'One Battle After Another' dominates Oscars with six wins

New York: “One Battle After Another” swept the Academy Awards with six wins, including Best Picture, edging out “Sinners” to conclude one of the most competitive awards seasons in recent memory.

For his political thriller, which tackles themes of immigration raids and white nationalism, director Paul Thomas Anderson reportedly won three Oscars—the firsts of his storied career. Anderson noted, “I wrote this film for my children, both as an apology for the ‘housekeeping mess’ we have left in this world and as a message of encouragement that their generation might restore some sanity and decency.”

In “One Battle,” Leonardo DiCaprio stars as a marijuana-addicted former revolutionary who battles the fearsome Colonel Lockjaw (played by Sean Penn, winner of Best Supporting Actor) while struggling to remember a crucial password. Despite 11 prior nominations for classics such as “There Will Be Blood” and “Boogie Nights,” Anderson—widely considered one of the finest directors in modern American cinema—had never secured a statuette until Sunday.

That same night, Ryan Coogler’s vampire epic “Sinners,” which explores America’s complex racial history, set a record with 16 nominations. Among its four wins were Best Original Screenplay for Coogler and Best Actor for Michael B. Jordan, who portrays mobster twin brothers Stack and Smoke.