The Night Hollywood Couldn’t Hide the Drama: Best, Worst and Most Awkward Oscars 2026 Moments

The 2026 awards season came to an end with some surprises, a heartwarming In Memoriam and some possibly questionable facial hair choices. See what earned our best, worst and most oops designations of the night

The 2026 Academy Awards had plenty to discuss for awards show fans, from the uniformly good red carpet style on the women and men alike to the bits from host Conan O’Brien reimagining movies for a more phone-oriented audience (we particularly liked his funny take on Casablanca, as scripted by someone who knows people never watch just one screen anymore). It moved quickly, had a few surprises and brought the tears pretty much from the moment the In Memoriam began.

That’s not to say it was totally smooth sailing, however! Read on for what made us laugh, cry, cringe and shout “Oh, c’mon!” at our TV screens at the 2026 Oscars.

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Best Prints Charming

Gilbert Flores/Penske Media via Getty; Ser Baffo/Disney via Getty; John Shearer/WireImage

On a particularly good red carpet, we were especially excited to see the stars who went for a higher level of difficulty by choosing gowns with dramatic prints: Anne Hathaway’s floral mermaid gown, Rei Ami’s golden phoenix-embroidered Rahul Mishra cape and Rose Byrne’s tiered embroidered Dior Haute Couture stunner.

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Best of the Best: A Great Night for Jewels

Gilbert Flores/Penske Media via Getty; Savion Washington/Penske Media via Getty; ANGELA WEISS / AFP via Getty

There were so many truly astonishing necklaces worn on Oscars night we didn’t have enough space to fit them all. Marvel at Zoe Saldaña (in Cartier rubies and diamonds), Elle Fanning (in vintage Cartier) and Ginnifer Goodwin (in Sabayaschi with a 10-carat central emerald), then click over to the arrivals gallery to drool at even more sickening sparklers on Anne Hathaway, Teyana Taylor, Gwyneth Paltrow, Priyanka Chopra, Kate Hudson, Kristen Wiig…

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We’re Split on This: The Little Mustaches

Kevin Mazur/Getty (2)

Some of us recoiled upon seeing the very specific facial hair gracing the faces of best actor nominees Leonardo DiCaprio and Timothée Chalamet. Others were into it. The Slack channel got contentious. Weigh in in the comments!

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Worst Nightmare Fuel: Conan in the ‘Weapons’ Makeup

Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty

In hindsight, we don’t know how we didn’t predict this for the monologue. But once we saw it, we knew it would be burned on the back of our eyelids for the foreseeable future.

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Best Moment for Me, Personally: All the Michael B. Jordans

ABC

It’s not weird if I print this out and frame it, right?

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Best Night for White

Kevin Mazur/Getty; John Shearer/WireImage; Arturo Holmes/Getty

Sometimes, the biggest statements are the simplest — case in point, Emma Stone’s empire-waist Louis Vuitton, Timothée Chalamet and Gwyneth Paltrow, all in head-to-toe stark white.

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Most in Mourning for ‘Buffy’: Chloé Zhao

Mike Coppola/Getty

We were wearing our black veils once we heard the Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot (which she was set to direct) wasn’t happening, too.

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Oops! Is That Really You, Leo?

ABC

Leonardo DiCaprio playing along with Conan O’Brien’s monologue joke and bringing a date who isn’t his mom? What’s next — he declares there was room for him on that door all along?

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The Lindsey Vonn Award for Performing Through the Pain

Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty

Misty Copeland had hip replacement surgery in December. Would anyone have guessed that, watching her perform during the Sinners musical number?

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Best Surprise/Worst Suspense: The Tie!

Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty

Kumail Nanjiani announced that the Best Live Action Short category had ended in a tie, and after demanding that everyone calm down, he said he’d announce one winner at a time. A fun Oscar moment (only the seventh tie in the show’s history!) — but a sweaty few minutes for the four remaining nominees after the winner for The Singers took the stage. (Two People Exchanging Saliva eventually got their moment next.)

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Shadiest Shade: Kieran Culkin Accepts for Sean Penn

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This was a hotly contested category, considering how many people made digs at Timothée Chalamet’s comments about ballet and opera — but Kieran Culkin ultimately emerged victorious after accepting best actor in a supporting role on behalf of Sean Penn, who, as he said with a shrug, “couldn’t be here this evening, or didn’t want to.” (The New York Times reported that Penn is in Ukraine.)

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Worst Night for Our Tear Ducts

Kevin Winter/Getty

Between the heartfelt, personal and funny tribute from Billy Crystal to his friends Rob Reiner and Michelle Singer Reiner (followed by a united appearance from many stars from Reiner’s films), the sweet and thoughtful speech by Rachel McAdams about Diane Keaton and Catherine O’Hara and the musical moment Barbra Streisand dedicated to her friend Robert Redford, the In Memoriam segment had more than a few of us going through a box or two of tissues.

Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty

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Oops, You’ve Got to Give the Internet More Warning Than That

Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty

Pedro Pascal can’t just show up clean shaven without giving us notice! That’s the kind of thing that throws the Internet into a tailspin — and indeed, Threads and X blew up instantly. (This was a common sentiment.)

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Best Excuse for a Few Memes

ABC

Are we more excited that we got to see Baby Yoda a.k.a. Grogu coordinating with a very game Kate Hudson, or that Sigourney Weaver got to go full Ripley from the Oscars stage (“Get away from her, you bitch!”)? Yes!

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Worst Reading of the Room: The Overly Loud Music Cut-Offs

Stewart Cook/Disney via Getty

For several of the categories in which a few people came onstage to accept their awards (including Best Animated Feature, pictured above) the orchestra jumped in the second a new person began to speak. In some cases, the winners stood there stunned as the mic lowered in front of them (O’Brien sarcastically declared this “hilarious”), or just awkwardly waited for their chance to talk while the lights went dim. By the time the music blared over the winners for “Golden” from KPop Demon Hunters, the mutiny was brewing. We’ve all accepted that awards shows run long! Let the winners speak — they may never be up here again!

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Best Speech: Jessie Buckley

Kevin Winter/Getty

Though it was overall a pretty good evening for speeches, Jessie Buckley — a winner for her role as a grieving mother in Hamnet and mom to an eight-month-old daughter — carried the night with her charming (Ireland paid for her family to fly to the awards!), loving and meaningful tribute to familial bonds, and motherhood in particular.

“To get to know this incandescent woman, and journey to understand the capacity of a mother’s love is the greatest collision of my life,” she said. “It’s Mother’s Day in the U.K. today. So I would like to dedicate this to the beautiful chaos of a mother’s heart. We all come from a lineage of women who continue to crave against all odds.”