If This Oscars Was About as Good as It Gets, Why Did Things Feel Off Inside the Ceremony?

The 2026 Oscars had several history-making moments, beloved films winning, and even a tie — yet in the room, you could sense a looming vibe shift that gave the show a sense of sentimentality.

The 2026 Oscars telecast had several surprises, several firsts, over half of the Best Picture nominees winning at least one award, and even a tie. So why did what seemed like the Platonic ideal of the Academy Awards ceremony still feel a little off?

Walking into the event, there was already a noticeable vibe shift among American media members. Spots and roles on the red carpet had shifted so that international media had a greater presence, and the American outlets that did secure a spot often had a public figure, like a reality TV star and/or influencer, as their red carpet correspondent. In the end, it felt all for naught, as outside of “Chicken Shop Date” host Amelia Dimoldenberg, who served as the Academy’s red carpet reporter and social media ambassador a third year in a row, none of the nominees seemed to be stopping to chat with press.

Finally, inside the Dolby Theatre, Oscars host Conan O’Brien’s “Weapons”-inspired cold open, complete with the emcee in Aunt Gladys drag running through some of 2025’s best films, was an instant highlight. The audience laughed the loudest as he transposed himself into “Hamnet,” and gave the biggest cheer as he passed by the juke joint in “Sinners.” Yet afterwards, the Emmy winner’s monologue mostly fell flat when compared to the heights of his inaugural time as host last year.

The jokes that really stood out, though, were all about our changing media landscape, whether the not-so-gentle ribbing of Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos finally embracing theaters, or Amazon being too much of a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. The e-commerce company had zero Oscar nominations this year. The flashes of fake YouTube advertisements, in reaction to the telecast moving to YouTube in 2029, were another humorous harbinger of how the media landscape keeps changing.

Maybe that ultimately explains why the audience felt so in the moment. Though people have the option of hopping out of their seats and over to the lobby bar, not many partook until well into the show, after Best Supporting Actress winner Amy Madigan made history as the new record-holder for longest gap between a first nomination and first win. People started getting out of their seats after the very first Best Casting Oscar went to Cassandra Kulukundis (nearly the night’s biggest surprise until Best Live Action Short resulted in a tie), and revered filmmakers Paul Thomas Anderson and Ryan Coogler both received their first Oscars for their screenplays.

The show producers seemed to be the only ones to care about the length of speeches, with cut-offs that felt instantly egregious. Even people who don’t watch the Oscars could have assumed that Netflix phenomenon “KPop Demon Hunters” was winning Best Animated Feature. The directors (IndieWire Honors Spark Award recipients Chris Appelhans and Maggie Kang) clearly sped through their speeches to leave enough time for producer Michelle L.M. Wong, yet their promptness was not rewarded. You could hear boos in the theater when the show tried to cut off the second “Two People Exchanging Saliva” director from speaking, despite the potential for TV gold in the form of a tie.

At the end of the day, the Oscars is for artists, voted on by their industry peers, and the in-between moments all were very sweet and supportive. Those included surprise presenter Anna Wintour hugging Anne Hathaway as they walked offstage after nailing a bit that really made her seem like her “The Devil Wears Prada” counterpart Miranda Priestly, and Michael B. Jordan basically dapping up fellow nominee Timothée Chalamet from afar after his Best Actor acceptance speech. 

The crowd really wanted everyone to have their moment this year, and that energy usually gets projected to the audience at home as well. Nobody ended up happy with the “KPop Demon Hunters” songwriters getting played off after receiving their long-awaited Best Original Song Oscar for “Golden.”

Thank God the show did not pull that with “Sinners” DP Autumn Durald Arkapaw (an IndieWire Honors Impact Award recipient), the first woman to win Best Cinematography, the last non-gendered category in history without a female winner. Every Academy Awards highlight reel going forward should include her asking all the women in the room to stand up.

Maybe the 2026 Oscars were apocalyptic in the truest sense of the word. Certainly, that off feeling had to do with some very scary changes across the film and media industries, where many people feel doomed to lose their jobs. The most politically charged jokes on Sunday night served as a reminder of that.

Change is hard, and it’s fast approaching the Oscars, as the show closes in on its 100th year, and a shift away from traditional TV, fully into new media. Hopefully, this most recent show and the most recent crop of nominees are not as good as it gets.