Critical Darlings: The 2026 Oscars Ceremony with Griffin Newman

It’s Critical Darlings’ biggest morning! After a marathon season, we react to this year’s Academy Awards: the winners, losers, presenters, performances, and awkward play-offs. One Battle After Another and Sinners nearly split the ballot with One Battle and Paul Thomas Anderson taking the biggest prizes in Best Director and Best Picture, while Sinners took home Best Actor, Score, Adapted Screenplay, and Cinematography. But for as many questions as the ceremony answered, it raised more: Do Sinners and Amy Madigan’s wins signal a shift in how the Academy sees horror? What exactly is the Best Casting Oscar tracking? Are we now doomed to see Timmy eat a raw elk in an Iñárritu film? As part of this special episode, we also check in with Critical Darlings fashion correspondent Ben “The Other Ben” Hosley on this year's Oscars fashion, review the best popcorn buckets of the year with Vulture’s Rebecca Alter, and reveal the future of Critical Darlings. ✨Subscribe to our new feed in your podcast player of choice, and join us next week for Project Hail Mary!✨ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/critical-darlings/id1885681327Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/60n6Z9BUUMUR81CQoHbE8bPocket Casts: https://pca.st/1beh8dxuAmazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/a3598b5c-6f4a-4819-9457-44082cfea1fc/critical-darlings Sign up for Check Book, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter, Instagram, Threads and Facebook! Buy some real nerdy merch Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit or Discord For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices