Oppenheimer, the blockbuster biopic about the race to build the first atomic bomb, claimed the prestigious best picture trophy at the Academy Awards on Sunday.
Director Christopher Nolan’s film starred Irish actor Cillian Murphy as theoretical physicist J Robert Oppenheimer, leader of the US effort in the 1940s to create a weapon devastating enough to end World War Two.
Murphy won the best actor trophy, and Nolan was named best director. Emma Stone won best actress for Poor Things.
A three-hour historical drama about science and politics, Oppenheimer became an unlikely box office hit and grossed US$953.8 million (RM4.4 billion), 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.
Oppenheimer triumphed over feminist doll adventure Barbie, a movie it had battled in a box office showdown dubbed ‘Barbenheimer’. Other best picture contenders included The Holdovers, a dramedy set in a New England boarding school, and the Holocaust tale The Zone of Interest.
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 honour for playing Oppenheimer’s professional nemesis.
“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 won the best supporting actress trophy for playing a grieving mother and cafeteria worker in the comedy set in a New England boarding school. She shed tears as she accepted her award.
“For so long, I always wanted to be different, and now I realise I just need to be myself,” she said. “I thank you for seeing me.”
“The Boy and the Heron,” Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki’s semi-autobiographical film about grief, was named best animated feature.
Winners were chosen by the roughly 10,500 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.
Reuters
