Godzilla and Billie Eilish make history, Emma Stone upsets, Netflix and Apple flop
Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer has won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for Cillian Murphy and Best Supporting Actor for Robert Downey Jr. at the 96th Academy Awards among its seven wins in total and became the first Best Picture winner to have no festival presence since 2006’s The Departed.
The $950M summer blockbuster also earned wins for Original Score, Film Editing and Cinematography. Based on the 2005 biography American Prometheus by Kal Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, the film chronicles the career of J. Robert Oppenheimer, with the story predominantly focusing on his studies, his direction of the Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II, and his eventual fall from grace due to his 1954 security hearing.
Nolan thanked the younger audience for seeing the film, and seeing it so many times, as well as highlight the state and stage of cinema and where it may go.
“And to the Academy. Just to say movies are just a little bit over 100 years old. Imagine being there into 100 years of painting or theater we don’t know where this incredible journey is going from here. But to know that you think I had a meaningful part of it means the world to me. Thank you very much.”
In his speech, Best Actor winner Murphy said, “I’m a little overwhelmed. Thank you to the Academy, Chris Nolan, and Emma Thomas. It’s been the wildest, most exhilarating, most creatively satisfying journey you’ve taken me on over the last 20 years. I owe you more than I can say. Thank you so much.”
Poor Things was the other big winner of the night with four, including a Best Actress win for Emma Stone in one of the night’s most contested categories. Stone had won the Golden Globe (comedy), Critics Choice and BAFTA ahead of the Oscars. Lily Gladstone (Killers of the Flower Moon) had won the Golden Globe for drama as well as the Screen Actors Guild award, one of Oscar’s best bellwethers.
Stone, visibly surprised by her win also made room to joke about her dress ripping before she got on stage.
“My dress is broken. I think it happened during ‘I’m Just Ken,'” Stone said. Before leaving she thanked her family and especially her daughter, who is turning three in three days.
Speaking of Killers of the Flower Moon, the film became the third Martin Scorsese-directed film to earn 10 Oscar nominations and lose them all after 2002’s Gangs of New York and 2019’s The Irishman.
Downey Jr. and Supporting Actress winner Da’Vine Joy Randolph (The Holdovers) closed their awards season with a full sweep, earning Golden Globe, Critics Choice, BAFTA and SAG awards before securing their Oscars. In her speech Randolph highlighted her mother and the women in her life.
“For so long I’ve always wanted to be different, and now I realize I just need to be myself. And I thank you. I thank you for seeing me,” she said.
In his acceptance speech for International Feature Film, The Zone of Interest director Jonathan Glazer spoke up about the current crisis in Gaza, the only winner to directly acknowledge the war.
“Whether the victims of October — 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? Alexandria, the girl who glows in the film as she did in life, chose to. I dedicate this to her memory and her resistance. Thank you.”
This year, the Academy brings back one of its more popular, if unsustainable, presentations with previous acting Oscar winners introducing the nominees in those respective categories.
Best Actress: Michelle Yeoh – Sandra Hüller; Sally Field – Emma Stone; Jennifer Lawrence – Killers of the Flower Moon; Jessica Lange – Carey Mulligan; Charlize Theron – Annette Bening
Best Actor: Nicolas Cage – Paul Giamatti; Matthew McConaughey – Bradley Cooper; Jeffrey Wright – Brendan Fraser; Ben Kingsley – Cillian Murphy; Forest Whitaker – Colman Domingo
Supporting Actress: Mary Steenburgen – Emily Blunt; Jamie Lee Curtis – Jodie Foster; Lupita Nyong’o – Da’Vine Joy Randolph; Rita Moreno – America Ferrera; Regina King – Danielle Brooks
Supporting Actor: Sam Rockwell – Robert Downey Jr.; Tim Robbins – Robert De Niro; Ke Huy Quan – Sterling K. Brown; Christoph Waltz – Ryan Gosling; Mahershala Ali – Mark Ruffalo
Upon winning Original Screenplay for Anatomy of a Fall, co-writer and director Justine Triet explained the origins of the story, which began during lockdown.
“We were stuck in the house with two kids. It was a lockdown. And we hook them up to cartoons for peace. And, yeah, there was no line, I think, between work and diapers.”
Her partner and co-writer Arthur Harari followed up, saying, “And then along came two other people, a woman and a man, the producers, Marie-Ange Luciani and David Thion. And — yeah. And they — actually, that’s when things got a little crazy. It was like a mix of ping-pong played by Marie — French or something.”
After winning for Adapted Screenplay, American Fiction writer and director Cord Jefferson took his speech time to plead for Hollywood to take less risks with massively budgeted films and more on modestly budgeted ones.
Jefferson also become just the second Black debut solo writer to win the category, following Geoffrey Fletcher’s upset for 2009’s Precious. He’s only the third Black debut solo writer along with Jordan Peele for 2017’s Get Out, who won in original.
Ryan Gosling brought the house down with the first live performance of “I’m Just Ken” from Barbie, which opened with him in the audience and then onstage with inspiration from the 1953 film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes with Gosling in a shimmery pink suits surrounded by male suiters.
Winning Original Song for “What Was I Made For?” from Barbie, Billie Eilish, 22, and Finneas, 26, mad Oscar history as the youngest people to win two Oscars before the age of 30.
The Boy and the Heron won for Best Animated Feature, marking the first ever as a company for GKIDS after 13 nominations in the Best Animated Feature category. The visual effect win for Godzilla Minus was historic as the first Godzilla film ever to be nominated but it’s also the first time since 2016’s The Jungle Book that the win came from a film’s only nomination (and 1992’s Death Becomes Her before that) and the first and only time since 1969’s 2001: A Space Odyssey that a director was a recipient in the category.
The world’s two biggest streaming rivals, Apple and Netflix, were the night’s biggest losers. With a combined 32 nominations Netflix, which had 19 nominations across 12 films, managed a single win – Wes Anderson’s first in eight nominations – for Live Action Short, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar.
Here is the full list of winners of the 96th Academy Awards.
Best Picture
Achievement in directing
Performance by an actor in a leading role
Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Performance by an actress in a leading role
Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Adapted screenplay
Original screenplay
Achievement in film editing
Achievement in cinematography
Achievement in costume design
Achievement in production design
Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)
Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)
Achievement in sound
Achievement in makeup and hairstyling
Achievement in visual effects
Best animated feature film of the year
Best documentary feature film
Best international feature film of the year
Best animated short film
Best documentary short film
Best live action short film
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