Women—especially women of color—made historic gains at the 2026 Oscars. But the night also underscored how the industry’s most powerful categories still largely shut them out.
There were a few triumphant moments for women at the 98th Academy Awards.
The standout was Autumn Durald Arkapaw, who made history as the first woman to win an Oscar for Best Cinematography. As a woman of Filipino and Black Creole descent, Arkapaw was also the first woman of color and only the fourth woman to ever be nominated in the category.
Durald Arkapaw’s work on Ryan Coogler’s genre-bending vampire blockbuster Sinners, shot on IMAX and 65mm film, earned her a win in a male-dominated category. During her acceptance speech, Arkapaw took a moment to name Ellen Kuras and Rachel Morrison, two other Oscar-nominated female cinematographers, then asked all the women in the room to stand up. As she put it, “I don’t get here without you.” The women in the Dolby Theatre obliged, standing up to be recognized and to affirm Arkapaw’s achievement with thunderous applause.
In the Best Supporting Actress race, Amy Madigan, a veteran in the industry, took home her first Oscar for her performance in Weapons, proving that older women with fewer roles available to them can still stun viewers with a performance.
In the Best Actress category, Jessie Buckley, the award season favorite, cemented her first Oscar victory and bookended her speech with homages to women. After opening with thanks “to the incredible women that I stand beside,” Buckley ended with a dedication to the “lineage of women who continue to create against all odds,” dedicating her win to “the beautiful chaos of a mother’s heart.”
Other highlights included the Best Animated Feature win for the fan favorite KPop Demon Hunters, which made co-director Maggie Kang and producer Michelle Wong the first Asian women to win the category. Singer-songwriter Ejae also became the first Asian woman to win a Best Original Song for her work on the film’s hit song “Golden.”
Collectively, these moments made for a feel-good Oscars where women shone, per the empowering lyrics of the K-pop hit: “No more hidin,’ I’ll be shinin’ / Like I’m born to be.”
Women Remain Underrepresented at the Academy Awards
Yet the evening was also a stark reminder that, just a couple of years shy of Oscar’s 100th birthday, women remain woefully underrepresented in non-gendered categories, especially the acclaimed Best Director and Best Picture.
The triumph of Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, which clinched both top honors, underscored this point and added an ironic twist to the night’s celebration of women, especially women of color.
I’m referring here to the conflicting views on Anderson’s representation of Black women. While acknowledging the film’s creative plot, adrenaline-fueled energy and focus on Black women actors, including Teyana Taylor (nominated for Best Supporting Actress), Chase Infiniti and Regina Hall, some critics decried the hypersexualization of Taylor’s character, Perfidia Beverly Hills, and the film’s gratuitous portrayal of interracial relationships. But others have embraced the film as a groundbreaking piece of art that liberates Black women from old stereotypes. At the very least, One Battle After Another raises good questions, not only about what the Academy considers great cinema but what it considers the “best” cinema.
With Sinners setting a new record as the most nominated film in Oscar history with 16 nominations across all eligible categories, there was a hopeful sense that Coogler’s film might pull off multiple historic wins for underrepresented groups, including a possible first Black recipient for Best Director and first Black woman for Best Picture since Zinzi Coogler was nominated as producer alongside her husband.
Sinners also tied the record for the most Black nominees for a single film, six of whom (Zinzi Coogler, Wunmi Mosaku, Hannah Beachler, Autumn Durald Arkapaw, Ruth E. Carter and Shunika Terry) were women. But despite victories for Arkapaw, Ryan Coogler (Best Original Screenplay), Michael B. Jordan (Best Actor) and Ludwig Göransson (Best Score), Sinners simply could not derail One Battle’s momentum.
The question of what it takes to win an Oscar is a charged and mysterious one; all the more so for those who are marginalized in the industry. When Jordan thanked his Black predecessors in the Best Actor and Best Actress categories, Halle Berry was still the only woman on that short list, and no women of color were nominated in the latter category this year.
Madigan’s well-deserved win nonetheless highlighted the losses of the two Black women in the Best Supporting Actress race, Taylor and Mosaku.
Christalyn Hampton and Geeta Gandbhir made quiet history as the first female co-directors of color to be nominated in the Best Documentary Short category for their film The Devil Is Busy which follows a day in the life of an abortion clinic worker.
The same fate followed Gandbhir and Alysa Payne in the Best Documentary Feature category.
Neither documentary films took home the awards they were nominated for.
And Chloé Zhao, one of only three women to ever win the Best Director Oscar, was again the sole female contender in that race.
Only once has more than one woman been nominated for Best Director in the same year––that was 2021, when Zhao and Emerald Fennell were both tapped for the award. The feat has not been repeated.
What these points showcase is the predictability that underpins the perceived volatility of the Oscars. Race, gender and age do matter; it is hard to say otherwise in the face of overwhelming statistical data. And while “firsts” like Arkapaw’s incredible achievement in cinematography are cause for celebration, they also highlight the isolation and sometimes tokenism of these pioneers and their hard-earned victories.
For women in film, the landscape has yet to shift in a fundamental way. And until it does, the work continues and the Academy, despite its gold statuettes, is far from “golden.”
