'Oppenheimer' reigns at Oscars with 7 wins

Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” an unsettling look at the dawn of the atomic era, dominated the 96th Academy Awards on Sunday, winning seven prizes, including best picture and best director. The film, which took on an added resonance at a time of international conflict, also scored Oscars for Cillian Murphy’s haunted lead performance as J. Robert Oppenheimer and Robert Downey Jr.’s supporting turn as a vengeful bureaucrat.

A poster of “Oppenheimer.”File photo

“We made a film about the man who created the atomic bomb, and for better or for worse, we’re all living in Oppenheimer’s world,” Murphy noted in his acceptance speech.

For Nolan, the honors came after a tangled history with the Oscars — he was nominated seven previous times, including for directing “Dunkirk,” as well as for his work on movies like “Memento” and “Inception.” But the Academy snubbed his biggest hit, “The Dark Knight” for best picture and director, an omission that provoked outrage and prompted the organization to increase the number of films nominated for best of the year from five to 10.

Seven years after winning for “La La Land,” Emma Stone earned her second best actress Oscar for “Poor Things.” Stone played a child-like woman who embarks on a journey of self-discovery in the steampunk fantasy. She thanked her director Yorgo Lanthimos, with whom she has just made another movie, “Kinds of Kindness,” while also reflecting on the collaborative nature of cinema. “The best part about making movies is all of us together,” she said.

Stone’s win was one of four victories for “Poor Things,” which also earned statuettes in several technical categories.

Da’Vine Joy Randolph earned best supporting actress for her role as a grieving cafeteria manager grappling with the death of her son in “The Holdovers.”

“Oppenheimer” with its solemn subject matter was a change of pace for Downey, who spent much of the past two decades playing Iron Man in Marvel movies. “Here’s my little secret: I needed this job more than it needed me,” Downey said. The actor struggled with drug addiction for much of the 1990s and early aughts before getting sober and launching his comeback.

Other winners used their time on stage to make political statements. Jonathan Glazer, director of the best international feature winner “The Zone of Interest,” a drama set in Auschwitz, spoke out about the violence in the Middle East and drew parallels with the message of his searing look at the Holocaust.