Sorry to Mr. “Marty Supreme.”

Michael B. Jordan thanks Black Oscar winners who came before him in emotional Best Actor speech

Sorry to Mr. "Marty Supreme."

By Nick Romano

Nick Romano

Nick Romano is a senior editor at ** with 15 years of journalism experience covering entertainment. His work previously appeared in Vanity Fair, Vulture, IGN, and more.

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March 15, 2026 10:20 p.m. ET

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Michael B. Jordan as Smoke in 'Sinners'. Credit:

Eli Adé/Warner Bros.

Cue the Viola Davis reaction meme because Michael B. Jordan is now our Best Actor winner at the 2026 Oscars.

The dual *Sinners* star, playing both twins Smoke and Stack in Ryan Coogler's decorated vampire period piece, overtook fellow frontrunner Timothée Chalamet to take home gold at the Academy Awards ceremony Sunday night.

Leonardo DiCaprio (*One Battle After Another*), Ethan Hawke (*Blue Moon*), and Wagner Moura (*The Secret Agent*) were also nominated for Best Actor.

Smoke and Stack, played by Michael B. Jordan, in 'Sinners'.

Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Chalamet previously won the comparable category at the Golden Globes, but Jordan's Actor Awards win signaled a potential repeat victory at the Oscars. Unlike the Globes, which is comprised of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the Actor Awards voting body more closely resembles the voters of the Best Actor Oscars category.

"God is good. God is good. Yeah, mamma, what's up?" Jordan said of his mother, Donna Jordan, who sat next to him in the audience. He then gave a shoutout to his father, Michael A. Jordan, who flew in from Ghana to be at the awards ceremony with their family.

The first-time Oscar winner ran through the list of his collaborators, from Coogler to fellow acting nominees Wunmi Mosaku and Delroy Lindo, and then turned to "the people who came before me." Sidney Portier, and Denzel Washington are "amongst those giants, amongst those greats, amongst my ancestors."

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He continued, "Thank you, everybody in this room and everybody at home to support me over my career. I feel it."

Horror is typically a hard sell for Academy voters, despite notable exceptions (*Get Out*, *The Silence of the Lambs*, *Misery*, etc.). However, critics and awards pundits were hopeful *Sinners* would join the rare company of winners in the primary categories after scooping up multiple wins along the awards season trail.

The film already made history going into Hollywood's big night by becoming the most-nominated movie in Oscars history — 16 in total.

Director Ryan Coogler on set of 'Sinners' with Michael B. Jordan and Miles Caton.

Eli Adé/Warner Bros.

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Set in the Prohibition-era South, the box-office driver featured Jordan as twin brothers who return to their hometown to open a juke joint, only for their nighttime festivities to draw the attention of vampires. The story quickly turns into a survive-the-night horror story as the bloodthirsty Remmick (Jack O'Connell) slowly turns more of the patrons into his hive-mind brethren.

One particular hallucinogenic sequence, featuring ancestral ghosts and a musical performance by breakthrough actor Miles Caton, received widespread critical acclaim.

Sunday's win for Jordan feels even more momentous given a particularly egregious moment that happened earlier in late February. He appeared on stage to present at the BAFTAs with *Sinners* costar Delroy Lindo when both actors were subjected to the N word, which advocate John Davidson, who lives with Tourette's syndrome, inadvertently shouted from the audience. Apologies were swiftly made by host Alan Cumming, but the moment caused a firestorm over how it was handled.

Lindo has since commented on the situation, while the BBC's outgoing director-general, Tim Davie, called the decision to air the moment "a genuine mistake."

See the full list of winners at the 2026 Oscars.

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Original Article on Source

Source: “EW Academy”