Oscars 2024: ‘Oppenheimer’ takes Best Picture, six other awards

By Reuters

Cillian Murphy wins the Oscar for Best Actor for "Oppenheimer" during the Oscars show at the 96th Academy Awards in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, U.S., March 10, 2024. REUTERS/Mike Blake
Cillian Murphy wins the Oscar for Best Actor for "Oppenheimer" during the Oscars show at the 96th Academy Awards in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, U.S., March 10, 2024. REUTERS/Mike Blake
"Oppenheimer," the blockbuster biopic about the race to build the first atomic bomb, claimed seven Academy Awards including the prestigious best picture trophy as Hollywood celebrated a triumphant year in film.

Irish actor Cillian Murphy won best actor for playing theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, leader of the U.S. effort in the 1940s to create a weapon that ended World War Two. “Oppenheimer” director Christopher Nolan took home the directing Oscar.

“We made a film about the man who created the atomic bomb, and for better or worse we are living in Oppenheimer’s world,” Murphy said as he held his trophy on stage. “So I would really like to dedicate this to the peacemakers everywhere.”

A three-hour historical drama about science and politics, “Oppenheimer” became an unlikely box office hit and grossed $953.8 million, in addition to widespread critical praise.

It was the first of Nolan’s films to win best picture. The director has previously won acclaim for “The Dark Knight” Batman trilogy, “Inception,” “Memento” and other movies.

As he accepted his gold statuette, Nolan noted that the movie business was a century old and still evolving.

“To know you think I’m a meaningful part of this means the world to me,” he said.

Emma Stone accepts the Oscar for Best Actress for "Poor Things" during the Oscars show at the 96th Academy Awards in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, U.S., March 10, 2024. REUTERS/Mike Blake
Emma Stone accepts the Oscar for Best Actress for “Poor Things” during the Oscars show at the 96th Academy Awards in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, U.S., March 10, 2024. REUTERS/Mike Blake

Emma Stone wins Best Actress

Emma Stone was named best actress for playing a woman revived from the dead in the dark and wacky comedy “Poor Things.” It was the second Academy Award for Stone, who landed the best actress honor for 2016 musical “La La Land.”

“This is really overwhelming,” she said on stage.

The best actress race had been considered one of the tightest competitions with Lily Gladstone nominated for “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Had she prevailed, Gladstone would have been the first Native American to win an acting Oscar.

Robert Downey Jr. poses with the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for “Oppenheimer”, in the Oscars photo room at the 96th Academy Awards in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, U.S., March 10, 2024. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

In supporting actor categories, Robert Downey Jr. of “Oppenheimer” and “The Holdovers” star Da’Vine Joy Randolph claimed their first Academy Awards.

Downey, who was nominated for an Oscar in 1993 before his career was derailed by drug use, won his honor on Sunday for playing Oppenheimer’s professional nemesis, Lewis Strauss.

“I’d like to thank my terrible childhood and the Academy, in that order,” Downey joked before he saluted his wife Susan, who he said found him as a “snarly rescue pet” and “loved him back to life.”

Randolph received the best supporting actress trophy for playing a grieving mother and cafeteria worker in the comedy set in a New England boarding school.

“For so long, I always wanted to be different, and now I realize I just need to be myself,” she said. “I thank you for seeing me.”

Winners were chosen by the roughly 10,500 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.

Ryan Gosling performs "I'm Just Ken" from "Barbie" during the Oscars show at the 96th Academy Awards in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, U.S., March 10, 2024. REUTERS/Mike Blake
Ryan Gosling performs “I’m Just Ken” from “Barbie” during the Oscars show at the 96th Academy Awards in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, U.S., March 10, 2024. REUTERS/Mike Blake

After 2023 was marred by labor strikes by actors and writers, the Oscars gave Hollywood a chance to celebrate two blockbusters, “Oppenheimer” and “Barbie,” which brought in a combined $2.4 billion at theaters and made movies the center of pop culture last summer.

“Barbie” ended the night with one Oscar.

Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell landed best original song for the ballad “What Was I Made For?” The pair had performed the song on stage earlier with Eilish singing at a microphone next to O’Connell, her brother and co-writer, on piano.

Ryan Gosling donned a hot pink suit, gloves and a cowboy hat to belt out rock ballad “I’m Just Ken,” surrounded by male dancers dressed in black.

Billie Eilish and Finneas O'Connell win the Oscar for Best Original Song for "What Was I Made For?" from "Barbie" during the Oscars show at the 96th Academy Awards in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, U.S., March 10, 2024. REUTERS/Mike Blake
Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell win the Oscar for Best Original Song for “What Was I Made For?” from “Barbie” during the Oscars show at the 96th Academy Awards in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, U.S., March 10, 2024. REUTERS/Mike Blake

Amid the upbeat moments, international conflicts were on the minds of attendees, winners and protesters outside the theater.

Israel-Gaza conflict plays a role

When Holocaust drama “The Zone of Interest” was named best international feature, director Jonathan Glazer addressed the Israel-Gaza conflict in his acceptance speech.

“Right now we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people. Whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza. All the victims of this dehumanization. How do we resist?” he said to cheers and applause.

A handful of celebrities, including Eilish, Mahershala Ali and Mark Ruffalo, wore red pins calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Outside, hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters angered by the Israel-Gaza conflict shouted and slowed traffic in the streets surrounding the Dolby Theatre. “While you’re watching, bombs are dropping,” one sign read.

“The Oscars are happening down the road while people are being murdered, killed, bombed,” said 38-year-old business owner Zinab Nassrou.

On the red carpet, stars strutted in strong silhouettes, sparkles and a splash of Barbie-inspired pink.

Talk show host Jimmy Kimmel, hosting the show for the fourth time, opened the ceremony by complimenting, and taking jabs at, many of the nominees and their films.

The comedian praised “Barbie,” the pink-drenched doll adventure, for remaking a “plastic doll nobody even liked anymore” into a feminist icon.

Before the film, there was “a better chance of getting my wife to buy our daughter a pack of Marlboro Reds” than a Barbie, Kimmel said on the broadcast, which was shown live on the U.S. ABC network.

Kimmel said many of this year’s movies were too long, particularly Martin Scorsese’s 3-1/2-hour epic “Killer of the Flower Moon” about the murders of members of the Osage Nation in 1920s Oklahoma.

“In the time it takes you to watch it, you could drive to Oklahoma and solve the murders,” Kimmel joked.

Late in the show, Kimmel read aloud from a scathing online review of his performance as host, disclosing at the end that it was written by former U.S. President Donald Trump.

Kimmel jokingly asked the audience to guess which former president had written the post and then quipped: “Thank you, President Trump. Isn’t it past your jail time?”

The Winners

BEST PICTURE
Oppenheimer

BEST ACTOR
Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer

BEST ACTRESS
Emma Stone, Poor Things

BEST DIRECTOR
Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Robert Downey Jr., Oppenheimer

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
American Fiction

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Anatomy of a Fall

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
The Boy and the Heron

BEST ANIMATED SHORT
War is Over! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE
The Zone of Interest, United Kingdom

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
20 Days in Mariupol

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
The Last Repair Shop

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Oppenheimer

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
What Was I Made For?, Barbie

BEST SOUND
The Zone of Interest

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
Poor Things

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Oppenheimer

BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
Poor Things

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Poor Things

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Godzilla Minus One

BEST FILM EDITING
Oppenheimer

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