Michael B. Jordan has won Best Actor at the 98th Academy Awards for playing twins in the movie Sinners. This is Jordan’s first Oscar, for which he triumphed over a strong field including Timothée Chalamet for Marty Supreme, Ethan Hawke for Blue Moon and Leonardo DiCaprio for One Battle After Another.
In Sinners, written and directed by Ryan Coogler, Jordan plays the double role of identical twin brothers Elijah “Smoke” and Elias “Stack” Moore
Jordan has become the first actor to win the Oscar for playing twins in the supernatural horror film set in 1930s Mississippi.
The film by Oakland filmmaker Ryan Coogler earned a record 16 Academy Award nominations and received a total of 4 Academy Awards including best original screenplay and best cinematography. Autumn Durald Arkapaw became the first woman to win an Academy Award for cinematography.
“God is good,” said Jordan on stage. “God is good.” He then addressed his mother, with whom he had been sitting in the stalls, and shouted out to the rest of his family, sitting elsewhere.
The partnership between Jordan and the Oakland-born Coogler began in 2013 with Coogler’s first feature film, “Fruitvale Station,” where Jordan played the lead role as Oscar Grant, the young man shot and killed by a BART police officer in 2009. The two went on to collaborate on the “Black Panther” films, and then “Sinners.”
Of Coogler, Jordan said, “I am so honoured to call you a collaborator and a friend, and for giving an opportunity and space for me to be seen. I love you too, bro.”
Jordan, 39, becomes only the sixth Black actor to win an Oscar for a leading role, joining Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, Jamie Foxx, Forest Whitaker, and Will Smith. Halle Berry remains the only Black woman to have ever won for best actress. Jordan mentioned all of them in his acceptance speech.
Earlier in the evening, the audience erupted when “Sinners” was announced as the winner for Original Screenplay.
This is only the second time in Oscar history a Black writer has won the category, after Jordan Peele for his 2017 film “Get Out.”
“Please sit down because I’m very nervous, and they’re gonna play me off,” Coogler told the crowd, including his parents who were in the audience. “I grew up in Oakland and Richmond, California and we can talk a lot.”
Later on, there were lots of cheers and shouts of “I love you” from the audience for Arkapaw when she was named the winner in Cinematography for “Sinners.”
Arkapaw, who like Coogler grew up in the East Bay, was the first woman, first Black person, and first Filipino in Oscars history to have won for Cinematography. She was also the first woman of color ever nominated in the category.
She called Coogler an “honorable person” during her acceptance speech, saying,”that’s the kind of guy that I get to make films with.”
She also thanked all the women in the room. “I felt so much love from all the women on this whole campaign, and gotten to meet so many people,” she said. “And I just feel like moments like this happen because of you guys. And I want to thank you for that.”
When Ludwig Göransson received the Oscar for original score, he called Coogler one of the “greatest storytellers of our time.” This was the second time he won the Oscar in this category for a collaboration with Coogler; the first win came in 2019 for “Black Panther.”
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