One Battle After Another Needs To Make A Tough Decision Or Lose An Oscar

6 days ago 11

Lockjaw in full combat gear with a serious expression in One Battle After Another

Published Jan 28, 2026, 5:20 PM EST

Alex is the Senior Movies Editor, managing the New Movies team, as well as one of ScreenRant's Rotten Tomatoes-approved critics. After graduating from Brown University with a B.A. in English, he spent a locked-down year in Scotland completing a Master's in Film Studies from the University of Edinburgh, which he hears is a nice, lively city. He now lives in and works from Milan, Italy, conveniently a short train ride from the Venice Film Festival, which he first covered for SR in 2024.

One Battle After Another is entering the home stretch of awards season in great position. So far, it's been a precursor juggernaut, winning the top prizes at the Critics Choice Awards and Golden Globes while also becoming the fourth film ever to be named Best Picture by all four major critics associations: New York Film Critics Circle; Los Angeles Film Critics Association; National Board of Review; and National Society of Film Critics. It's the second-most nominated film at the Academy Awards, behind Sinners, but thanks to its performance so far, most consider it the Best Picture frontrunner anyway.

In one category, however, that gift is a curse. OBAA has a wealth of quality supporting performances, to the extent that much of the early debate about it from awards pundits was which of them would rise to the top. In Best Supporting Actress, the narrative coalesced around Teyana Taylor, while Regina Hall fell off the radar; Taylor is currently the likely winner of her hotly contested category. But in Best Supporting Actor, both Sean Penn and Benicio del Toro ended up Oscar nominees.

A great problem to have? Maybe. But it also leaves the campaign with a potentially difficult decision to make, if One Battle After Another wants to actually win this category.

WB Can't Push Both Sean Penn And Benicio del Toro And Win

Benicio del Toro as Sergio St. Carlos in One Battle After Another

Every year, campaigns go to great lengths to avoid the situation that Penn and del Toro currently find themselves in. It's why "category fraud" is such a common practice. Studios will contort themselves to run an actor in either lead or supporting when they clearly belong in the other because letting two performers from the same film compete in the same category risks splitting the vote.

One Battle After Another has such an acclaimed ensemble that they were left with little choice here. Chase Infiniti, who owns a third of the film in much the same way Teyana Taylor does, was run in Best Actress to avoid stepping on Taylor, but Leonardo DiCaprio was already the obvious Best Actor candidate. That Penn and del Toro both solidified their spots so early in awards season came as somewhat of a surprise, but once they had, there was nothing to be done.

Now, however, the studio needs to put their weight behind only one of the candidates if they want to have a hope of winning. The film clearly has many supporters, but if they split their votes between the two, they provide an opening for another contender to top them. Currently, Jacob Elordi looks the most likely to benefit. As noted by Next Best Picture's Matt Neglia, Elordi is the only Supporting Actor nominee aside from the two OBAA stars to have been nominated at the Oscars, Critics Choice Awards, Golden Globes, Actor Awards (formerly SAG Awards), and BAFTAs. That's a lot of momentum to be competing against when divided.

Then again, perhaps neither star is motivated to pull ahead of the other. Both Penn and del Toro have Oscars already; Elordi, Delroy Lindo, and Stellan Skarsgård do not. If they'd prefer to let the nomination be their recognition, then they should continue exactly as they are. But if WB wants One Battle After Another to take this home, they need to let voters know where to concentrate their support.