As the 2026 Oscar season enters its endgame, all signs point to Sinners and One Battle After Another going head-to-head on the big night. But Paul Thomas Anderson, Ryan Coogler and the respective casts of both movies were all smiles when they sat almost literally side-by-side at the National Board of Review’s 2026 awards gala. The two Warner Bros. contenders were placed within a table’s distance of each other inside the cavernous Cipriani 42nd Street dining hall in Manhattan.
And there was plenty of mingling between the two tables to accompany the general merriment. Gold Derby spotted Anderson’s real-life partner Maya Rudolph speaking animatedly with Coogler, which makes us hope that a collab is brewing. (Maybe she could be the new Gillian Anderson on Coogler’s planned X-Files reboot!) Meanwhile, Benicio Del Toro mingled with well-wishers as did the dashingly dynamic duo of Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo.
Like last week’s New York Film Critics Circle awards ceremonysuspense wasn’t on the NBR marquee. The winners were announced in early Decemberso everyone showed up ready to accept their honors armed with acceptance speeches and anecdotes. Here are the standout moments of the evening.
DiCaprio gets personal
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So now we know something else about the young Leonardo DiCaprio besides that he really, really liked pasta. (Thanks Teen Beat!) In his Best Actor acceptance speech, the Titanic star revealed that the first film he ever saw in theaters was the original King Kong when it played his neighborhood cinema — the famed Vista Theater in Los Angeles — during a revival run. And his four-year-old self promptly went ape for movie magic.
“As I kept watching, something shifted in me,” DiCaprio said of those youthful movie trips. “Film became an escape from the limits of my surroundings. It wasn’t just entertainment, it was a place to escape my neighborhood and a place where something larger than my own life felt possible. I would walk out of the theater absolutely buzzing, knowing there was something beyond this world that I was born into.”
Besides movies (and pasta) DiCaprio also loves his mother, who served as his date to the NBR ceremony days after being his plus one at the Globes. The actor thanked his mom and dad for encouraging his love of movies to audible “awws” from the crowd. That sound you heard was one sniffle after another.
The real Marty Supreme
Martin Scorsese has been talking up a bunch of movies this awards cycle, from It Was Just an Accident at the New York Film Festival to Die My Love with an intimate FYC crowd. While presenting the NBR’s best movie prize to One Battlethe legendary director — who very nearly became a priest — used his pulpit to anoint the presumptive Best Picture winner as a “great American film” and its maker one of the leading voices in our current cinematic landscape.
“He takes great risks and gamble everything from picture to picture,” Scorsese said of Anderson, revealing that he’s been actively following his career since being turned on to Magnolia by none other than late Italian filmmaker, Bernardo Bertolucci. “[[One Battle]is a big cinematic canvas… that hits the target at exactly the right moment. It’s a picture that has so much in it and contains so much, it can’t be boiled down to one genre or one catchphrase or one element.”
In return, a visibly moved Anderson saluted Scorsese for serving as cinema’s greatest educator. “He’s taught us how to watch movies,” the director emphasized.
Coogler and Panahi keep it real
On a night where cinematic fantasy offered a welcome respite from current headlines, Coogler and Iranian autuer Jafar Panahi made sure to prop the door open and let the real world in. While accepting his award for Best Original Screenplay, the Sinners director referenced the still-unfolding events in Minneapolis, where local protestors are marching to protest ICE’s increased presence on their streets, and the agency’s involvement in the killing of Renee Good.
“It’s tough to be here and not think about Minnesota,” Coogler said, after harkening back to his debut feature Fruitvale Stationwhich also depicted a shocking act of violence perpetrated against a civilian by a law enforcement officer. “My heart is there right now… and I can’t be here and not think about Renee.” The mention of Good’s name was met with loud applause in the room.
Meanwhile, Panahi used his time accepting It Was Just an Accident’s award for Best International Feature to cast his eyes abroad to his native land, where the oppressive Iranian regime is violently suppressing its own population of protestors. “As we stand here, the state of Iran is gunning down protestors and a savage massacre continues on the streets,” the filmmaker said through his interpreter.
“Today, the real scene is not on screens but on the streets of Iran,” Panahi added. “This is no longer a metaphor, this not a story, this is not a film — this is a reality written with bullets day after day.”
Eva Victor is feeling nostalgic
The Sorry Baby writer/director/star didn’t take home any Golden Globes on Sunday, but she won something more valuable: a big ol’ shout-out from Julia Roberts. The Pretty Woman herself paused her own scripted presenting patter to encourage everyone in the room (and those watching at home) to immediately seek out Victor’s Sundance sensation.
With this year’s Sundance about to kick off in Park City, the filmmaker was understandably in a nostalgic mood about where they were a year ago while accepting the Best Directorial Debut prize. “I’ve been thinking about writing recently, because I’m not doing it right now and so I’m looking back at Sorry Baby with such nostalgia,” Victor said.
“I keep thinking about the person who wrote this film,” they continued. “If you had told that freaked out person in a cabin in Maine in the winter when I was totally alone just typing away… I’m glad I didn’t know. I probably would have died!”
Gone stunting
The Oscars will start recognizing the award-worthy work of Hollywood’s ace roster of stunt experts in 2027, but the NBR is going on its third year of recognizing fall guys and gals. This time around, the award went to the final Mission: Impossible picture, with Final Reckoning stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood on hand to accept the honor.
“Thank you for the acknowledgment and respect that this award brings, not just to myself and my team, but to all the hardworking stunt performers around the world that are training tirelessly and bringing real action to the screen for you guys to enjoy and work alongside,” Eastwood said, crediting the NBR with beating the Academy to the (stage) punch
And, of course, he paid tribute to the real Ethan Hunt, Tom Cruisewho was probably off scaling a skyscraper, swimming to the bottom of the Mariana Trench or defying death some other way in some other place. “You see him dangling from planes and getting crushed by torpedoes,” Eastwood said of Cruise. “He’s an honorary member of our stunt team — and he’s also an amazing actor.”
