2 min readMar 17, 2026 06:15 AM IST First published on: Mar 17, 2026 at 06:15 AM ISTAs Paul Thomas Anderson accepted the award for Best Picture at the 78th Academy Awards on Sunday evening, he noted, “There is no ‘best’. There is just what mood there might be that day.” What was the mood in the room that picked One Battle After Another, a father-daughter story set in a racist dystopia, over a vampire film about the historical oppression of Black people in the US (Sinners), a Brazilian drama about the annihilation of memory under authoritarianism (The Secret Agent) and a satire about class hierarchy and rampant capitalism (Bugonia)? What, indeed, was the mood that led to such richly imagined films, anchored in contemporary anxieties, being feted on one of the world’s most glamorous stages?While they may be projected as a celebration of cinema, the Oscars, as well as other major awards like the Golden Globes and Emmys, have long been lampooned as parties where an insular industry merely pats itself on the back. If this year felt different — more charged with meaning and emotional heft — it comes down to the films themselves, many of which captured the uncertainties and ruptures of the past few years. The most mainstream films of the day are doing what art has long done: Capturing, crystallising and nudging a reckoning with these fears.AdvertisementThe days of frothy fare and blockbuster entertainers are certainly not over. But the wide acclaim for films like Sinners, One Battle After Another and The Secret Agent shows that critics and audiences — even the notoriously wary Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — are hungry for cinema that can give form to disquiet and find a language for inarticulate rage. If Anderson is right about the “mood” determining the honours in any given year, then the mood right now, spilling from the streets into the cloistered world of films, is one of urgency.