A movie named Oppenheimer, a biographical film about the inventor of the atomic bomb, won the Best Picture and Best Director awards for Christopher Nolan at the 96th annual Academy Awards.
The film also won five other awards, including Best Actor for Cillian Murphy and Best Supporting Actor for Robert Downey Jr. Oppenheimer, the highest-grossing movie of the year, received 13 nominations and won awards for cinematography, film editing, and score. Emma Stone won the Best Actress award for her work in Poor Things, which also won awards for production design, costumes, and makeup. The Boy and the Heron, a Studio Ghibli film, won the Best Animated Feature award.
Da’Vine Joy Randolph won the Best Supporting Actress award for her portrayal of a cook in the Universal/Focus Features film The Holdovers. Amazon.com Inc.’s MGM distributed American Fiction, which won the award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
The documentary feature award went to 20 Days in Mariupol, about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and was the first-ever Oscar awarded to a Ukrainian filmmaker. The Zone of Interest, a Nazi concentration camp drama from the independent studio A24, won the best international film award.
The event was hosted by late-night star Jimmy Kimmel and was aired on Disney’s ABC network.
Oppenheimer, which grossed US$954 million in theatres, was a favourite for best picture on betting sites such as FanDuel and DraftKings. Michael Schulman, the author of Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat and Tears, said before the ceremony that he did not expect any upsets and that Oppenheimer had captured the consensus vote as an alternative.
Many in the industry rallied behind Christopher Nolan, who has been a champion of showing movies in theatres and shooting them on film rather than digitally. Oppenheimer, a period piece, harkens back to an era when big Hollywood productions won the industry’s top awards.
The movie previously won the Best Drama award at the Golden Globes and the Best Film award from the Producers Guild of America and the British Film Academy.
Barbie, the biggest box office draw in 2023, was also a contender for Best Picture. It was nominated for eight awards but won only for best song. The two films, Oppenheimer and Barbie, were released on the same day last July, sparking a social media frenzy known as “Barbenheimer” that prompted many fans to watch them back-to-back in theatres.
