Sinners Makes History With Most Oscar Nominations Ever

Ryan Coogler’s Sinners—a commercially and critically successful African American vampire film—has set an all-time Oscars record with 16 total nominations. These include best picture, Michael B. Jordan for best leading actor, Wunmi Mosaku for best supporting actress, and Delroy Lindo for best supporting actor.

The film follows hustling twin brothers who simultaneously fight back against Jim Crow racism and vampires who are attracted to the blues music coming from their juke joint. The box office hit is defined by Coogler’s respect for African American music and culture.

“There’s a firm argument to be made that this art form, the Delta blues, is our country’s most important contribution to global popular culture. You know, I think it’s probably [Black people’s] most important artistic contribution to the world,” Coogler told Democracy Now! last spring. “And it was such a profound discovery, that this music made by people who were, you know, for all intents and purposes, living under a backbreaking form of American apartheid, you know, denied their humanity on a daily basis, would create something so artistically excellent that it would affect global culture from that time forward.”

Sinners’s 16 nominations eclipse the record of 14 that All About Eve (1950), Titanic (1997), and La La Land (2016) all shared. Its costume designer, Ruth E. Carter, also becomes the most nominated Black woman in Oscars history after being named in five categories. Other best picture nominees, such as Paul Thomas Anderson’s audacious One Battle After Another, Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet, and Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme, will offer Coogler some stiff competition.

Win or lose, Coogler has made history and continues to produce a robust catalog of Black blockbusters—from Black Panther to Fruitvale Station to Creed to Sinners—that will be appreciated for years to come.

View the full 2026 Oscar nominations here.