Oscars 2026: Paul Thomas Anderson’s Best Director Oscar is long overdue
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The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that organises the Oscars every year has a tendency to overlook great directors and brilliant films. Martin Scorsese has won only once, for The Departed (2006), one of his more conventional films as well as a Hollywood remake of the Hong Kong hit Infernal Affairs.
Paul Thomas Anderson is another writer-director who has been overlooked at the Oscars. Every time it felt that Anderson would get his hands on the golden statuette, he was bested by inferior films.
He has been nominated in the directing category thrice before. He lost out on There Will Be Blood to the Coen brothers’ No Country For Old Men. Anderson wasn’t even nominated for Boogie Nights or The Master.
On Sunday, Anderson’s brilliance in direction was finally acknowledged. The 55-year-old filmmaker won the Best Directing Oscar for his masterpiece One Battle After Another. Anderson also won the Adapted Screenplay Oscar.
What worked against Anderson in the past – his films are so-called prestige projects, more artistic than money-minded, has moved in his favour. The Oscars were famous – notorious even – for privileging box office success over artistry. The Best Picture was usually one of the previous year’s blockbusters; the topmost director the one who kept studios and cinema chains happy.
That has changed in recent years....