TorrentFreak Oscar Winner ‘One Battle After Another’ Sees Piracy Surge, While ‘Sinners’ Stays Flat

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In 2007, The Pirate Bay supported “OscarTorrents,” which aimed to be a pirates’ counterweight to Hollywood’s annual awards show.

At the time, mass movie piracy was still a fringe activity, with no instant streaming options available. Nonetheless, more than 100,000 ‘pirates’ voted for their own movie favorites.

While the OscarTorrents project was a clear display of defiance, the outcome of the voting was rather mainstream. The Departed was crowned ‘Best Picture’ in the official Oscars ceremony, as well as in the pirate equivalent, and many of the other winners were also identical.

2026 Oscars​

Fast forward nearly two decades, and the annual awards ceremony continues to make an impact. Typically, the winner of the Oscar for ‘best picture’ will see a boost in downloads on torrent sites and elsewhere.

Based on a sample of torrent activity tracked by IKnow, we can report that pirated downloads of “One Battle After Another” tripled the day after the awards ceremony compared to the week before. The chart below shows the daily estimated downloads for five of the Oscar nominees, with the winner clearly standing out.

Piracy Impact: 2026 Oscar Season

This Oscar winner’s surge doesn’t come as a surprise, as we have seen this play out before. While there is always a boost for the best picture winner, relatively speaking, this is typically greater for lesser-known films.

The 300% increase for “One Battle After Another” is larger than that of “Oppenheimer” in 2024 but less pronounced than the quadrupling of last year’s winner, “Anora”.

No Piracy Boost for Sinners​

What’s more surprising in this year’s data is the absence of an Oscar boost for Sinners, which was one of this year’s favorites with a record number of sixteen nominations. The film won four Oscars last weekend, but this didn’t trigger any new activity on pirate sites.

Sinners already saw its downloads on pirate sites triple in January after the nominations were announced. The nominations surge in January appears to have already satisfied pirates’ demand.

In the piracy data sample, we also see the lack of an Oscar effect for “Marty Supreme,” which did not see any increase in interest either. That is less surprising, of course, because the film failed to win any Oscars despite receiving nine nominations.

That said, it is not only the best picture winner who enjoys a boost in pirate downloads. While less visible in the chart above, “Frankenstein” and “Bugonia” also saw temporary download spikes of close to 50%, which can be attributed to the Oscar night spotlight for these titles.

Legal Demand Rises Too​

The piracy boosts observed here are typically the result of an overall increase in demand. Legal streaming platforms tell a similar story, although not the same. Streaming search engine JustWatch informs us that, with a 231% increase, “One Battle After Another” was also the big winner in terms of legal demand.

Interestingly, Sinners did get a boost in interest on legitimate streaming platforms. JustWatch reports that Sinners saw an increase of 136% following the Academy Awards. JustWatch’s data is based on activity from U.S. users but, even when looking at U.S. traffic alone, a similar piracy effect could not be observed on our end.

Legal Streaming Impact: 2026 Oscar Season


The graph above shows that legal demand for Marty Supreme through streaming platforms clearly dropped. That’s also different from our findings, as demand on pirate sites remained stable.

As with all trends today, these media-triggered spikes in demand don’t tend to last very long. After the initial boost on Monday, the piracy interest for most titles immediately started to level off. That said, with an Oscar for best picture in the bag, the status of “One Battle After Another” will remain permanently elevated.

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Note: The data used in this article comes from Iknow, which tracks torrent downloads through DHT and PEX. While it may not be able to track all downloads, it’s a substantial sample. This sample only looks at torrent downloads. Views on streaming platforms, direct downloads, and other piracy sources can’t be measured directly. That said, we assume that the trend will be similar there.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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