Sinners Vs. Supreme: Are Black Artists Being Robbed at Awards Shows?
Across major award shows, a sinister pattern is emerging: Black artists are being robbed of awards they have worked as hard for as, if not harder than, their white counterparts. The overlooking of their achievements and larger contributions can be seen across several art media, including music, film, and television. The exact start of when the “snubbing” began has been interpreted differently by different netizens, but at the heart of the issue lies a deeper discussion–are awards shows glorifying media that appeals to a more general populous over media that explores deep, cultural outlets? Are they leaving the acclaim meant for these niche media (thematically) to be given to safer ones? The pattern that comes from past examples shows us that unfortunately the answer to these questions is yes. In 2026, we got the standout example of this type of robbing reoccurring with Michael B. Jordan’s loss at the Critics’ Choice Awards for the Best Actor award for his performance in Sinners, to Timothee Chalamet’s performance in Marty Supreme.
With this becoming an unscrupulous trend, there comes a point where one has to ask, how hard and to what lengths do black creatives have to work to even be considered for awards, let alone win? Let us explore the snubs that came before Sinners vs. Supreme to understand some of the origins of black, niche media losses.
Moonlight (2016) is a film produced with an all-black cast chronicling the development of a young black man from adolescence to adulthood and the troubles that come with growing up from the black American perspective. The film explores coming of age with homosexuality, battles with drug addictions, and the struggles that are borne from toxic masculinity, and it speaks to its audiences a story of development that a black male has to live through to learn from.
This film, co-produced by Adele Romanski, Dede Gardner, and Jeremy Kleiner, was nominated and top pick to win best picture at the 89th Academy Awards. However, a mix up occurred where the envelope was switched with the one for best actress, with that card reading Lalaland, for Emma Stone’s performance. As a result, the cast of Lalaland was called up to the stage to receive an award that they did not win, an award that belonged to Moonlight, the only film there that night to be nominated with an all-black cast for best picture.
In a CNN article recounting the disastrous event, Jordan Horowitz, producer of Lalaland, made a statement on stage explaining the situation amidst the Lalaland casts’ celebration. Horowitz clarified: “‘I’m sorry, there’s a mistake. ‘Moonlight,’ you guys won best picture. ‘This is not a joke,’ he said, gesturing to the “Moonlight” cast and producers and inviting them to the stage.
As if the moment could not get more awkward or uncomfortable, Jimmy Kimmel, the host of the 89th Academy awards, then tried to lighten the air with a joke that was reasonably not well received- “I think you all should just keep it anyway,” he joked. “You all” was a statement in reference to the Lalaland cast. Not only was this joke vastly inappropriate because it completely suggested disregarding all of the work that the black creators of Moonlight put into making the movie the success that it was, but it also threatened taking the moment completely away from the Moonlight cast when they were the true winners of the best picture award.
CNN detailed that, “Off stage, the “Moonlight” crew celebrated. “It threw me more than a bit,” Ali said. “I didn’t want to go up there and take anything from somebody. It’s very hard to feel joy in a moment like that.” For a moment that was supposed to be special for this movie that Jenkins reported took 8 years to produce, the Moonlight cast did not even get to truly embrace their moment of victory without guilt for a mistake that they had nothing to do with.
For Moonlight, what was supposed to be an honorable moment that appreciated the fascinating storytelling elements of a film created with an all-black cast instead is remembered as an Oscar flop that left both Moonlight and Lalaland cast feeling slightly dejected. Black wins being robbed is just as negative as them being mistakenly unacknowledged, and that is what happened with Moonlight, the film with the first all-black cast to win best picture, and subsequently the first to not get a true celebration or rightful standing ovation.
At the 59th Grammy awards, Beyoncé was nominated for album of the year for her album Lemonade (2016), an album that was a testament to the pain she suffered from having an unfaithful husband and working through healing as a black woman by keeping her strength. In addition to the powerful message behind the Lemonade album, the incredible success of her albums streams and purchases made it no surprise that she would be nominated for Album of the Year for 2017 at the Grammy’s.
E- News wrote on The Real Reason Why Beyoncé Made Lemonade from an insider standpoint highlighting how impactful the album was going to be for her, and for listeners – “For Beyoncé, though, that elevator moment was a tipping point: The fact everything became so public, it was embarrassing, and [it was] the first time she had to really deal with some of the questions people were asking about her marriage.” With this album, Beyonce was embracing her own pain and using it as a reason to give strength to others who have gone through or maybe are going through things like what she was.
So, at the Grammys, when the award for Album of the Year went to Adele for 25, even she felt that Beyonce had been robbed. She said to Beyonce on stage, “I can’t possibly accept this award, and I am very humbled and I am very grateful and gracious, but my artist of my life is Beyonce and this album for me– the lemonade album–was just so monumental.” Afterwards the two shared a long, tearful glance of acknowledgement.
Acknowledged more by her competitor, Adele, than by the award show board themselves, how much harder would Beyonce have had to work to win? It truly makes one consider if her worthiness was even in question, or if her album that detailed black grief, marital peril, and societal pressure was just too indigestible for larger audiences unlike Adele’s 25 that is mainly composed of piano ballads about when she was young. Those should not be grounds for the Grammy’s to write out her work for winning over the other competitors but unfortunately like with Moonlight her moment only came as a secondary wave of appreciation from costars.
Now we get to 2026 where Michael B. Jordan was not honored for his work and achievements at the 2026 Critics Choice awards. Jordan was nominated for best actor for his performance in Sinners (2025) alongside prominent actors, Timothee Chalamet, for his performance in Marty Supreme, Leonardo DiCaprio (One Battle After Another), Joel Edgerton (Train Dreams), Ethan Hawke (Blue Moon), and Wagner Moura (The Secret Agent). It’s widely known that Jordan spent years trying to prepare and understand his two roles as both Smoke and Stack for the movie so that he could give the best performance possible for viewers.
When interviewed by Tracy Smith for CBS Sunday Morning News, he was asked if it was a challenge to shake Erik, his villain character in Black Panther, Michael remarked, “Yes. It kind of-stuck with me for a bit, and you know. I went to therapy, talked about it, and found a way to kind of decompress.” In the same interview, Michael reported also drawing upon experiences from his own life to enhance his acting, like drawing upon the history of relatives from his mother’s side who, “hailed from Hope, Arkansas, but years ago moved to a black, segregated neighborhood in Los Angeles called Oakwood (now Venice Beach) and found that their Baptist church was the center of their connection.”
Although Jordan himself never went to this church, he remarked that he could still, “feel the connection to his family’s past,” when he was there. Being that church, family, and connection are three key ideas at the root of Sinners, it is crucial to understand how Michael’s acting choice of putting his own life into his work meant that he had willingly subjected himself to experiencing both the good and the bad of revisiting the past, therefore committing to a more realistic and more taxing charge when playing Smoke and Stack. Jordan’s performance aided by his training, research, and methodology allowed for visually identical characters to feel like they were completely different people mentally, with different philosophies and internal/external battles, each equally as compelling, but unique enough to tell them apart.
Yet it was all still not enough to win him the award for Best Actor. That honor went to Timothee Chalamet, his white co-actor, and as he accepted the Critics’ Choice Award, spoke directly to him, “And Michael, man. Unbelievable. Just rewatched Sinners. Hadn’t seen the after-credit scene. I am happy I stuck around a second time.” Jordan was the only other actor nominated for that award that Chalamet singled out to say such profound congratulations. Again, like with Adele to Beyonce, we see a black creative stuck receiving their flowers offstage from their white counterpart.
Michael B. Jordan had lost to the safer media, that being Marty Supreme, a movie which Chalamet speaking to Jimmy Fallon, prefaced that “this is an original film,” but was “loosely based on the story of Marty Reisman, who is an actual 1950s table tennis hustler in New York downtown… it begins as the story of this guy maniacally, singularly driven to be the greatest table-tennis player of all time, and it segues into a heist and a thriller,” It is true that Marty Supreme, an autobiographical movie, may be easier for larger audiences to enjoy conceptually, but that does not make it more worthy of winning an award over a movie like Sinners because it may require a deeper understanding to appreciate. Jordan’s performance in a story that was also original, that required him to work harder, if not the same amount of work as Chalamet, should not be outshined and given admiration only when it is coming second place to a less diverse, less “deep” movie after they have taken the title.
So now, across many years, many media, and many awards shows we see the history book on the shelf repeat itself in a very negative manifestation with black performing artists telling profound, black stories only to be met with disappointment when generalized media created by fellow white costars win over them at awards shows time after time. The truth is, there is no right “time” for these black artists to win, because the time should be now. The time was years ago. The time was and is at every award show where their costars have to tell them that they were worthy opponents only while accepting their award over them. It is truly shameful to think that in 2026, creative work can seem disadvantaged when it dares to cover topics that are more controversial or that may be uncomfortable for some select audiences, but even so, Dr. César A. Cruz has already best defined arts purpose when famously proclaimed that, “Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” That is exactly what these black artists have done with their stories.
Only when they get to accept their awards the first time and have their achievements celebrated as more than afterthoughts will we truly see creative black greatness honored in the way that it deserves.
