Few were surprised when, at the 96th Academy Awards on Sunday, March 10, Oppenheimer swept the board, taking best picture, best director for Christopher Nolan, best actor for Cillian Murphy, best supporting actor for Robert Downey Jr, best editing, best cinematography and best original song. Long ignored by the Oscars, this was Nolan's year, after Oppenheimer emerged the decisive winner of the "Barbenheimer" box office duel last summer. Barbie picked up just one Oscar – best song for "What Was I Made For?"
Through its recognition of Nolan, Sunday's Oscars defended the cinema of dark rooms, given the director left Warner Bros studios in protest at their policy of releasing films on streaming platforms. In his acceptance speech, he said: "Movies are just a little bit over 100 years old. I mean, imagine being there 100 years into painting or theater. We don't know where this incredible journey is going from here. But to know that you think that I'm a meaningful part of it means the world to me."
On the actresses' side, however, predictions did not come to pass. Lily Gladstone was widely expected to take best actress for Killers of the Flower Moon, and would have become the first indigenous American actress to win an award. But it was Emma Stone who won for Poor Creatures, her second Oscar win after La La Land in 2017. She paid an emotional tribute to Gladstone, saying: "Lily, I share this with you, I'm in awe of you."
Gladstone's defeat perhaps demonstrates the Academy's difficulties on the path to diversity, and the victory of African-American Da'Vine Joy Randolph as best supporting actress for The Holdovers will not be enough to quell the feeling behind the #oscarssowhite hashtag, started in 2015.
French film Anatomy of a Fall, nominated five times, left with the Oscar for best original screenplay for writer-director Justine Triet and her co-writer Arthur Harari. Triet steered clear of politics in her acceptance speech, unlike at Cannes, saying on Sunday only that the win would "help me through my midlife crisis".
However, Jonathan Glazer, the British director of The Zone of Interest, the story of daily life for the family of the Auschwitz commandant, which won best international film, used his acceptance to deliver an anti-Zionist speech, to applause. He said: "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 7 in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza. All the victims of this dehumanization."
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