The nominees for the 98th Academy Awards stepped into a rare pocket of calm Tuesday afternoon at the Oscars Luncheon 2026 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. For a few hours inside the Wilshire Ballroom, the season’s usual grind softened: competitors became colleagues, campaign noise faded, and the simple fact of being nominated finally had room to land.
The nominees for the 98th Academy Awards stepped into a rare pocket of calm Tuesday afternoon at the Oscars Luncheon 2026 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. For a few hours inside the Wilshire Ballroom, the season’s usual grind softened: competitors became colleagues, campaign noise faded, and the simple fact of being nominated finally had room to land.
February 10, 2026
The luncheon runs on a precise, almost minimalist ritual. Nominees arrive through a streamlined check-in, with personal publicists kept out of the flow unless attending as a guest. Tables are assigned at random, which scrambles power clusters and creates the kind of conversations awards season usually edits out. It’s one of the final moments when the room still feels universally buoyant — everyone present already crossed the hardest threshold: making it in.
Academy president Lynette Howell Taylor, elected in 2025, welcomed the group and underscored the year’s broad creative recognition, with casting directors included among those honored. The nominations leaned heavily toward Warner Bros., driven by two auteur engines: Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners” and Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another.” Coogler’s vampire epic led the field with 16 nominations, with Anderson close behind at 13. The best picture lineup also included “Bugonia,” “F1,” “Frankenstein,” “Hamnet,” “Marty Supreme,” “The Secret Agent,” “Sentimental Value,” and “Train Dreams.”
Inside the room, applause became its own unofficial polling system. When Coogler’s name came up across major categories — best picture, directing, and original screenplay, the reaction swelled into the day’s clearest roar, echoed by his producer wife, Zinzi Coogler. A second wave of energy greeted Benicio Del Toro, nominated for supporting actor for “One Battle After Another,” whose entrance drew a spontaneous, sustained welcome. Guillermo del Toro also received a warm surge of attention as a nominated producer on “Frankenstein.”
A handful of nominees spent the day elsewhere: composer Ludwig Göransson returned to London to finish work on Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey,” while Renate Reinsve remained on set for Alexander Payne’s Danish-language feature “Somewhere Out There.” Meanwhile, Kate Hudson surfaced early in the lobby, marking a full-circle Oscars season moment—25 years after “Almost Famous.”
The room’s best scenes played out in small gestures. Jessie Buckley, celebrating her first best actress nomination for “Hamnet,” shared a bright embrace with fellow contender Rose Byrne. Ethan Hawke, Timothée Chalamet, and Sony Pictures Classics’ Michael Barker traded hugs that read like a thank-you letter in real time. Paul Thomas Anderson chatted easily with Steven Spielberg in the lobby, while Josh Safdie stood out as the only individual holding four nominations this year.
Oscars Luncheon 2026 felt like a last exhale: one more “happy” day before final voting turns everything into math.
