Can be erased once. I can explain it twice. Threes are starting to look like a trend.
The race for Best Supporting Actress at the Academy Awards is quietly approaching such a turning point. With Teyana Taylor and Wunmi Mosaku both in contention, the Oscars could soon do something never seen before. It marks the third time in a row that three black women have won in the same acting category. If Taylor wins for “One Battle After Another” or Mosaku wins for “Thinners,” it will be the first time in the Academy’s 98-year history that a black woman has won the supporting actress award three years in a row. They follow the wins of Da’Vine Joy Randolph in “The Holdovers” and Afro-Latina Zoe Saldaña in “Emilia Perez.”
This award is significant given the history of the Oscars, as no Black actress has ever won in the same category three years in a row at a major entertainment ceremony, including the Emmys and Tony Awards. Kara Young, who is currently active in the Broadway world, recently won two consecutive Tony Awards for her role in “Purpose”, following her win for “Purly Victorious: A Non-Confederate Rampage Through the Cotton Fields.” Perhaps that streak of three-peat wins could continue in this year’s Tonys race, which features theatrical up-and-comers like Samira Wiley (Proof), Anika Noni Rose (The Balstars) and Kristorin Lloyd (Liberation).
The success of black actresses in the entertainment industry has been disastrous. Since the first Academy Awards ceremony in 1929, more than 3,100 Oscar statuettes have been awarded. Only 20 are held by black women, representing about 0.6% of the total. To further change the context, the number of black actresses who have won Oscars (10) is fewer than the number of nominations Meryl Streep received over her career (21). It’s a stark measure of how much the industry’s highest honors have overlooked Black women, especially in the acting categories that shape their careers and cultural memory and are factored into future projects’ production and promotional budgets.
To be clear, winning third place for Best Supporting Actress won’t fix that imbalance. But it will signal something the Oscars have rarely achieved in the past: lasting recognition rather than a one-off “moment.”
I mean, look at how it all started.
Hattie McDaniel became the first black acting award winner when she won the supporting actress award for Gone with the Wind (1939) at the 12th annual awards ceremony. The next Black woman to win an acting Oscar was 51 years later, when Whoopi Goldberg won for Ghost (1990). Another 11 years passed before Halle Berry became the first and still only black woman to win Best Actress for Monster’s Ball (2001).
This history helps explain why supporting actresses became the focus. Of the 20 black women who won Oscars in all categories, 10 won for Best Supporting Actress. In the last 20 years alone, this category has won eight of them, which seems like a huge step forward, but it’s also a reminder of how limited the pipeline is in other areas.
Teyana Taylor in “One Battle After Another.”
The New York-born Taylor rose to fame in the film world with her breakout role in the indie drama A Thousand and One (2023), before landing the role of radical revolutionary Paphidia Beverly Hills in Paul Thomas Anderson’s political action blockbuster. To date, she has won 10 Precursor Awards, including the Golden Globe Award, second most among her competitors. The only person pursuing her is Mosaku, the Nigerian-British actor who played Annie, a hoodoo practitioner, in Ryan Coogler’s vampire drama Sinners.
With the BAFTAs and Best Actor Awards still to come, final voting for the Oscars is due to begin on February 26th, and the pair are in a tight race with fellow nominees Amy Madigan for Weapons and Sentimental Value duo Elle Fanning and Inga Evesdotter Lillias.
The race is unfolding in tandem with a broader awards season storyline centered around “Sinners,” which leads the 98th Academy Awards with 16 nominations. Across these nominations, 10 Black artists were honored, tying the all-time record for a single film with the most Black nominations in Oscar history.
“Sinners” is also stacked with firsts that help explain why a succession of potential supporting actresses fit into the larger shift. Zinzi Coogler, one of the film’s producers and wife of Ryan Coogler, is the first Filipino producer to be nominated for Best Picture and the third Black woman nominated in the category. In the craft category, Black and Filipino cinematographer Autumn Duraldo Arkapaw became the first woman of color to be nominated in this category. Production designer Hannah Beachler extends her legacy as the only Black woman nominated for and winning production design for Black Panther (2018), earning her second invitation to the awards ceremony.
And of course, there’s costume designer Ruth E. Carter. This name has become the industry standard for black women of record. With her fifth nomination for Sinners, she surpassed actress Viola Davis to become the black woman nominated in the most categories in Oscar history. In 2019, Carter became the first Black person to win an Oscar for costume design for “Black Panther.” And in 2022, she won again for the sequel Wakanda Forever, making her the only black woman to win multiple Oscars, including for actor, filmmaker, and craftsman.
Several other award organizations are also telegraphing changes. The past five Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe winners have been black women: Ariana DeBose for “West Side Story,” Angela Bassett for “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” Randolph for “The Holdovers,” Saldaña for “Emilia Perez” and Taylor for “One Battle After Another.”
Taylor emerges as a legitimate Oscar threat with the kind of praise and critical reviews that will get voters’ attention. Mosaku arrives with something else. That’s the industry-wide weight and love for the movie “Sinners,” which became an awards season mega-blockbuster and cultural moment.
It would be easy to treat her chances of winning Best Supporting Actress three years in a row as trivia — a statistic to be mentioned, celebrated, and filed away. However, this 0.6% figure does not allow for a casual framework.
For nearly a century, Black women have had a disproportionately small presence in the Academy’s official records, despite their tremendous influence on American acting, storytelling, and style. That’s what makes this season’s “firsts” both celebratory and instructive. As it nears its 100th anniversary, events like this still take place, which means the barrier it represents still remains. If Taylor or Mosaku wins on March 15th, the Academy will do something it has never done before. And this time around, the Oscars will not just provide a moment, but rather confirm what we’ve always known: Black women are amazing.
Final Oscar voting will take place from February 26th to March 5th. The 98th Oscar Awards will be held on March 15th and will be hosted by Conan O’Brien and broadcast on ABC. This week’s updated Oscar predictions are as follows:
Wunmi Mosaku from “Sinners”
©Warner Bros./Courtesy of Everett Collection
Best Picture: “Sinners” (Warner Bros.) — Ginsey Coogler, Seb Ohanian, Ryan Coogler
Director: Ryan Coogler, “Sinners” (Warner Bros.)
Starring: Ethan Hawke “Blue Moon” (Sony Pictures Classics)
Actress: Jessie Buckley, “Hamnet” (Focus Features)
Best Supporting Actor: Stellan Skarsgard, “Sentimental Value” (Neon)
Best Supporting Actress: Teyana Taylor, “One Battle After Another” (Warner Bros.)
Original screenplay: “Sinners” (Warner Bros.) — Ryan Coogler
Adaptation: “One Battle After Another” (Warner Bros.) — Paul Thomas Anderson
Casting: “Sinners” (Warner Bros.) — Francine Meisler
Animated Feature: “KPop Demon Hunters” (Netflix) — Maggie Kang, Chris Appelhans, Michelle LM Wong
Production Design: “Frankenstein” (Netflix) — Tamara Deverell; Shane Viau
Cinematography: “Sinners” (Warner Bros.) — Autumn Durald Arkapaw
Costume Design: “Frankenstein” (Netflix) — Kate Hawley
Film editing: “F1” (Apple Original Films/Warner Bros.) — Steven Milione
Makeup and Hairstyling: “Frankenstein” (Netflix) — Mike Hill, Jordan Samuel, Cliona Furey
Sound: “F1” (Apple Original Films/Warner Bros.) — Gareth John, Al Nelson, Gwendolyn Yates Whittle, Gary A. Rizzo, Juan Peralta
Visual Effects: “Avatar: Fire and Ash” (20th Century Studios) — Joe Letteri, Richard Baneham, Eric Saindon, Daniel Barrett
Original score: “Sinners” (Warner Bros.) — Ludwig Göransson
Original song: “Golden” from “KPop Demon Hunters” (Netflix) — EJAE, Mark Sonnenblick, Joon Gyu Kwak, Yu Han Lee, Hee Dong Nam, Jeong Hoon Seon, Teddy Park
Documentary Featured: “The Perfect Neighbor” (Netflix) — Gita Gundbir, Alisa Payne, Nikon Kwantu, Sam Bisbee
International feature: “Sentimental Value” from Norway (Neon) — Director. joachim trier
Animated Short: “The Girl Who Cried Pearls” (National Film Board of Canada) — Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski
Short Documentary: “All the Empty Rooms” (Netflix) — Joshua Seftel and Conal Jones
Live action short: “Two people exchanging saliva” (Canal+/The New Yorker) — Alexandre Singh and Natalie Musteata
Leaders of expected winners (films): “Sinners” (6), “Frankenstein” (3). “F1” “KPop Demon Hunters” “One Battle After Another” “Sentimental Value” (2)
Predicted winner leaders (studio): Warner Bros. (10), Netflix (7), Apple Original Films and Neon (2)
