Autumn Durald Arkapaw became the first Black woman, and first woman of any race, to win the Oscar for best cinematography at the 98th Academy Awards on Sunday night, capping a history-making moment for women behind the camera. Yet for Australian talent, the evening brought disappointment as Australia's Rose Byrne missed out on Best Actress to Jessie Buckley for Hamnet, while Jacob Elordi was beaten in the Best Supporting Actor category by Penn.
During her speech, Arkapaw thanked Rachel Morrison, one of a number of female cinematographers who'd been nominated for Oscars but failed to win. Morrison was nominated in 2018 for Mudbound. The other two women nominated were Ari Wegner for The Power of the Dog in 2021 and Mandy Walker in 2022 for Elvis. The achievement marks the culmination of more than nine decades without a female cinematographer breaking through.
At 46 years old, Arkapaw is known for her work on the 2022 Marvel film Black Panther: Wakanda Forever alongside director Ryan Coogler, with whom she reunited for "Sinners." Notably, she shot the 2025 film Sinners on 65 mm film using a combination of IMAX 15-perf and Ultra Panavision 70 cameras, which made her the first female director of photography to shoot any movie on large format IMAX film.
She began by thanking Sinners director Coogler, recalling, "Whenever I say thank you to Ryan, he replies and says, 'no, thank you, thank you for believing in me and thank you for trusting me,' and that's the kind of guy that I get to make films with." During a powerful moment on stage, she invited every woman in the Dolby Theatre to stand up because "I feel like I don't get here without you guys," acknowledging the collective effort that enabled her historic victory.
The cinematography field has long been one of the film industry's most stubbornly male-dominated sectors. In 2016, a study showed that only 5 per cent of the year's 250 major Hollywood releases had a female cinematographer. The 2025 edition reported that women made up a mere 7 per cent of cinematographers that worked on the year's top 250 films, the lowest percentage across all major filmmaking roles.
For Australia, the evening offered no victories despite significant representation. Multiple Australians were among the nominees, including Rose Byrne for best actress in If I Had Legs I'd Kick You and Jacob Elordi for best supporting actor in Frankenstein. Nick Cave was nominated for best original song in Train Dreams, while costume and production designer Fiona Crombie was nominated in the best production design category for her work on Hamnet. Yet all five Australian nominees departed empty-handed.
One Battle After Another swept the ceremony with six awards, including best picture, with Sinners close behind. Michael B. Jordan took home best actor for "Sinners," marking one of the film's four victories.
The night also introduced new territory for the Academy. This year's Oscars introduced a new award recognising achievement in casting, the Academy's first new award category in more than two decades. The inaugural award went to Cassandra Kulukundis for One Battle After Another.