‘Oppenheimer’ sweeps the Academy Awards, Emma Stone bags second Oscar as demonstrations for Gaza rage outside the venue
- Cillian Murphy bagged the best actor award while Robert Downey Jr took home best supporting actor and director Christopher Nolan won his first Oscar
- ‘Barbie’ star Ryan Gosling performed the movie’s hit song ‘ I’m Just Ken’, while host Jimmy Kimmel called Hollywood ‘a union town’ after 2023 strikes
The producers of “Oppenheimer” accept the award for best picture onstage during the 96th Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California. Photo: TNSThis year’s Academy Awards best actress prize was one of the most closely watched contests, and the honour was given to Emma Stone, who won for her performance as Bella Baxter in Poor Things.
In what was seen as the night’s most nail-biting category, Stone won over Lily Gladstone of Killers of the Flower Moon. Gladstone would have become the first Native American actress to win an Academy Award.
The win for Stone, her second best actress Oscar following her win for La La Land a few years ago, confirmed the 35-year-old as arguably the pre-eminent big-screen actress of her generation. The list of women to win best actress two or more times is illustrious, including Katherine Hepburn, Frances McDormand, Ingrid Bergman and Bette Davis.
Meanwhile, Christopher Nolan won best director for his blockbuster biopic Oppenheimer. Nolan has had many films in the Oscar mix before, including Inception, Dunkirk and The Dark Knight. But his win on Sunday is the first Academy Award for the 53-year-old filmmaker.
Cillian Murphy, the veteran Irish actor whose titanic performance as J Robert Oppenheimer centred one of the year’s most acclaimed films, also won best actor.
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“For better or for worse we’re all living in Oppenheimer’s world so I would really like to dedicate this to the peacemakers everywhere,” said Murphy.
The broadcast, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, had plenty of razzle dazzle, including a sprawling song-and-dance rendition of the Barbie hit “I’m Just Ken” by Ryan Gosling, with an assist on guitar by Slash from Guns N’ Roses.
The lead winner, as expected, was biopic Oppenheimer. Though not quite the clean sweep that some expected, Oppenheimer overpowered its competition – including its release-date companion, Barbie – winning awards for its cinematography, editing, score and Robert Downey Jr’s supporting performance.
Downey, nominated twice before, notched his first Oscar, crowning the second act of his up-and-down career.
“I’d like to thank my terrible childhood and the academy, in that order,” said Downey, the son of filmmaker Robert Downey Sr.
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Barbie, last year’s biggest box-office hit with more than US$1.4 billion in ticket sales, didn’t win an award until almost three hours into the ceremony, when it won best song for Billie Eilish and Finneas’ “What Was I Made For?” It’s their second Oscar, two years after winning for their James Bond theme, “No Time to Die”.
But after an awards season that stayed largely inside a Hollywood bubble, geopolitics played a prominent role. Protests over Israel’s war in Gaza snarled traffic around the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, slowing stars’ arrival on the red carpet and turning the Oscar spotlight toward the ongoing conflict. Some protesters shouted “Shame!” at those trying to reach the awards.
Jonathan Glazer, the British filmmaker whose chilling Auschwitz drama The Zone of Interest won best international film, drew connections between the dehumanisation depicted in his film and today.
“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, this dehumanisation, how do we resist?”
The war in Gaza was on the minds of many attendees, as was the war in Ukraine. A year after Navalny won the same award, Mstyslav Chernov’s 20 Days in Mariupol, a harrowing chronicle of the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, won best documentary.
Mstyslav Chernov, the Ukrainian filmmaker whose hometown was bombed the day he learned of his Oscar nomination, spoke forcefully about Russia’s invasion.
“This is the first Oscar in Ukrainian history,” said Chernov. “And I’m honoured. Probably I will be the first director on this stage to say I wish I’d never made this film. I wish to be able to exchange this (for) Russia never attacking Ukraine.”
In the early going, Yorgos Lanthimos’ Frankenstein-riff Poor Things ran away with three prizes for its sumptuous craft, including awards for production design, make-up and hairstyling and costume design.
Kimmel, hosting the telecast for the fourth time, emphasised Hollywood as “a union town” following 2023’s actor and writer strikes. This drew a standing ovation for bringing out teamsters and behind-the-scenes workers – who are now entering their own labour negotiations.
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The night’s first award was one of its most predictable: Da’Vine Joy Randolph for best supporting actress, for her performance in Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers.
“For so long I’ve always wanted to be different,” said Randolph. “And now I realise I just need to be myself.”
Though Randolph’s win was widely expected, an upset quickly followed. Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron won for best animated feature, a surprise over the slightly favoured Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Miyazaki, the 83-year-old Japanese anime master who came out of retirement to make The Boy and the Heron, didn’t attend the ceremony. He also didn’t attend the 2003 Oscars when his Spirited Away won the same award.