What the Oscars Got Right

Cannonball with Wesley Morris

The New York Times

News Commentary, News, Arts, Society & Culture

4.7 • 9.4K Ratings

🗓️ 17 March 2026

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Wesley Morris is an unabashed believer in the Oscars. That they genuinely matter. Every year, he has to re-convince his friend, Sasha Weiss, the culture editor for The New York Times Magazine. This year, of course, there’s the “One Battle After Another” versus “Sinners” of it all. And there’s a lot there. But also, what happened to “Marty Supreme” and poor Timothée Chalamet? And is it possible that “KPop Demon Hunters” took home Best Animated Feature Film and Best Original Song and still, somehow … got robbed? Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Wesley Morris and this is Cannonball today.
0:06.6	The Academy Awards.
0:08.2	They happen.
0:09.0	People won.
0:09.9	People lost.
0:11.3	And now I'm going to talk about it with my friend and the culture editor at the New York Times Magazine, Sasha Weiss.
0:21.2	Hi. Hi.
0:21.9	Hi.
0:22.6	How are you?
0:24.1	Good.
0:25.3	You watch the Oscars.
0:26.9	I'm tired.
0:27.6	Well, okay.
0:28.5	I do watch them.
0:30.0	I do watch them every year, but I watch them with some feeling of reluctance and ambivalence, which I know you share too a little bit, the ambivalence.
0:38.8	Like, I just feel like the actual films, you know, especially this year, we've talked about
0:44.8	this, it was so thrilling and exciting. But the Oscars themselves are so gamed and pre-baked.
0:51.5	And there's just this, you know, like big importance we attach to this thing
0:56.2	that we all know is kind of a shraid of politics and inner industry politicking. And like,
1:02.8	we all have to pretend that it's hugely important. But I know that you persist in your belief
1:08.0	that it is important. I'm not pretending. I know.
1:11.0	And like every year I'm like, please remind me why this is really important.
	...

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