Oscars 2024: The biggest winners and losers
With the passing of another year comes the passing of another Oscars ceremony. Just like always, this year was packed with massive snubs, glorious wins and overly long acceptance speeches, with the likes of Christopher Nolan, Cillian Murphy and Emma Stone taking home some of the night’s biggest awards. Meanwhile, Nolan’s vast box-office biopic Oppenheimer took the lion’s share of trophies.
Telling the story of the creator of the atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Nolan’s film took almost $1billion at the box office, thanks, in part, to the coinciding efforts of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, released on the very same day. Together, the films created the ‘Barbenheimer’ phenomenon that magnetised millions of people across the world back to the cinema years after the Covid-19 pandemic brought the industry to a halt.
Overall, the 96th Academy Awards felt a little flat, even if the majority of major winners were worthy of their prizes. Consummate professional Jimmy Kimmel failed to add any oomph to the awards and, once again, the show felt like a ‘by-the-book’ recreation of what had come before.
Regardless, take a look below at the winners and losers of the 2024 Oscars and explore the very best of what contemporary cinema has to offer.
Oscars 2024: Winners and Losers
Winner: Oppenheimer
As expected, Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer took home the biggest prize of the night, with the story chronicling the creation and detonation of the first atomic bomb being named ‘Best Picture’, one of seven awards won by the film including ‘Best Director’, ‘Best Actor’, and ‘Best Supporting Actor’.
Beyond being awarded the most notable trophy the film industry has to offer, Nolan and producing partner Emma Thomas became just the second husband-and-wife duo to win ‘Best Picture’, a feat only previously achieved by Driving Miss Daisy pair Richard D. Zanuck and Lili Fini Zanuck back in 1990.
Loser: Killers of the Flower Moon
Heading into the Oscars, it was reasonable to expect that Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon would win something, considering the hard-hitting drama was nominated in no less than ten different categories for its directorial, aesthetic, technical, and performative merits.
Instead, it left with absolutely nothing, and came perilously close to matching an unwanted record for its troubles. Turning Point and The Color Purple were each nominated for 11 Oscars to no avail, and by falling just one short of the benchmark, Scorsese also matched a feat he’d accomplished previously when Gangs of New York secured ten nods and not a single victory to show for it.
Winner: Animation
For many decades, the Oscars have been criticised for its approach to the ‘Best Animated Feature Film’ category, often giving the trophy to the most popular movie of any given year from Disney or Pixar. Yet, this year, for only the second time in the ceremony’s history, the award was given to an international feature film, Hayao Miyazaki’s Boy and the Heron, beating out the Marvel flick Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.
Across the Spider-Verse would have been a worthy winner of the award, yet there’s no denying that the world of animation rejoices to see The Boy and the Heron take home the trophy. The world of anime is as rife and as popular as ever, with this win proving this beyond all doubt.
Loser: Yorgos Lanthimos
If he carries on making films of a similar quality to the ones he’d been churning out recently, then Yorgos Lanthimos is sure to win either a ‘Best Director’ or ‘Best Picture’ statue eventually. But once again, the Academy Awards was not his night.
Poor Things was always viewed as an underdog going head-to-head with Oppenheimer, although it would be fair to say things weren’t quite as egregious as the last time when the decidedly underwhelming Green Book usurped The Favourite. Lanthimos’ time will come, but despite his last two features combining to win five Oscars, he still doesn’t have one of his own.
Winner: John Cena
The ceremony was feeling a little flat for the most part until John Cena shuffled onto the stage with the envelope for ‘Best Costume Design’ covering his modesty. The Oscars have experienced streakers before, but nothing quite like this.
If ever there was a signifier for the importance of how actors are dressed, then it’s a man who looks like a kilt sock stuffed full of golf balls nervously entering from stage left stark naked to give the rapidly stagnating ceremony a much-need shot in the arm. For the record, Poor Things won, even if Cena stole the spotlight.
Loser: Bradley Cooper
Always the bridesmaid and never the bride, Bradley Cooper has missed out on another three Oscars this year in the ‘Best Actor’, ‘Best Picture’, and ‘Best Original Screenplay’ categories for Maestro, which takes him up to 12 unsuccessful nominations.
The multi-talented actor and filmmaker can’t be faulted for his efforts, having been shortlisted a dozen times in five different categories, but he’s still waiting on that elusive win. If he carries on at this rate, then he’s in real danger of setting an unwanted Oscars record should he end up catching – or exceeding – sound designer Greg P. Russell, who went zero-for-16 as the most-nominated person in history without a victory to their name.
Winner: Poor Things
In the closest thing this year’s Oscars had to a major upset, Emma Stone was named ‘Best Actress’ at the expense of Lily Gladstone, although it can’t be said the star of Poor Things didn’t deserve her second statue for her tour-de-force turn as Bella Baxter.
Yorgos Lanthimos may have gone home empty-handed, but his fantastical coming-of-age story with a unique twist still won three additional prizes for ‘Best Makeup and Hairstyling’, ‘Best Costume Design’, and ‘Best Production Design’, a trio of technical accolades reflective of the distinctive aesthetic the filmmaker curated for his latest offbeat odyssey.
Loser: The viewer
It’s been a long time since the Oscars held a ceremony comparable to its greatest-ever nights, and that continued again this year with another forgettable edition characterised by a lack of energy, a lack of surprises, and some flat hosting from Jimmy Kimmel.
The opening monologue was rough to put it lightly, and Kimmel never really recovered to deliver any noteworthy material, bar a gag or two designed specifically to spark a response from the audience. The closest thing to a surprise was that Emma Stone beat Lily Gladstone to ‘Best Actress’, but beyond that, it turned out to be one of the most predictable Oscars galas in recent memory.
Winner: Ken
A rather flat Oscars ceremony was in dire need of some electricity, which came along just at the right time when Ryan Gosling embarked on a grandstanding live version of ‘I’m Just Ken’, which pulled out all of the stops to live up to its billing as one of the most heavily-hyped parts of the entire telecast.
Starting from his seat and reducing Margot Robbie to a hysterical wreck, Gosling then sauntered onto the stage to be joined by his backup dancers, a rousing chorus line, and even Slash, who appeared out of nowhere to add some rock star sheen to the proceedings with a showstopping guitar solo.
Loser: The Oscars
For a predictable ceremony almost to a fault, the Academy nonetheless managed to open its doors to widespread backlash and outrage after deciding that Emma Stone made for a worthier ‘Best Actress’ winner than Lily Gladstone.
While the Poor Things protagonist undoubtedly gave one of the best performances of her career as Bella Baxter, Gladstone was nothing short of revelatory as Mollie Kyle, anchoring a sprawling period piece rooted in real-world history and trauma. Virtually all of the winners had been signposted well in advance, but once again, the organisation leaned into the regular criticisms aimed in its direction by focusing on the showier, more performative, and ‘Oscar-baiting’ turn than the one that packed the most emotional heft.
