Sinners arrived with 16 nominations. Paul Thomas Anderson left with the statuette.

The 98th edition of the Academy Awards crowned One Battle After Another with six Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, and the inaugural Best Casting award. Paul Thomas Anderson, who had accumulated 14 nominations over three decades without a win, ended the night with cinema's most important statuette. Nobody at the Dolby Theatre seemed surprised. Everyone seemed relieved.

Sinners entered the ceremony with 16 nominations, the highest tally in Oscar history. It left with four. For any other movie, that would be a defeat. For Sinners, it was the most brutal way to lose without it feeling like a defeat.

Ryan Coogler's film took home Best Actor, Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and Best Original Score. Michael B. Jordan won the Oscar for Best Actor, acknowledging Coogler in his acceptance speech with direct words: "You gave me the chance and the space to be seen." He wasn't the most anticipated candidate in the category. He had been since his name began to be circulated.

Director of photography Autumn Durald Arkapaw became the first woman to win the Oscar for Best Cinematography for her work on Sinners. It took the Academy 97 editions to recognize the obvious. Ludwig Göransson added Best Original Score to his already enviable track record with Coogler.

One Battle After Another is a portrait of old-guard leftist revolutionaries fleeing a relentless military officer, adapted by Anderson from Thomas Pynchon's novel Vineland. It's not exactly the kind of material with which Hollywood typically celebrates itself in the spring.

Anderson walked away with six statuettes. Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor for Sean Penn, the new Best Casting award, and Best Film Editing. Penn, who plays a brutal military officer, entered the club of actors with three acting Oscars, a category he only shares with Daniel Day-Lewis, Jack Nicholson, and Walter Brennan. He did not attend to accept it. Kieran Culkin, who presented the category, made sure to underline the absence with the precision of someone who knows the joke writes itself.

Producer Sara Murphy, accepting Best Picture alongside Anderson, was categorical: "Receiving this award is beyond anything I can imagine." Anderson closed the night in a manner consistent with his entire filmography: without bombast, with a single sentence.

Jessie Buckley won the Oscar for Best Actress for Hamnet, the adaptation of Maggie O'Farrell's novel about Shakespeare's family. She was one of the darlings of European critics and ended up being the Academy's as well.

Amy Madigan triumphed as Best Supporting Actress for Weapons, beating out Elle Fanning and singer Teyana Taylor, who arrived at the ceremony nominated for One Battle After Another. The night distributed its recognitions with a certain redistributive logic: if the big winner hoarded six statuettes, the industry made sure to sprinkle the rest.

Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein was one of the big winners of the first half of the ceremony, conquering Production Design, Makeup and Hairstyling, and Best Costume Design. Three awards that celebrate the use of sculptural prosthetics and practical effects in an industry that has been debating for years how far CGI should go. Del Toro does not participate in that debate. He simply keeps doing what he does and collecting statuettes.

KPop Demon Hunters won Best Animated Feature, confirming a trend that no longer surprises: the boundaries between Eastern and Western animation are increasingly an academic formality rather than a production reality.

Best Casting premiered tonight as the first new Oscar category in 25 years. It went to One Battle After Another, which, in hindsight, seems almost perfect: the movie that swept the board included among its trophies the first of a new era.

Conan O'Brien hosted for the second consecutive year with his characteristic mix of self-awareness and reluctance toward the pomp. He joked about streaming platforms, dedicated a segment to viral internet references, and openly acknowledged that the traditional television audience is not the one tuning into these ceremonies the most. All of that is now part of the ritual.

The night ended with Anderson and his mental martini. Sinners left with four awards out of a possible sixteen and the feeling that the Academy loved it without daring to crown it. Frankenstein proved that technical awards also tell a story.

What no statistic captures is this: for the first time in decades, the most nominated film in history did not win Best Picture. The record is of little use when someone has been waiting their turn for thirty years.