Oscars 2024: Oppenheimer Scoops Seven Awards
Cillian Murphy has become the first Irish-born winner of the best actor award, as Oppenheimer swept the Oscars.
Oppenheimer dominated proceedings, winning best picture, best director for Christopher Nolan, and best supporting actor for Robert Downey Jr.
Cillian Murphy was named best leading actor for his acclaimed portrayal of theoretical physicist J Robert Oppenheimer.
The ceremony saw Oppenheimer win seven prizes overall, while Poor Things took four – including best actress for Emma Stone – and The Zone of Interest scored two.
Downey Jr won best supporting actor for his portrayal of US government official Lewis Strauss in Oppenheimer.
Oscars 2024: Full List of Winners and Nominees
Oppenheimer also won best editing, original score and cinematography. However, it lost several other technical categories, denying it a record-breaking number of wins.
Instead, the unusual steampunk drama Poor Things won best production design, costume design, make-up and hairstyling, as well as best actress for Emma Stone.
The Yorgos Lanthimos film follows an infant whose brain has been implanted into the body of an adult woman, who then goes on an adventure of discovery across the world.
Best actress was the only major category that awards watchers had struggled to call – it had been seen as a dead heat between Emma Stone and Lily Gladstone for Killers of the Flower Moon.
But Martin Scorsese’s drama about a string of Osage murders in the 1920s went home empty handed despite being nominated in 10 categories at the ceremony.
Barbie, the highest-grossing film of 2023, won only one of the eight prizes it was nominated for – best original song for What Was I Made For? by Billie Eilish.
Da’Vine Joy Randolph won best supporting actress for her portrayal of a school chef who is trying to cope with the death of her son in The Holdovers.
The Zone of Interest won best sound and became the first British film ever to win best international feature. The critically acclaimed Holocaust drama follows a German family who live next to the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Best documentary feature went to 20 Days In Mariupol. Its director Mstyslav Chernov told the audience that he was “honoured” to become the first Ukrainian Oscar winner.
Elsewhere, Anatomy of a Fall won best original screenplay. The film’s director and co-writer Justine Triet joked the Oscar would “help me through my mid-life crisis”.
The film follows a woman accused of killing her husband, with the only nearby witness her visually impaired son.
American Fiction was named best adapted screenplay.
Japanese fantasy film The Boy and the Heron was named best animated feature film, holding off competition from Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.
And director Wes Anderson won his first Academy Award in the live action short category for The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar, based on the story by Roald Dahl.
For the fourth time, the ceremony was hosted by Jimmy Kimmel. He opened with a monologue which reflected on the past 12 months in the film industry.
Recalling the strikes that brought Hollywood to a standstill, Jimmy Kimmel paid tribute to the efforts made to get a fair deal for actors and writers.
He joked that actors could now stop worrying about “being replaced by AI, and could go back to worrying about being replaced by younger, more attractive people”.
Towards the end of the ceremony, Jimmy Kimmel read out an online post from former President Donald Trump, who had complained about Kimmel’s performance.
Responding to Trump live on air, Kimmel said: “Thank you President Trump, thank you for watching, I’m surprised you’re still up, isn’t it past your jail time?”
