Baftas 2024: Christopher Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer’ emerges as the big winner
Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer has come out on top at the Baftas with seven high-profile victories.
Nolan’s movie follows the rise and fall of J. Robert Oppenheimer, one of the main men responsible for the development of the atomic bomb. The film features Cillian Murphy as the titular character, with Emily Blunt playing his wife, Kitty.
The movie grossed an eye-watering $959.9million at the worldwide box office and received widespread praise. Alongside Murphy and Blunt, Oppenheimer also stars Robert Downey Jr, Matt Damon, Florence Pugh, Casey Affleck and Josh Hartnett.
The movie was nominated for 13 Batfa Awards, taking home seven. Its first win of the night was ‘Best Editing’, which was awarded to Jennifer Lame.
It wasn’t long before the film swept up another award, this time receiving ‘Best Cinematography’, which went to Hoyte van Hoytema. Hoytema has previously collaborated with Nolan on movies such as Dunkirk, Interstellar and Tenet, although Oppenheimer is his first Bafta win.
Robert Downey Jr then won ‘Best Supporting Actor’ for his performance as Lewis Strauss. In his speech, he referenced some of the actors who inspired his career, including Peter O’Toole and Anthony Hopkins.
Oppenheimer also took home ‘Best Original Score’, which was given to Ludwig Göransson, beating the likes of Jerskin Fendrix for Poor Things and Robbie Robertson for Killers of the Flower Moon.
‘Best Director’ was awarded to Nolan, making it his first Bafta win in the category. He thanked Universal Studios during his speech, saying, “Thank you for letting us take on something quite dark and seeing the potential in that.”
Meanwhile, Murphy was the lucky recipient of ‘Best Actor in a Leading Role’, beating competition from Bradley Cooper in Maestro, Barry Keoghan in Saltburn and Teo Yoo in Past Lives. He has become the first Irish actor to ever win the prize.
Finally, to round off an astounding evening, Oppenheimer was awarded the final prize of the night, ‘Best Film’. Up against movies such as Poor Things, The Holdovers and Anatomy of a Fall, Nolan’s effort took home its seventh prize, cementing it as one of the most critically lauded movies of 2023.
In a four-star-review, Far Out said, “With Oppenheimer, [Nolan] hasn’t just delivered an entertaining, thought-provoking movie as he had done with his previous efforts, but a thoroughly important one that informs even the most sheltered of us about the global situation we find ourselves in today.”
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