‘One Battle After Another’ Takes Producers Guild Award as Paul Thomas Anderson Pays Emotional Tribute to Warner Bros. Pictures Chiefs

“One Battle After Another” took home the Producers Guild Award for theatrical motion picture, adding to its near-sweep of major kudos in the build up to the Academy Awards on March 15.

“One Battle” director-producer Paul Thomas Anderson capped an emotional night by paying tribute to the leaders of the studio that championed his offbeat, politically charged film. Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy were in the room at the Fairmont Century Plaza as Anderson made oblique references to the drama surrounding the sale of the studio’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery.

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“Whatever the road lies ahead — your work this year is so spectacular. I share this with you. Long may you wave, whatever the future holds. It is one battle after another,” Anderson said. He praised the pair for championing original material and unconventional filmmakers, such as Ryan Coogler and Zach Cregger, whose films “Sinners” and “Weapons” were also nommed for the top PGA honor.

De Luca and Abdy deserve “to get an award for enduring a lot — a lot — on the road to get these films made,” Anderson said. “You kept your head down and you protected me. You protected Ryan. You protected Zach. That’s real producing. Letting us do our work and leading us here.”

The night’s other top winners included Apple TV’s “The Studio” and HBO Max’s “The Pitt,” for episodic comedy and drama, respectively. Neflix’s “Adolescence” added another trophy to its long list of wins by prevailing for limited series.

Susan Sprung, CEO of the PGA, opened the event on a somber note with a nod to the U.S. military action that has unfolded over the past day.

“The events of the past 24 hours have us all concerned,” Sprung told the crowd at the Fairmont Century Plaza hotel. “Even as we go about our lives, even as we celebrate, forever, we pray for peace.”

Sprung also made a reference to the drama that has engulfed Warner Bros., one of Hollywood’s foundational studios, with Paramount Skydance making a successful eleventh-hour bid for the company, prompting Netflix to bow out of the deal it reached in December. Sprung did not cite WBD by name but said that the guild was keeping watch on the impact of the consolidation of two of Hollywood’s major studios — Paramount and Warner Bros. — and its impact on the creative community.

Sprung told the crowd that the PGA’s position on the WBD-Paramount deal is to advocate for a thorough regulatory process to apply the scrutiny and safeguard and protections that producers need and everyone in this business deserves, and for the rights of everyone who consumes what we create,” she said.

The honorary kudos that were presented provided some of the most poignant moments on a night when winners made reference to the challenges that Hollywood and the entertainment industry face in a moment of rapid change.

Showrunner Mara Brock Akil delivered an emotional speech as she accepted the Norman Lear Achievement Award from her early mentor, writer-producer Ralph Farquhar.

Brock Akil, who is one of the most prominent Black showrunners and series creators in TV, noted that she has spent the past 35 years “working inside systems that were not built with me in mind.”

“As producers we are architects of imagination. That is not small work,” she said. “It is a profound privilege to tell stories about love.”

Brock Akil emphasized that at this stage of her career her greatest contribution is helping to nurture inexperienced writers from underrepresented backgrounds.

“If I have done anything to deserve this award it is that I helped make room for more voices. Room for fuller humanity. Room for stories that once waited quietly at the margins,” she said.

Prolific producer Jason Blum received the PGA’s Milestone Award for his contributions in forging a new business model for film production. His kudo was introduced by none other than Barry Diller, who gave the honoree a few jabs before hailing his success in building his Blumhouse studio as an independent operation.

Diller said flatly that he “hated” horror movies but has been friendly with Blum for years. (Diller also took a thinly veiled shot at Paramount Skydance chief David Ellison, who is a pilot, when he made reference to Jack L. Warner: “What would Jack Warner do to know he’d been succeeded by a stunt pilot?”)

“When Jason’s on our boat he behaves like a tourist at an all-inclusive resort,” Diller joked. But he also praised him “as something of a Renaissance man. He is the true embodiment that a man can do all things if he will.”

Blum paid tribute to his parents, both 95, who were in the audience. He shared a long yarn about how his father was early to recognize the genius of Andy Warhol in the late 1950s when Irving Blum ran an art gallery in Los Angeles. Irving Blum took the leap of buying Warhol’s first set of 32 paintings of Campbell’s Soup cans – long before they were iconic examples of pop art.

Blum compared his father’s faith in Warhol to the faith that producers need to get movie and TV series made. He noted how “impossible” people in Hollywood can be, particularly creative artists. The producer’s ultimate job is to wrangle all of that impossible-ness to get a production to the finish line.
“Somehow, we’re here to bring all of us impossible people together. To keep the team intact. To keep the soup cans intact even though it would’ve been faster and more lucrative to sell them individually.”

Veteran studio executive turned producer Amy Pascal was celebrated with the David O. Selznick Achievement Award. Greta Gerwig, director of “Barbie” and the upcoming “Chronicles of Narnia” adaptation for Netflix, spoke from the heart as she described how Pascal supported her audacious desire to write and direct 2019’s “Little Women,” which established Gerwig as a director to watch.

“I’m floored by the faith she placed in me,” Gerwig said. “Nothing in this world gives me more joy than when Amy loves something.”

Pascal was characteristically blunt in discussing her evolution from Sony Pictures chief to producer in the wake of the drama that ensued at the studio after the 2014 hack of its email systems by agents of North Korea. Pascal was forced out of her executive role by the fallout. But she has since rebounded with her success as a busy producer shepherding high-profile projects including Gerwig’s “Narnia” film.

“The way I became a producer was pretty fucked. And then I got lucky,” Pascal said, citing friends and industry associates who helped her make the transition.

Pascal then reeled off a few truisms about producing that she has learned over the past decade.

“Being a producer is doing Jedi mind tricks outside a Port-a-Potty wearing three sets of handwarmers,” she said. “Being a producer is knowing there’s no such thing as a great movie without a great director.”
Perhaps most important, she added, being a producer means having the self-confidence to know “it’s never really over no matter what anyone tells you.”

Earlier in the week, PGA winners in sports, children and short-form programming categories were announced. “Formula 1: Drive to Survive,” “Sesame Street” and “Adolescence: The Making of Adolescence” won those three categories, respectively. The producing team behind “The Wizard of Oz at Sphere” won the PGA Innovation Award. Lydia Dean Pilcher (“Queen of Katwe,” “Radium Girls”) also received the Vance Van Petten Entrepreneurial Spirit Producing Award.

Here is a full list of the 2026 Producers Guild Award winners:

Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures
“Bugonia”
“F1”
“Frankenstein”
“Hamnet”
“Marty Supreme”
“One Battle After Another” (WINNER)
“Sentimental Value”
“Sinners”
“Train Dreams”
“Weapons”

Award for Outstanding Producer of Animated Theatrical Motion Pictures
“The Bad Guys 2”
“Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle”
“Elio”
“KPop Demon Hunters” (WINNER)
“Zootopia 2”

Award for Outstanding Producer of Episodic Television – Drama
“Andor”
“The Diplomat”
“The Pitt” (WINNER)
“Pluribus”
“Severance”
“The White Lotus”

Award for Outstanding Producer of Episodic Television – Comedy
“The Bear”
“Hacks”
“Only Murders in the Building”
“South Park”
“The Studio” (WINNER)

Award for Outstanding Producer of Limited or Anthology Series Television
“Adolescence” (WINNER)
“The Beast in Me”
“Black Mirror”
“Black Rabbit”
“Dying for Sex”

Award for Outstanding Producer of Televised or Streamed Motion Pictures
“Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy”
“The Gorge”
“John Candy: I Like Me” (WINNER)
“Mountainhead”
“Nonnas”

Award for Outstanding Producer of Non-Fiction Television
“aka Charlie Sheen”
“Billy Joel: And So It Goes”
“Mr. Scorsese”
“Pee-wee as Himself” (WINNER)
“SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night”

Award for Outstanding Producer of Live Entertainment, Variety, Sketch, Standup & Talk Television
“The Daily Show”
“Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
“Last Week Tonight with John Oliver”
“The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” (WINNER)
“SNL50: The Anniversary Special”

Award for Outstanding Producer of Game & Competition Television
“The Amazing Race”
“Jeopardy!”
“RuPaul’s Drag Race”
“Top Chef”
“The Traitors” (WINNER)

Award for Outstanding Production of Documentary Motion Picture

“The Alabama Solution”
“Cover-Up”
“Mr. Nobody Against Putin”
“My Mom Jayne: A Film by Mariska Hargitay” (WINNER)
“Ocean with David Attenborough”
“The Perfect Neighbor”
“The Tale of Silyan”

(Pictured: “One Battle After Another’s” Paul Thomas Anderson and Sara Murphy)