Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another scored the Best Picture Oscar at Sunday’s 2026 Oscar ceremony, after Sean Penn set the tone for a One Battle triumph with a win for Best Supporting Actor earlier in the night. Anderson took home Best Director as well as Best Screenplay, which he dedicated to his kids (“To say sorry,” he said, “for the housekeeping mess that we left in this world we’re handing off to them, but also with the encouragement that they will be the generation that hopefully brings us some common sense and decency.”)
Anderson’s One Battle antagonist Sean Penn, a two-time winner and six-time nominee before tonight, has been known to liven up an Oscar telecast with a zinger or two—when he won for Mystic River in 2004, his speech began, “If there’s one thing that actors know, other than that there weren’t any WMDs,” but as of last week Penn had missed several precursor ceremonies, including the BAFTAs and the Actor Awards, despite winning at both. He went into Sunday night a likely winner but also a likely no-show.
Read on to learn whether Penn, Brad Pitt, Connor Storrie, and other stars made it to the Academy Awards this year.
Was Sean Penn at the Oscars?
Warner Bros./Everett Collection
No; while Sean Penn won Best Supporting Actor at Sunday’s Oscars ceremony for his performance as the corrupt military leader Col. Steven J. Lockjaw, the One Battle After Another actor wasn’t present at the show. Instead, according to the New York Times, the actor headed to Europe, en route to Ukraine. The purpose of his visit remains unknown, but in 2022, during a previous visit to Ukraine, the actor gave President Volodymyr Zelenskyy one of his Oscars, after suggesting to Variety that they could be “melted down to bullets” to help with the Ukrainian war effort.
Penn famously does not think highly of the Academy, who he accused in 2024 of exhibiting “extraordinary cowardice when it comes to being part of the bigger world of expression, and in fact, have largely been part of limiting the imagination and very limiting of different cultural expressions.” And in 2023 Penn blasted the producers of the ceremony for refusing to let him speak after the Ukraine invasion: “The Oscars producer thought, ‘Oh, he’s not light-hearted enough.’ Well, guess what you got instead? Will Smith!”
Not to be out-zinged, Kieran Culkin, who presented the absent Penn with his award, said that Penn “couldn’t be here this evening, or didn’t want to,” before accepting on Penn’s behalf.