Warner Bros. woke up on Oscar nomination morning and chose chaos in the best way, with a staggering thirty nominations. Yes you heard right! Thirty. That ties the studio’s all-time record, the same high-water mark they hit back in 2005 when Million Dollar Baby and The Aviator were running the table and Warner felt untouchable.
But the real headline isn’t the number. It’s Sinners. Ryan Coogler’s film didn’t just perform well. It rewrote the damn record books. Sixteen nominations. That’s more than All About Eve, more than Titanic, and more than La La Land. Think about that for a second. A film landing in nearly every major category, Best Picture, Best Director, and a long-overdue first Oscar nod for Michael B. Jordan. History, quietly and loudly, all at the same time.
Not far behind was Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, pulling in 13 nominations and reminding everyone that Warner still knows how to back filmmakers who swing big and land even bigger.
“This is a truly golden moment for our company and also a powerful validation of our strategy: to believe in movies, to believe in original storytelling, and to believe in the theatrical experience,” David Zaslav, Warner Bros. Discovery chief said in a note to staff, per THR . Adding that the total count for WBD was 33 when including all divisions. “I want to congratulate Mike and Pam, and their teams across Warner Bros. Pictures and New Line Cinema, for the vision, leadership, and creative conviction that made this possible.”
He continued, “This is a special moment for our company, for our filmmaking partners, and for audiences everywhere who love great storytelling. We should all take great pride and keep raising the bar.”
All of this lands at a weird moment for the studio. Warner Bros. is still navigating takeover whispers, with Netflix and Paramount hovering like circling birds. In that context, this Oscar haul feels less like a victory lap and more like a statement. We’re still here. We still matter.
They also picked up a nod for Weapons. And if the Academy counted F1—the Apple-backed film Warner distributed theatrically and turned into a $600 million juggernaut, that could have taken the total even higher.
This was a reminder. Warner Bros. isn’t just surviving the industry’s identity crisis. It’s still shaping the conversation when prestige season rolls around. The 98th Academy Awards go down on March 15 at the Dolby Theatre. Until then, Warner will be pacing, refreshing prediction pages, and hoping that at least a few of those thirty nominations turn into something heavier than applause.
