<\/p>\n
Adam Sandler<\/strong>, the comedy legend who is earning career-best reviews and best supporting actor Oscar buzz for his dramatic turn opposite George Clooney<\/strong> in Noah Baumbach<\/strong>\u2019s Jay Kelly, has been tapped to receive the Santa Barbara International Film Festival\u2019s Maltin Modern Master Award, SBIFF announced on Wednesday.<\/p>\n Sandler will collect his honor on Feb. 5, 2026, at Santa Barbara\u2019s historic Arlington Theater, at the conclusion of a career-retrospective conversation, with clips, moderated by the award\u2019s namesake, film critic and historian Leonard Maltin<\/strong>.<\/p>\n More from The Hollywood Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cAdam Sandler won me over when he sang \u2018The Hanukkah Song\u2019 on SNL,\u201d Maltin said in a statement, \u201cthen amassed a huge following in tailor-made movies like The Waterboy and The Wedding Singer. I love that he\u2019s left his comfort zone and delivered potent performances in Uncut Gems and Jay Kelly. I can\u2019t wait to share the stage with him in Santa Barbara.\u201d<\/p>\n Sandler, post-Saturday Night Live, became a bona fide movie star through goofy but beloved film comedies such as 1995\u2019s Billy Madison, 1996\u2019s Happy Gilmore and 1998\u2019s The Wedding Singer and The Waterboy. He has also not infrequently dabbled in artier fare, including 2002\u2019s Punch-Drunk Love, 2004\u2019s Spanglish, 2007\u2019s Reign Over Me, 2017\u2019s The Meyerowitz Stories, 2019\u2019s Uncut Gems and 2023\u2019s Hustle.<\/p>\n But never has his work been better received than in Jay Kelly, in which he plays the manager of Clooney\u2019s eponymous character. Critics have hailed his performance\u2019s blend of warmth, humor and sorrow.<\/p>\n The Modern Master Award was established in 1995, and was renamed after Maltin in 2015. Created to honor an individual who has enriched our culture through accomplishments in the motion picture industry, past recipients include Angelina Jolie<\/strong>, Jamie Lee Curtis<\/strong>, Nicole Kidman<\/strong>, Javier Bardem<\/strong>, Robert Downey Jr.<\/strong>, Denzel Washington<\/strong>, Cate Blanchett<\/strong>, George Clooney<\/strong>, Christopher Plummer<\/strong>, Christopher Nolan<\/strong>, James Cameron<\/strong>, Clint Eastwood<\/strong> and Peter Jackson<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The 41st edition of SBIFF will take place Feb. 4-14, 2026.<\/p>\n Best of The Hollywood Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for THR’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source uk.news.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Adam Sandler, the comedy legend who is earning career-best reviews and best supporting actor Oscar buzz for his dramatic turn opposite George Clooney in Noah Baumbach\u2019s Jay Kelly, has been tapped to receive the Santa Barbara International Film Festival\u2019s Maltin Modern Master Award, SBIFF announced on Wednesday. Sandler will collect his honor on Feb. 5, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2093300,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[310567,395036,257066,32720,339940,395033,395035,372547,395034,343973],"class_list":["post-2093299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-adam-sandler","tag-arlington-theater","tag-best-supporting-actor-oscar","tag-george-clooney","tag-jay-kelly","tag-leonard-maltin","tag-master-award","tag-santa-barbara","tag-sbiff","tag-uncut-gems"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/\u2018Jay-Kelly-Star-Adam-Sandler-Tapped-for-Maltin-Modern-Master.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2093299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2093299"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2093299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2093301,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2093299\/revisions\/2093301"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2093300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2093299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2093299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2093299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}