Oscars 2024: Oppenheimer’s best picture win caps night of Academy Awards triumph for blockbuster biopic

Biopic about the father of the atomic bomb takes three of the top Academy Awards, and four others, to one for Barbie. Poor Things’ Emma Stone wins best actress

Hayao Miyazaki wins his second best animated feature Oscar at the age of 83, and British Holocaust drama The Zone of Interest takes best international feature

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Christopher Nolan accepts the Oscar for best director for Oppenheimer from presenter Steven Spielberg during the 96th Academy Awards ceremony in Hollywood. The film went on to win best director, and earned five other Oscars. Photo: Reuters

Published: 11:56am, 11 Mar 2024Updated: 12:47pm, 11 Mar 2024

Oppenheimer, the blockbuster biopic about the race to build the first atomic bomb, claimed the prestigious best picture trophy at the 2024 Academy Awards.

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, and the film picked up four technical awards. Emma Stone won best actress for Poor Things, which also won for best production design, make-up and hairstyling, and costumes.

A three-hour historical drama about science and politics, Oppenheimer became an unlikely box office hit and grossed US$953.8 million, in addition to widespread critical praise.

Cillian Murphy, winner of the best actor, in a still from Oppenheimer. Photo: Universal Pictures

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, and Memento among 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 World War Two Holocaust tale The Zone of Interest.