Michael B. Jordan accepts the actor in a leading role award for ‘Sinners’ during the 98th Oscars at Dolby Theatre on March 15, 2026, in Hollywood, California. (Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
Michael B. Jordan won best actor at the 98th Academy Awards on Sunday night for his dual roles as Smoke and Stack in Sinners.
This was Jordan’s first Oscar nomination and win. He was nominated alongside Timothée Chalamet, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ethan Hawke and Wagner Moura.
Last year’s winner, Adrien Brody, took to the stage to announce this year’s best actor nominees. Brody won the award in 2025 for his performance in The Brutalist. He poked fun at himself by referencing his infamously long acceptance speeches for his win last year, as well as his 2003 win for The Pianist.
Jordan is the sixth Black actor to win in the category. He follows Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, Jamie Foxx, Forest Whitaker and Will Smith. Jordan thanked the actors who came before him, as well as best actress Oscar winner Halle Berry, when accepting his award.
“I stand here because of the people that came before me,” Jordan said.
The actor continued by thanking everybody in attendance at the Oscars and everyone watching the ceremony at home for supporting him over the course of his career.
“I feel it. I know you guys want me to do well, and I want to do that because you guys bet on me. So thank you for keeping betting on me,” Jordan said. “I’m going to keep stepping up, and I’m going to keep being the best version of myself I can be.”
Lorne Michaels stars in director Morgan Neville’s documentary ‘Lorne.’ (Focus Features)
For decades, Lorne Michaels has made America laugh as the man behind the scenes of NBC’s Saturday Night Live. But for the most part he’s remained just that, behind the scenes.
The new documentary Lorne aims to change that, although its director, Morgan Neville, tells ABC Audio Michaels didn’t make it easy.
“I mean, the first day of shooting is literally what you see in the documentary, which is the cameras come out of the bags and Lorne vanishes,” Neville says. “Slowly, we got closer and closer. It was like making a nature documentary, and he kind of became a little more used to it.”
But while Michaels didn’t like talking about himself, plenty of people had no problem talking about him, with Michaels’ famous friends and colleagues, like Paul Simon, Steve Martin, Tina Fey, John Mulaney, Adam Sandler and more, contributing to the film.
“People do love to talk about Lorne, because for all of them, he looms large in their own stories,” says Neville. “You know, for a lot of them, he’s the reason they became famous or successful.”
The film also takes viewers inside the making of SNL, with cameras filming parts of the process most regular folks never get to witness.
Neville says the SNL footage was important because the film’s “not just Lorne’s backstory, but the dynamics he’s created and really the culture,” noting he wanted to capture that “while it still exists.”
And while moviegoers will indeed learn a lot about Michaels, they may still come away thinking he’s a bit of a mystery, and Neville’s OK with that.
“You know, Lorne is the Wizard of Oz, and on the one hand you want to learn about the Wizard of Oz,” he says, “but you also don’t want to demystify him to the point where he’s not the wizard anymore.”
Joel Smallbone attends Lionsgate’s ‘The Unbreakable Boy’ New York premiere at AMC Lincoln Square Theater on Feb. 19, 2025, in New York City. (Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images)
A version of “The Little Drummer Boy” by the Australian duo for KING + COUNTRY has been returning to the charts every holiday season for the past few years. Now it seems the song has inspired a movie.
Joel Smallbone will co-direct and star in the film, Drummer Boy, set to hit theaters Nov. 6. A press release describes it as a “Christmas musical about two brothers who find themselves on opposite sides of the American Revolutionary War.”
Joel’s co-director is his brother Ben Smallbone; there are seven Smallbone siblings in all, including Joel’s bandmate Luke Smallbone. Joel and Ben say in a statement that the “fabric of the film” is “a nation built on 250 years of independence” and “a Christmas story that began over 2,000 years ago.”
They go on to say that Drummer Boy is a movie “created by brothers, about brothers,” adding, “We’re humbled beyond words to bring it to life.”
Joel also has a role in Young Washington, a film about George Washington’s early years. It stars Ben Kingsley, Kelsey Grammer, Mary-Louise Parker and Andy Serkis, and will hit theaters on Independence Day weekend.
