Quezon Rules the 49th Gawad Urian Nods as Magellan Falls Short

Jerrold Tarog’s Quezon leads the 49th Gawad Urian nominations with 10 nods as the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino (MPP) unveiled its 2026 slate on September 1, placing the historical drama at the center of Philippine cinema’s most closely watched critical contest. Director Sari Dalena’s Cinemartyrs and director Antoinette Jadaone’s Sunshine follow with eight nominations each, while director Kip Oebanda’s Bar Boys: After School receives seven and director Noni Abao’s Bloom Where You Are Planted claims six. Together, the top tier establishes a ballot that brings together historical biopics, intimate contemporary social stories, independent cinema, and commercially visible productions.

Further down the tally sits Magellan, director Lav Diaz’s historical epic and the Philippines’ official entry to the 98th Academy Awards. The film received three nominations—for Best Supporting Actor, Best Production Design, and Best Cinematography—but was shut out entirely from Best Film and Best Director.

The contrast is striking: Magellan entered awards season carrying one of the country’s most significant international distinctions, while Quezon now holds the broadest recognition from the nation’s premier film critics’ organization. The two outcomes reflect different institutions with different criteria, making the Urian nominations less a verdict on the Oscar campaign than a snapshot of which films and performances resonated most strongly with local critics this year.

The Magellan Question

Magellan was selected in 2025 as the Philippines’ entry for the International Feature Film category of the 98th Academy Awards, extending Lav Diaz’s long-standing presence on the international festival circuit. At the Gawad Urian, however, its recognition was considerably narrower.

Actor Amado Arjay Babon received a Best Supporting Actor nomination, while Diaz was recognized for Best Production Design and shared a Best Cinematography nomination with cinematographer Artur Tort. The film remains represented across acting and craft tiers, even as it missed the top creative races.

The result creates a distinct split in the film’s trajectory: its Oscar selection placed Magellan in the global conversation surrounding Philippine cinema, while the Urian nominations accord greater weight to Quezon, Cinemartyrs, and Sunshine in the domestic landscape. Rather than settling the film’s artistic value, the divergence illustrates how different institutions respond to the same work. International selection, production scale, and local critical consensus do not always produce the same hierarchy.

Quezon Leads a Crowded Field

Tarog’s Quezon dominates the nominations with 10 nods, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor for actor Jericho Rosales, Best Supporting Actor for Scottish actor Iain Glen, and Best Screenplay for Tarog and co-writer Rody Vera.

Following Heneral Luna and Goyo: Ang Batang Heneral, the film marks the third installment in Tarog’s cycle of historical biopics. Focusing on Manuel L. Quezon and the political calculations surrounding the Commonwealth period, Tarog approaches familiar national history through character ambition, statecraft, and compromise rather than treating historical figures as static monuments. The breadth of its nods across both creative and technical categories confirms that its large-scale period production translated into precise filmmaking.

Jadaone’s Sunshine, with eight nominations, moves in the opposite direction. The contemporary drama centers on a young gymnast confronting institutional pressure and personal agency, providing an intimate setting to examine vulnerabilities within a controlled system. The film earned nods for Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress for actress Maris Racal, Best Supporting Actress for actress Jennica Garcia, and Best Screenplay.

Dalena’s Cinemartyrs also collected eight nominations, earning recognition for Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress for actress Nour Hooshmand, and Best Screenplay for Dalena and co-writer Keith Sicat. Together, these three films account for 26 nominations and occupy the strongest positions across the major categories.

Sari Dalena’s Cinemartyrs earns eight nominations at the 49th Gawad Urian, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress for Nour Hooshmand, and Best Screenplay for Dalena and Keith Sicat. The film follows a young filmmaker attempting to recreate forgotten massacres from Philippine history, only to encounter the ghosts and unresolved violence embedded in the places where those atrocities occurred. Dalena folds the making of the film into a larger meditation on historical memory, the erasure of women filmmakers, and the uneasy relationship between cinema and the violence it tries to reconstruct. — Sari Dalena’s Cinemartyrs follows a young filmmaker attempting to recreate forgotten massacres from Philippine history, only to encounter the ghosts and unresolved violence embedded in the places where those atrocities occurred. Dalena folds the making of the film into a larger meditation on historical memory, the erasure of women filmmakers, and the uneasy relationship between cinema and the violence it tries to reconstruct.

The Films Behind the Numbers

The Best Film race expands beyond the three leading titles with Bar Boys: After School and Bloom Where You Are Planted.

Bar Boys: After School received seven nominations, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actress for veteran actress Odette Khan, and Best Supporting Actor for actor Will Ashley. Noni Abao’s Bloom Where You Are Planted collected six nominations, including Best Film and Best Director, establishing a strong critical presence despite carrying less initial publicity than its studio-backed peers.

Official Nomination Totals by Title

Quezon — 10
Cinemartyrs — 8
Sunshine — 8
Bar Boys: After School — 7
Bloom Where You Are Planted — 6
Manila’s Finest — 5
Habang Nilalamon ng Hydra ang Kasaysayan — 4
Child No. 82: Anak ni Boy Kana — 3
Lakambini: Gregoria de Jesus — 3
Magellan — 3
Republika ng Pipolipinas — 3
Rumaragasa — 3

The distribution confirms that the 49th Gawad Urian is not being driven exclusively by the year’s largest productions, maintaining space for independent features, historical dramas, and ensemble works.

Antoinette Jadaone’s Sunshine earns eight nominations at the 49th Gawad Urian, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress for Maris Racal, Best Supporting Actress for Jennica Garcia, and Best Screenplay. Racal plays a teenage gymnast whose Olympic ambitions are thrown into crisis when she discovers she is pregnant just days before the national team tryouts. Her search for abortion care takes the film away from the familiar triumph narrative of sports dramas and into questions of bodily autonomy, fear, ambition, and the risks faced by women seeking reproductive care in the Philippines.

High-Stakes Acting Matchups

The Best Supporting Actor category brings together recognizable mainstream screen names, veteran theater talent, and international performers. Actor Joshua Garcia earned a nomination for Meet, Greet & Bye, while actor Enrique Gil and musician-actor Rico Blanco were both recognized for Manila’s Finest. Will Ashley joined them for Bar Boys: After School, Iain Glen for Quezon, theater veteran Fernando “Nanding” Josef for Habang Nilalamon ng Hydra ang Kasaysayan, and Amado Arjay Babon for Magellan.

Glen’s nomination gives Quezon representation in a category that otherwise leans toward Filipino performers, while Babon’s inclusion provides Magellan with one of its three points of entry on awards night.

The Best Actress field is even broader with eight nominees: Maris Racal (Sunshine), Odette Khan (Bar Boys: After School), breakout actor Ann Krystel Go (ImPerfect), Nour Hooshmand (Cinemartyrs), EJ Jallorina (Dreamboi), Rissey Reyes-Robinson (Paglilitis), Ruby Ruiz (Tigkiliwi), and Geraldine Villamil (Republika ng Pipolipinas). The slate places established actors alongside emerging performers, granting films outside the main Best Film race room in one of the Urian’s most closely watched categories.

Rissey Reyes-Robinson earns a Best Actress nomination at the 49th Gawad Urian for Paglilitis, her first lead role in a feature film. Directed by Cheska Marfori, the Cinemalaya 2025 entry follows Jonalyn Samuel, a former executive assistant who accuses her former employer of sexual harassment and wrongful termination, only to find her case tried not in a courtroom but through the court of public opinion. Reyes-Robinson carries the film through Jonalyn’s trauma, hesitation, and emotional unraveling, earning particular attention for the character’s most vulnerable moments. She enters a crowded Best Actress field that includes Maris Racal (Sunshine), Nour Hooshmand (Cinemartyrs), Odette Khan (Bar Boys: After School), and Krystel Go (ImPerfect), among others.

What the Urian Slate Reveals

Founded in 1976, the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino has spent five decades establishing the Gawad Urian as a premier critical body. Its 2026 nominations capture a broad range of filmmaking demanding serious analysis: Quezon dominates through period scale, Sunshine brings intimate contemporary realism into the top tier, Cinemartyrs represents an experimental auteur tradition, and Magellan arrives with a focused three-nomination showing that highlights the division between international packaging and local critical priorities.

For now, the numerical leader is clear, giving Tarog’s Quezon the advantage heading into the final ceremony.