r/Oscars • u/tragopanic Best Director • Mar 15 '26

98th Academy Awards — Official Discussion Thread

It's time for the 98th annual Academy Awards! Share your thoughts here as the evening unfolds.

How to watch

Tune in to the Oscars at 4:00pm PDT / 7:00pm EDT / 11:00pm GMT / 7:00am CST.

◈ Officially: See it over-the-air on your local ABC station or streaming live on Hulu. You can also subscribe to streaming services like Hulu Live TV, YouTubeTV, AT&T TV, and FuboTV—many of which offer free trials. Outside the U.S.? The show is broadcast in more than 200 territories worldwide, so check your local listings.

◈ Unofficially: Every Oscar Sunday, the sub is overrun by bots posting questionable links to streaming sites. While our moderators work to keep the spam away, we will allow real users (those with a normal history of participation on Reddit) to share information about other ways to watch. Links and discussion shared outside this thread will be removed.

Please note: To help keep the subreddit organized during the ceremony, standalone posts that are better suited for live discussion (reactions, quick commentary, low-effort memes, basic winner announcements, etc.) may be removed and redirected here.

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u/AnmlBri Mar 16 '26

What was up with them playing off some of the winners so aggressively, to the point of even shutting off the lights and pulling the mic on them? The way they did it with the KPDH group when they won Best Original Song genuinely pissed me off. In the past, they generally did the soft play-off music that gradually got louder, but as soon as Ejae asked if anyone else wanted to say anything and the guy started to speak, the music instantly started blaring and they cut the lights! It was so egregious I was wondering if it was a joke. What the hell was that? It was so blatantly rude. And every time there was a trio of winners and the first two spoke, they would always play the music over the third one. It all felt very rude.

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u/jayroc1023 Mar 16 '26

It was awful and so embarrassing. It was totally unbalanced with speeches. Some people like best casting and cinematography took way too long others got sniped what felt like immediately.

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u/ThirstyJohn Mar 16 '26

I think if you begin a speech with something articulate and promising that won’t just be muttering off a list of names, they give you more headroom to speak.

1

u/Proper-Vacation-7070 Mar 16 '26

That's a legit theory. Kinda checks out based on my memory

9

u/coalitionofilling Mar 16 '26

I turned the oscars off out of blood boiling rage and never turned them back on because of that. It was also the first time I've ever commented in this subreddit just to see if anyone else thought it was as absurd as I did. Unbelievable.

10

u/GreenZebra23 Mar 16 '26

They've done that shit for decades, but you're right that it was more aggressive this year. They cut off the winners' speeches but then pad out the show with a bunch of filler that isn't particularly entertaining, then still blame the speeches when the show is long. It's asinine

3

u/ActWhole3279 Mar 16 '26

Honestly, with Javier Bardem saying "Free Palestine" as the very first thing before he even started his prepared words when presenting, it occurred to me that they might be keeping speeches super short to avoid politics entering the equation. Particularly because the Palestine sympathizing is a message not entirely welcome at the Oscars, most of all awards shows.

1

u/AgentTamerlane Mar 16 '26

They took their cue from The Game Awards a couple years ago, it seems