Oscars tap last year’s winners as first presenters for March 15

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that Adrien Brody, Mikey Madison, Kieran Culkin and Zoe Saldaña are the first slate of presenters for the 98th Academy Awards, to be held March 15, 2026. The quartet of returning winners will appear on a telecast hosted by Conan O’Brien that will air live on ABC at 7 p.m. Eastern / 4 p.m. Pacific and, per reports, stream live on Hulu; the official red carpet is scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. ET.

Executive producer and showrunner Raj Kapoor, joined by executive producer Katy Mullan, unveiled the lineup as the Academy leans on last year’s breakout moments to anchor a ceremony competing in a crowded streaming and awards-season marketplace. The returning winners include Brody, who collected his second Best Actor statuette for The Brutalist; Mikey Madison, last year’s Best Actress winner for Anora; Kieran Culkin, Best Supporting Actor for A Real Pain; and Zoe Saldaña, Best Supporting Actress for the Spanish-language musical Emilia Pérez. File photos from the 97th Oscars show the quartet together at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles as they accepted their awards.

The choice to bring back the prior year’s acting winners is a familiar Academy playbook that does more than honor tradition. It creates continuity for viewers and helps the show package star-driven moments that are easier to market to linear broadcast audiences and streaming subscribers alike. Brody’s return as a two-time winner reconnects the ceremony to an older prestige film lineage; Saldaña’s and Madison’s appearances underscore the Academy’s recent turn toward celebrating first-time winners and non-English-language storytelling on the broadcast stage.

Officials have not confirmed which specific categories the four will present, and the producing team left open the possibility of a range of formats that have appeared in past shows, from gender-swapped pairings to multi-winner “fab five” presentations. Additional presenters will be announced in the coming weeks.

The presenter announcement arrives against a record-setting awards season: Sinners leads the nominations pack with 16 nods, the most ever for a single film, signaling a consolidating frontrunner that studios and advertisers will likely highlight in marketing campaigns tied to the telecast. Major acting nominees this year include Timothée Chalamet, Leonardo DiCaprio, Michael B. Jordan and Emma Stone, underlining the ceremony’s mix of franchise-era stars and prestige performers. Local coverage also published supporting actress nominees such as Elle Fanning, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Amy Madigan, Wunmi Mosaku and Teyana Taylor, which collectively reflect a broad slate of performances from studio and independent work.

Beyond ratings and promotion, the return of last year’s winners carries cultural heft: it cements the winners’ moment into the public memory and signals the Academy’s aim to balance reverence for legacy artists with recognition of newcomers and international filmmaking. As the industry contends with audience fragmentation, streaming-first windows and shifting advertising models, the Oscars continue to use familiar faces and headline presenters to deliver appointment viewing that remains commercially and culturally valuable. The Academy is expected to release more presenter and category assignments in the weeks ahead.