The European Film Awards (EFA) shifted its regular December date to January this year to more closely align with an increasingly international-leaning awards season. While these winners will not impact the Oscar nominations, as Academy voting closed on January 16, the January 17 awards ceremony could influence Oscar voters in picking their winners in March.
Europe’s equivalent to the Oscars handed out prizes on Saturday in Berlin, with several nominees and winners overlapping with what are expected to be 2026 Oscar nominees: “Bugonia,” “Sentimental Value,” “It Was Just an Accident,” and “Bugonia” among them. Last year’s big winner, “Emilia Pérez,” emerged triumphant at the EFAs in December 2024 before star Karla Sofía Gascón’s past Twitter behavior surfaced the following month, tanking the movie’s chances at winning significant Academy Awards.
Of these titles, “It Was Just an Accident” — a co-production of Iran, France, and Luxembourg — was the only one to go home empty-handed.
“Sentimental Value” triumphed with awards for best film, director Joachim Trier, actors Renate Reinsve and Stellan Skarsgård, and screenwriters Trier and Eskil Vogt. The Neon title should expect to receive a Best Picture Academy Award nomination as well as nods for those actors.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has nearly twice the number of voters as the European Film Academy, though there is overlap between the voting groups that could help inform where the Oscars land. (See IndieWire awards pundit Anne Thompson’s Oscar nominations predictions here; those drop on January 22.)
The show was “hosted” by documentary filmmaker and movie historian Mark Cousins (“The Story of Film”). He worked with film composer Dascha Dauenhauer and stage director Robert Lehniger to curate a European Film Awards presentation that lacked a traditional emcee, filling the show with various flashbacks to beloved European films from “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg” to “Playtime.” “It Was Just an Accident” director Jafar Panahi, who is soon facing yet another prison sentence in Iran, opened the ceremony with a political plea to acknowledge the oppression and killing of protesters happening in his home country.
“When the truth is crushed in one place, freedom suffocates everywhere,” he said, as Variety reported. “Then no one is safe anywhere in the world. Not in Iran. Not in Europe. Not in America. Not anywhere on this planet. And that is precisely why today our task as filmmakers and artists is harder than ever. If we are disappointed with politicians, we must at least refuse to remain silent. Because silence in a time of crime is not neutrality. Silence is a participation in darkness.”
Cousins also came onstage to award a European achievement in world cinema prize to Italian director Alice Rohrwacher (“La Chimera,” “Happy as Lazzaro”).
Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann, longtime star of Ingmar Bergman’s films and a former partner of the director, received the European Film Awards’ equivalent of a lifetime achievement award. Referencing how Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado gifted her Nobel Peace Prize to U.S. President Donald Trump, Ullmann said, “We have laws that say that if you misuse the Nobel Prize, we take it away from you. Somebody in power in the United States may be disappointed. He will lose it… I am happy.” (The prize is awarded by Norway.)
Oliver Laxe’s “Sirāt” took home five European Film Awards; the Spanish-language rescue odyssey, set throughout the desert of Morocco, is Spain’s submission for the Academy Awards. It also received five nods on the Oscars shortlist across international feature and below-the-line categories. Laxe’s film is looking strong up against other fellow Neon-released movies: “Sentimental Value,” “No Other Choice,” “The Secret Agent,” and “It Was Just an Accident.”
All the 2026 European Film Awards winners are below.
European Film
“Sentimental Value”
European Cinematographer
Mauro Herce for “Sirāt”
European Director
Joachim Trier for “Sentimental Value”
European Composer
Hania Rani for “Sentimental Value”
European Documentary
“Fiume o Morte!,” dir. Igor Bezinović
European Casting Director
Nadia Acimi, Luís Bértolo, and María Rodrigo for “Sirāt”
European Screenwriter
Eskil Vogt and Joachim Trier for “Sentimental Value”
European Editor
Cristóbal Fernández for “Sirāt”
European Sound Designer
Laia Casanovas, Amanda Villavieja, and Yasmina Praderas for “Sirāt”
European Make-up and Hair Artist
Torsten Witte for “Bugonia”
European Actress
Renate Reinsve for “Sentimental Value”
European Actor
Stellan Skarsgård for “Sentimental Value”
European Animated Feature Film
“Arco” (France)
Directed by Ugo Bienvenu
European Production Designer
Laia Ateca for “Sirāt”
European Costume Designer
Sabrina Krämer for “Sound Of Falling”
European Discovery – Prix FIPRESCI
“On Falling” (United Kingdom, Portugal)
Directed by Laura Carreira
European Young Audience Award
“Siblings” (Italy)
Directed by Greta Scarano
European Short Film – Prix Vimeo
“City of Poets”
Directed by John Smith
