Michael B. Jordan Just Broke a 34-Year Oscars Streak (& He’s Only the 3rd Actor in 97 Years to Do It)

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Ryan Coogler’s 2025 film, Sinners, was a big risk – its $90 million budget was unusually high for a new, R-rated horror movie. However, the film was a massive success, earning $370 million worldwide and becoming the highest-grossing original film of the 2020s. It was the first original movie to reach $300 million globally since Avatar. Not only did it perform well at the box office, but critics loved it too. Sinners won numerous awards and nominations, and it broke records at the 98th Academy Awards with 16 nominations – more than any other film in decades. Previously, All About Eve, Titanic, and La La Land shared the record with 14 nominations each. Sinners was nominated for four of the five major awards, only missing out on a nomination for Best Lead Actress.

The Academy Awards were dominated by Paul Thomas Anderson’s political thriller, One Battle After Another, which won six awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. Sinners also had a successful night, taking home four Oscars, and came very close to winning even more. Notably, Ryan Coogler won Best Original Screenplay, marking his first Oscar win, and Ludwig Göransson received the award for Best Original Score. Autumn Durald Arkapaw made history as the first woman to win Best Cinematography. Michael B. Jordan won Best Actor for his portrayal of both Smoke and Stack, a first-time Oscar win and nomination that places him among a very exclusive group of performers in nearly a century of Academy Award history.

Michael B. Jordan Is the First Best Actor to Win for a Horror Performance This Century

It’s been a long time since a horror movie actor won the Academy Award for Best Actor. The last time was in 1992, when Anthony Hopkins won for his role as Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs. Before that, it was even rarer – only twice in the award’s nearly 100-year history had a male actor won for a horror performance. Fredric March was one of the first, winning at the 1932 Academy Awards for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and he actually shared the award with Wallace Beery. Jordan’s recent win marks only the third time this has happened, showing a growing recognition of genre films by the Academy.

Despite almost a century of Academy Awards history, the horror genre has consistently been overlooked, receiving fewer nominations than many individual actors. Only two horror films – The Silence of the Lambs and The Shape of Water – have ever won Best Picture. Acting nominations for horror performances are especially rare, and the Academy often avoids labeling films as horror, even when genre elements are central. Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s win for Sinners is particularly significant because it’s a clear-cut horror film – a vampire story set against the backdrop of the Jim Crow South that fully embraces the genre’s atmosphere of fear. The 98th Academy Awards also saw another breakthrough with Amy Madigan winning Best Supporting Actress for her role as a witch in Weapons. This made the ceremony the first in decades to recognize horror acting performances twice.

The list of actresses who’ve won Best Actress for a horror film is surprisingly short. Kathy Bates was the first, taking home the award in 1991 for her role in Misery. The following year, Jodie Foster won for The Silence of the Lambs, the same night Anthony Hopkins won Best Actor for the same film. While Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie both received nominations for Carrie in 1976, and Sigourney Weaver was nominated for Aliens, none of them won. More recently, incredibly strong performances by Toni Collette in Hereditary and Florence Pugh in Midsommar weren’t even acknowledged with nominations.

Let me tell you, Michael Jordan’s work in the film as both Smoke and Stack was phenomenal. It was the kind of complex, nuanced performance that usually gets Oscar buzz – a real showcase of technical skill and emotional depth. What’s really exciting, though, is that the Academy acknowledged this incredible acting within a genre film, not dismissing it as ‘just’ a genre piece. It feels like a turning point, and I’m hopeful this signals a willingness to recognize great work, no matter the type of movie it’s in, in the years to come.

Sinners is streaming on HBO Max. 

Does Jordan’s Best Actor win mean the Academy will now consider horror performances more seriously, or was his performance in Sinners just exceptionally unique? Share your thoughts in the comments and join the discussion in the ComicBook Forum!

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2026-03-16 21:16