In one of the least surprising Oscar ceremonies in recent years, Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer won seven awards, including for best picture and directing. Nolan’s biopic of atomic bomb creator Robert J Oppenheimer, a critical darling and a commercial blockbuster, was nominated in 13 categories.

Apart from bagging Nolan his first ever Oscar for direction, the wins for Oppenheimer included Best Actor in a Leading Role for Cillian Murphy and Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Robert Downey Jr).

“I can’t say enough about the incredible crew we got together on this film,” Nolan said, adding,

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“Cinema is just over a hundred years old. We don’t know where this incredible journey is going from here. But to think that I’m a meaningful part of it means the world to me.”

Cillian Murphy, who was nominated for and won an Oscar for the first time, dedicated the award to “peacemakers everywhere”.

Robert Downey Jr said on the stage: “I’d like to thank my terrible childhood and the Academy in that order.”

The Oscars, organised by the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences, was held in Los Angeles on Sunday and streamed live on Disney+ Hotstar. Jimmy Kimmel steered the event through 23 categories, performances of the five Oscar-nominated songs and a fair share of groan-worthy comedy skits.

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John Cena appeared in the nude to present the Oscar for Costume Design. “Costumes, they are so important, maybe the most important thing there is,” Cena said, before he was draped by Kimmel in a golden tasselled toga. The award went to Yorgos Lanthimos’s Poor Things over the predicted winner Barbie.

The movie, edited by Yorgos Mavropsaridis, gave Kimmel a joke: “Will they both win? Yorgos is as good as mine.”

The highlights included Ryan Gosling belting out the hot-pink I’m Just Ken from Barbie. Messie, the remarkable border collie from Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall, was among the guests. The makers of the Japanese sleeper hit Godzilla: Minus One were easily the most ecstatic winners.

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Lanthimos’s twisted comedy, about the emancipation of a woman created as a scientific experiment, was nominated in 10 categories and won in four, including for Emma Stone for Actress in a Leading Role.

“This is really overwhelming,” said a visibly shocked Stone, who delivered a remarkable performance as the marionette-like Bella Baxter. “It’s not about me, it’s about a team that came together to make something greater than the sum of its parts. That is the best part of making movies.” Stone trumped Lily Gladstone, who was widely tipped to win for Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon.

Poor Things also won for production design and make-up and hair-styling. Killers of the Flower Moon didn’t get a single award.

Jonathan Glazer’s chilling Holocaust drama The Zone of Interest won two Oscars, for International Feature Film and Sound. Glazer’s German-language film reflects the attempts of the commandant of Auschwitz to build a perfect domestic life even as he oversees mass slaughter at the concentration camp next door.

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Glazer gave the most concise and political speech of the evening, linking the Holocaust with the Gaza tragedy: “All our choices were made to reflect and confront us in the present. Our film shows where dehumanisation leads at its worst.” The British director went on to make an explicit reference to Israel’s war on Palestine: “Whether the victims of October 7 in Israel or the ongoing attacks in Gaza, all victims face dehumanisation.”

Justine Triet and Arthur Harari won for their original screenplay for Anatomy of a Fall. The Oscar will “help me through my mid-life crisis”, Triet joked.

The adapted screenplay Oscar was won by Cord Jefferson for American Fiction. Jefferson made a pitch for independent films made on smaller budgets.

Despite eight nominations, Greta Gerwig’s box office scorcher Barbie bagged a single Oscar: for Best Original Song. What Was I Made For?, by siblings Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell, captured the essence of Gerwig’s feminist take on the doll that comes to life and is played by Margot Robbie.

In other significant honours, Da’Vine Joy Randolph won the supporting actress award for playing a grief-stricken mother in Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers. The Documentary Feature Film Oscar went to Mstyslav Chernov’s topical Ukraine war-themed 20 Days in Mariupol, beating Nisha Pahuja’s To Kill a Tiger, about a Jharkhand rape survivor’s fight for justice.

In the Animated Feature Film category, Japanese master Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron beat Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, directed by Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, Justin K Thompson.

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In another honour for Japanese cinema, Takashi Yamazaki’s Godzilla Minus One won the Oscar for best visual effects over Guardians of the Galaxy 3 and The Creator. Yamazaki also designed the visual effects. This is the second time a director has won the Best Visual Effects Oscar after Stanley Kubrick for 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1969.

In a touching speech, Yamazaki said, “For nearly 40 years, I have been making films while admiring the artistry of Hollywood visual effects, and I feel that I have finally come this far. I had not set my sights on being nominated, but I am very happy to have been brought to this place.”

Here is the complete list of winners and nominations.

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Best Picture

Winner: Oppenheimer

American Fiction

Anatomy of a Fall

Barbie

The Holdovers

Killers of the Flower Moon

Maestro

Past Lives

Poor Things

The Zone of Interest

Best Director

Winner: Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer

Justine Triet, Anatomy of a Fall

Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon

Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor Things

Jonathan Glazer, The Zone of Interest

Actress in a Leading Role

Winner: Emma Stone, Poor Things

Annette Bening, Nyad

Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon

Sandra Huller, Anatomy of a Fall

Carey Mulligan, Maestro

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Actor in a Leading Role

Winner: Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer

Bradley Cooper, Maestro

Colman Domingo, Rustin

Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers

Jeffrey Wright, American Fiction

Actor in a Supporting Role

Winner: Robert Downey Jr, Oppenheimer

Sterling K Brown, American Fiction

Robert De Niro, Killers of the Flower Moon

Ryan Gosling, Barbie

Mark Ruffalo, Poor Things

Actress in a Supporting Role

Winner: Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers

Emily Blunt, Oppenheimer

Danielle Brooks, The Color Purple

America Ferrera, Barbie

Jodie Foster, Nyad

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Original Screenplay

Winner: Anatomy of a Fall, Justine Triet and Arthur Harari

The Holdovers, David Hemingson

Maestro, Bradley Cooper and Josh Singer

May December, screenplay by Samy Burch; story by Samy Burch and Alex Mechanik

Past Lives, Celine Song

Adapted Screenplay

Winner: American Fiction, Cord Jefferson

Barbie, Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach

Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan

Poor Things, Tony McNamara

The Zone of Interest, Jonathan Glazer

Cinematography

Winner: Oppenheimer, Hoyte van Hoytema

El Condes, Edward Lachman

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Killers of the Flower Moon, Rodrigo Prieto

Maestro, Matthew Libatique

Poor Things, Robbie Ryan

Film Editing

Winner: Oppenheimer, Jennifer Lame

Anatomy of a Fall, Laurent Senechal

The Holdovers, Kevin Tent

Killers of the Flower Moon, Thelma Schoonmaker

Poor Things, Yorgos Mavropsaridis

International Feature Film

Winner: The Zone of Interest (United Kingdom)

Io Capitano (Italy)

Perfect Days (Japan)

Society of the Snow (Spain)

The Teachers’ Lounge (Germany)

Production Design

Winner: Poor Things, production design: James Price and Shona Heath; set decoration: Zsuzsa Mihalek

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Barbie, production design: Sarah Greenwood; set decoration: Katie Spencer

Killers of the Flower Moon, production design: Jack Fisk; set decoration: Adam Willis

Napoleon, production design: Arthur Max; set decoration: Elli Griff

Oppenheimer, production design: Ruth De Jong; set decoration: Claire Kaufman

Makeup and Hairstyling

Winner: Poor Things, Nadia Stacey, Mark Coulier and Josh Weston

Golda, Karen Hartley Thomas, Suzi Battersby and Ashra Kelly-Blue

Maestro, Kazu Hiro, Kay Georgiou and Lori McCoy-Bell

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Oppenheimer, Luisa Abel

Society of the Snow, Ana Lopez-Puigcerver, David Marti and Montse Ribe

Costume Design

Winner: Poor Things, Holly Waddington

Barbie, Jacqueline Durran

Killers of the Flower Moon, Jacqueline West

Napoleon, Janty Yates and Dave Crossman

Oppenheimer, Ellen Mirojnick

Sound

Winner: The Zone of Interest, Tarn Willers and Johnnie Burn

The Creator, Ian Voigt, Erik Aadahl, Ethan Van der Ryn, Tom Ozanich and Dean Zupancic

Maestro, Steven A. Morrow, Richard King, Jason Ruder, Tom Ozanich and Dean Zupancic

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Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, Chris Munro, James H. Mather, Chris Burdon and Mark Taylor

Oppenheimer, Willie Burton, Richard King, Gary A. Rizzo and Kevin O’Connell

Original Score

Winner: Oppenheimer, Ludwig Goransson

American Fiction, Laura Karpman

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, John Williams

Killers of the Flower Moon, Robbie Robertson

Poor Things, Jerskin Fendrix

Original Song

Winner: What Was I Made For? from Barbie, music and lyric by Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell

The Fire Inside from Flamin’ Hot, music and lyric by Diane Warren

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I’m Just Ken from Barbie, music and lyric by Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt

It Never Went Away from American Symphony, music and lyric by Jon Batiste and Dan Wilson

Wahzhazhe (A Song For My People) from Killers of the Flower Moon, music and lyric by Scott George

Documentary Feature Film

Winner: 20 Days in Mariupol, Mstyslav Chernov

Bobi Wine: The People’s President, Moses Bwayo, Christopher Sharp

The Eternal Memory, Maite Alberdi

Four Daughters, Kaouther Ben Hania

To Kill a Tiger, Nisha Pahuja

Documentary Short Film

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Winner: The Last Repair Shop, Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers

The ABCs of Book Banning, Trish Adlesic, Nazenet Habezghi and Sheila Nevins

The Barber of Little Rock, John Hoffman and Christine Turner

Island in Between, S Leo Chiang

Nai Nai & Wai Po, Sean Wang

Animated Feature Film

Winner: The Boy and the Heron, Hayao Miyazaki

Elemental, Peter Sohn

Nimona, Nick Bruno and Troy Quane

Robot Dreams, Pablo Berger

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, Justin K Thompson

Live Action Short Film

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Winner: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, Wes Anderson and Steven Rales

The After, Misan Harriman and Nicky Bentham

Invincible, Vincent René-Lortie and Samuel Caron

Knight of Fortune, Lasse Lyskjær Noer and Christian Norlyk

Red, White and Blue, Nazrin Choudhury and Sara McFarlane

Animated Short Film

Winner: War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko, Dave Mullins and Brad Booker

Letter to a Pig, Tal Kantor and Amit R. Gicelter

Ninety-Five Senses, Jerusha Hess and Jared Hess

Our Uniform, Yegane Moghaddam

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Pachyderme, Stephanie Clément and Marc Rius

Visual Effects

Winner: Godzilla Minus One, Takashi Yamazaki, Kiyoko Shibuya, Masaki Takahashi and Tatsuji Nojima

The Creator, Jay Cooper, Ian Comley, Andrew Roberts and Neil Corbould

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Stephane Ceretti, Alexis Wajsbrot, Guy Williams and Theo Bialek

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, Alex Wuttke, Simone Coco, Jeff Sutherland and Neil Corbould

Napoleon, Charley Henley, Luc-Ewen Martin-Fenouillet, Simone Coco and Neil Corbould

Also read:

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Poor Things’ review: Emma Stone brilliantly anchors a full-tilt bizarre comedy

‘Oppenheimer’ review: A grandiloquent saga about a grand folly

‘Anatomy of a Fall’ review: A beautifully performed dissection of a marriage