Ryan Coogler’s ‘Sinners’ Shatters Oscar Record With 16 Nominations

Ryan Coogler was still counting alongside his father when the numbers stopped making sense.

“We were watching the announcement and he’s going, ‘That’s 13, 14, 15 … 16,’” the director recalled in an interview Thursday. “I was like, ‘Dad, you got it wrong. There’s no way it’s that many.’” When news alerts confirmed the total, his father ribbed him: “So you trust the articles, you don’t trust my counting?”

By midmorning, there was no disputing the math. Sinners, Coogler’s blues‑drenched horror musical about Jim Crow–era Mississippi and a cabal of white vampires, scored 16 nominations for the 98th Academy Awards — the most for any film in Oscar history.

The haul, announced Thursday at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, surpasses the long‑standing record of 14 nominations, previously shared by All About Eve (1950), Titanic (1997) and La La Land (2016). It caps a remarkable run for an R‑rated, Black‑led, genre‑bending original that was once treated as a risky bet.

More than a statistical outlier, the showing positions Sinners at the center of a broader shift in what the Oscars honor: toward bolder genre fare, more diverse and international casts and crews, and ambitious studio films that are not based on existing franchises.

Danielle Brooks and Lewis Pullman read the nominees live starting at 5:30 a.m. Pacific time, with the event streamed on the Academy’s digital platforms, ABC News, Disney+ and Hulu. The 98th Oscars ceremony is scheduled for March 15 at the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood, with Conan O’Brien returning as host.

While Sinners leads the field, Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another emerged as its closest rival with 13 nominations. Several other titles — including Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme, Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value and Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet — also turned in strong performances across acting and craft categories, underscoring a year in which big‑canvas auteur cinema and international productions share the spotlight.

A vampire epic at the top of the heap

Set in 1932 in the Mississippi Delta, Sinners follows identical twin World War I veterans Elijah “Smoke” and Elias “Stack” Moore, both played by Michael B. Jordan, who return from Chicago and use stolen mob money to buy a failing sawmill and convert it into a Black juke joint in Clarksdale. As the club becomes a hub for blues musicians and local workers, the brothers and their community find themselves battling racist power brokers who are, in the film’s horror conceit, white Irish‑immigrant vampires. A band of Choctaw vampire slayers enters the fray.

Coogler, who wrote and directed the film and produced it through Proximity Media for Warner Bros. Pictures, stages the story as a mix of Southern Gothic drama, supernatural horror and musical, with elaborate song sequences and a score by Ludwig Göransson. Cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw shoots the Delta in saturated, sometimes surreal images, while costume designer Ruth E. Carter outfits characters in period‑accurate workwear and nightclub finery.

The film premiered in April 2025 and opened widely on April 18, including showings in IMAX 70mm and 70mm film. It went on to earn about $279 million in the United States and Canada and roughly $368 million worldwide on a production budget reported between $90 million and $100 million — an unusually strong run for a non‑franchise, adult‑skewing release.

Its theatrical performance and critical reception — 97% positive reviews on one major aggregator and an “A” grade from CinemaScore audiences — turned Sinners into a fixture on year‑end lists and awards ballots, including the American Film Institute’s top movies of the year and the National Board of Review’s top 10.

Coogler said Thursday that while the Oscar recognition was “pretty crazy,” the driving goal had been to get people back into theaters. “People showing up to the movies and having a good time is worth all the effort,” he said.

Sixteen categories, and several milestones

The Academy recognized Sinners in nearly every major race. Its 16 nominations are:

• Best Picture
• Best Director for Coogler
• Best Actor for Jordan
• Best Supporting Actor for Delroy Lindo
• Best Supporting Actress for Wunmi Mosaku
• Best Original Screenplay for Coogler
• Best Cinematography for Durald Arkapaw
• Best Film Editing for Michael P. Shawver
• Best Production Design
• Best Costume Design for Carter
• Best Makeup and Hairstyling
• Best Original Score for Göransson
• Best Original Song for “I Lied to You”
• Best Sound
• Best Visual Effects
• Best Casting for Francine Maisler

The spread includes several historical notes. Carter’s nomination makes her the most‑nominated Black woman in Oscar history, with five career nominations in costume design. Durald Arkapaw becomes only the fourth woman ever nominated for cinematography. Jordan, a frequent Coogler collaborator from Fruitvale Station and Black Panther, earns his first Oscar nomination for embodying two distinct lead characters.

The film is also among the first to be recognized in the Academy’s new category for best casting, which debuts this year after long lobbying from casting directors. The category honors Maisler’s ensemble work, which blends marquee names like Jordan and Lindo with lesser‑known performers and musicians.

A crowded, global field

Despite Sinners’ numerical edge, awards analysts note it is not necessarily the clear favorite in the top races.

One Battle After Another, released by Warner Bros. late last year, enters the season as a strong competitor after winning best picture and best director at several critics’ awards and major guild prizes. The film, a black‑comedy action thriller loosely inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s novel Vineland, stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a former radical drawn back into conflict when his daughter is targeted by a corrupt military officer. It has been praised for its elaborate set pieces and politically charged script.

Other leading best picture contenders include Marty Supreme, about a table‑tennis hustler in postwar New York; Sentimental Value, a Norwegian drama with multiple acting nods; and Hamnet, Zhao’s adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s novel that reimagines the family life of William Shakespeare. Jessie Buckley’s performance in Hamnet is widely seen as a frontrunner in the best actress category.

International films made a particularly strong showing. Brazil’s The Secret Agent earned nominations for best picture, best international feature, best casting and best actor for Wagner Moura, who becomes the first Brazilian performer nominated in that category. Norwegian actors Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas and Renate Reinsve, and Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård, are also among the acting nominees, contributing to what observers say is a record number of non‑English‑language acting nominations.

The robust international presence and the elevation of films like Sinners and One Battle After Another reflect changes in the Academy’s membership over the past decade. After criticism over a lack of diversity, the organization expanded and diversified its voting body, which is now at least 35% women, about a quarter from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, and includes a significant bloc of members living outside the United States.

Snubs, surprises and studio stakes

Not every presumed contender heard its name called. Among the most noted omissions were Paul Mescal for Hamnet in supporting actor, Gwyneth Paltrow’s return performance in Marty Supreme, and Ariana Grande and the musical Wicked: For Good, which was shut out entirely. High‑profile roles by Dwayne Johnson in The Smashing Machine and Sydney Sweeney in Christy also failed to translate into nominations.

On the other side of the ledger, Kate Hudson’s best actress nomination for Song Sung Blue was widely described as a surprise, as was the depth of support for some European and Latin American titles outside the international feature category.

Behind the scenes, the nominations underline a shifting balance of power among studios and streamers. Warner Bros., which released both Sinners and One Battle After Another, leads with 30 nominations overall, well ahead of Netflix and specialty distributor Neon, which each earned 18. The dominance comes as Warner Bros.’ parent company has been the subject of recurring speculation about possible mergers or acquisitions, including by streaming giants.

A different kind of “Oscar movie”

For the Academy, Sinners’ place atop the record book may be the clearest sign yet that the definition of an “Oscar movie” is evolving.

Horror has historically received a mixed reception at the awards, with occasional breakthroughs such as The Exorcist and The Silence of the Lambs but relatively few best picture contenders. Musicals, too, have faced an uneven path in recent decades, with La La Land winning multiple awards but losing best picture.

By contrast, Coogler’s film — a supernatural thriller that literalizes racial exploitation by casting white supremacists as bloodsucking landlords and bosses — places Black Southern history, blues music and Hoodoo spiritual traditions at the center of a large‑scale studio production.

It is not yet clear how that experiment will fare with final voters. Balloting for winners runs Feb. 26 through March 5, with results kept under wraps until the March 15 telecast.

Whatever the outcome on the night, Coogler’s father’s count will stand. A film about twins running a juke joint under siege in 1930s Mississippi, stalked by vampires and scored to a wailing horn section, now holds the most nominations in the nearly century‑long history of the Academy Awards.