Paul Thomas Anderson has won best director at the Oscars 2026, his first win in the category and second of the night for One Battle After Another — out of three total, as he finally took home a third statuette for best picture as a producer.
It’s a crowning moment for the beloved Los Angeles native, who came into tonight having lost his previous 11 Oscar nominations — among the most of any living winless filmmaker. He’d been previously nominated three times for directing, in 2008 (There Will Be Blood), 2018 (Phantom Thread) and 2022 (Licorice Pizza). His earliest nominations came on the screenwriting side, for his breakout ensemble pieces Boogie Nights (1997) and Magnolia (1999).
“You make a guy work hard for one of these, I really appreciate it,” Anderson said in his speech. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
Through to the night of the Oscars 2026, Anderson steamrolled this category in the vein of other major American filmmakers finally approaching Oscar gold for the first time, from Christopher Nolan with Oppenheimer to the Coen brothers with No Country for Old Men. He simply didn’t lose with any notable voting body, whether the Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards in January or the BAFTAs and DGAs last month. Around the world, his command of this genre-defying examination of revolution and generational activism was widely and fully embraced.
One Battle proved well-positioned to win the best-picture Oscar, as the director award has corresponded with that category in five of the last six years. Tonight, the movie also won casting, editing, supporting actor (Sean Penn) and more.
The embrace comes at an uneasy time for One Battle‘s studio, Warner Bros., which recently announced its pending acquisition by Paramount after a turbulent sale process. It was all celebration at WB’s pre-Oscars party in Hollywood on Friday, though, with Anderson et al. in attendance. There, company CEO David Zaslav recalled Anderson coming up during the first at-length conversation he ever had with new film chiefs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy.
“We said, ‘What kind of Warner Bros. do we want, and what is going to bring back all the sheen and all the shine to that 100-year history of Warner Bros?’ And we talked about Paul,” Zaslav said. “Paul is at Warner Bros., under that shield, with a film that people will remember forever — they’ll remember it not just because of what was written down on the page and what Paul put on the screen. It’s a movie that reflects, in a serendipitous kind of way, where we are in America.”
The Academy, it’s safe to say, agrees.
See the star-studded red carpet arrivalshere and the full Oscars winners list.