
“Sinners” made history this year as the most nominated film in Academy Award history. The Ryan Coogler film has received 16 nominations. Before that, the record had been a three-way tie among “All About Eve,” “Titanic” and “La La Land,” with each of those films earning 14 Academy Award nominations.
Heading into the ceremony, the best actor in a leading role category has become a main talking point over this past week after a clip with Timothée Chalamet resurfaced online. “I don’t wanna be working in ballet or opera, or, you know, things where it’s like, hey, keep this thing alive. Even though it’s like, no one cares about this anymore,” said Chalamet on February 24. “All respect to the ballet and opera people out there. I just lost 14 cents in viewership.”
The criticism about the comment became a story online just a few days after the Thursday, March 5, deadline for the voting window for the 98th annual Academy Awards. Because of this, it’s unlikely that Chalamet’s critique of ballet and opera will have any impact on voters’ decision for the best actor category.
4:00 p.m. – The show begins
It only took a minute or so of Conan O’Brien’s opening monologue for him to address Timothée Chalamet’s recent comments, joking that there was extra security this year because of threats made by the ballet and opera communities. The camera quickly cut to Chalamet, who laughed off the joke.
Big cheers interrupt O’Brien’s monologue as he mentions the best documentary short film category, prompting the comedian to ask the audience, “What’s that about?”
The monologue ends in a musical moment with singer Josh Groban joining O’Brien on stage for a skit about how the late-night host would not so humbling be accepting an award tonight if he won.
Amy Madigan took home the first award for the night for best supporting actress for her role in “Weapons.” The actress started laughing from excitement as she took this stage before saying, “This is great!”
Jane Lynch also makes a pop up ad cameo as O’Brien jokes about how he doesn’t think the Oscars’ move to YouTube in the future will change the show.
The cast of “Sinners” receives a standing ovation for their performance of the nominated song “I Lied to You.” The performance was led by Miles Caton and Raphael Saadiq. It also featured artists Shaboozey, Brittany Howard, Buddy Guy, Eric Gales and Christone “Kingfish” Ingram.
K-pop Demon Hunters wins best animated feature film. The movie has made waves over the last year in part because of it’s catchy anthem “Golden.”
“Frankenstein” wins for both best costume design as well as best makeup and hairstyling. Jacob Elordi gets a shoutout for spending over 400 hours in the makeup chair for the film. In the press room, makeup artist Mike Hill continued to sing Eldori’s praises, “10 hours a day, 56 times and the man didn’t complain once.” Fellow winner and makeup artist Jordan Samuel chimed in as well, to point out that it wasn’t just the fact that it was a 10-hour-long daily process, sharing, “For four or five of those hours, Jacob stood.”
5 p.m.
Cassandra Kulukundis wins the inaugural award for best casting for “One Battle After Another.”
It’s a tie! “The Singers” and “Two People Exchanging Saliva” each take home the award for best live action short film. “I just want to congratulate both winners. You just ruined 22 million Oscar pools,” joked O’Brien.
“Sinners” wins for best original screenplay, leading to a voluminous applause in the Dolby Theatre. “Please sit down, I’m very nervous they’re going to play me off,” said the writer-director of the film Ryan Coogler. Coogler then asked the cast and crew to stand up so he good acknowledge their work in the film as well.
Refresh this page throughout the night for live updates from the 98th annual Academy Awards.