Sinners breaks Oscars record with 16 nominations, F1, Hamnet, One Battle also place

Ryan Coogler’s blues-steeped vampire epic Sinners led all films with 16 nominations to the 98th Academy Awards on Thursday, setting a record for the most in Oscar history.

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voters showered Sinners with more nominations than they had ever bestowed before, breaking the 14-nomination mark set by All About Eve, Titanic and La La Land.

Along with best picture, Coogler was nominated for best director and best screnplay, and double-duty star Michael B. Jordan was rewarded with his first Oscar nomination, for best actor.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s father-daughter revolutionary saga One Battle After Another, the favourite coming into nominations, trailed in second with 13 nominations of its own.

Four of its actors – Leonardo DiCaprio, Teyana Taylor, Benicio del Toro and Sean Penn – were nominated, though newcomer Chase Infiniti was left out in best actress.

In those two top nominees, the film academy put its full force behind a pair of visceral and bracingly original American epics that each connected with a fraught national moment.