The 2026 Oscars were nearly thrown into chaos when presenter Kumail Nanjiani announced the rare occurrence of a tie.
During Sunday’s ceremony, hosted by comedian Conan O’Brien for the second consecutive year, the Eternals actor had the privilege of presenting the Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film.
After opening the winner card, Nanjiani revealed, “It’s a tie. I’m not joking. It’s actually a tie. Everyone, calm down, we’re gonna get through this.”
He added: “Ironic that the short film Oscar’s going to take twice as long.”
He explained that he would name the first winner, and after they came up to accept the award, he would name the second.
The first Oscar was given to The Singers, a musical directed by Sam Davis about an impromptu sing-off to determine the best singer in a local bar. The second was awarded to the French short film Two People Exchanging Saliva, which follows a society in which kissing is punishable by death and people pay for things by receiving slaps to the face.
“We didn’t know that was a thing, but we’re happy to be up here,” The Singers director Sam A Davis and producer Jack Piatt said in their acceptance speech.
Other titles in the category included Butcher’s Stain (Israel), A Friend of Dorothy (Britain) and Jane Austen’s Period Drama (America).
While ties at the Oscars are rare, this year is not the first time it has happened. In fact, it has occurred six other times in the Academy Awards’ nearly 100-year history.
The first instance occurred in 1932, when Fredric March (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) and Wallace Beery (The Champ) each won Best Actor. At the time, the Oscars’ rules stated that nominees who came within three votes of the winner would also be awarded the prize. This led to an immediate change in the awards rulebook; however, it has not completely prevented ties.
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In 1950, So Much for So Little and A Chance to Live both won Best Documentary Short, followed in 1969 by perhaps the most notable tie between Katharine Hepburn and Barbra Streisand for Best Actress for their performances in The Lion in Winter and Funny Girl, respectively.
The fourth tie occurred in 1989, when Artie Shaw: Time Is All You’ve Got and Down and Out in America both won Best Documentary Short. The fifth followed in 1995, when Trevor and Franz Kafka’s It’s a Wonderful Life tied for Best Live-Action Short Film. The most recent tie before this year came in 2013, when Zero Dark Thirty and Skyfall shared the award for Best Sound Editing.
This year’s 98th Oscars saw Ryan Coogler’s vampire action movie Sinners and Paul Thomas Anderson’s caper One Battle After Another take home the biggest prizes of the night. Read the full list of winners here.
