‘One Battle After Another’ wins for best adapted screenplay

By Mason Leib, Angeline Jane Bernabe, Emily Shapiro, and Katie Kindelan 

Last Updated: March 15, 2026, 6:38 PM MDT

Paul Thomas Anderson won his first Academy Award with his win for best adapted screenplay for "One Battle After Another."

“I wrote this movie for my kids, to say sorry for the housekeeping mess that we left in this world we're handing off to them,” he said in his acceptance speech, "but also with the encouragement that they will be the generation that hopefully brings us some common sense and decency.”

He also gave a shoutout to his longtime partner, actress Maya Rudolph.

Anderson and Rudolph, who share four children, met at a "Saturday Night Live" after-party over 20 years ago, Rudolph told Town & Country magazine in 2024.

"He said he saw me in a sketch and said, 'That's the girl I'm going to marry,'" Rudolph said of Anderson at the time. "But I don't know. I wasn't there. Maybe he just told me that to be sweet."

Other nominees in the category were Will Tracy ("Bugonia"); Guillermo del Toro ("Frankenstein"); Chloé Zhao and Maggie O'Farrell ("Hamnet"); and Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar ("Train Dreams").