Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Christopher Nolan’s magnum opus Oppenheimer, a biopic on the Father of Atom Bomb, triumphed at the 96th Academy Awards, winning seven of the 13 Oscars it was nominated for, at a glittering ceremony held in Hollywood on Sunday.
It won Oscars in seven categories, including Best Picture, Best Director (Christopher Nolan), Best Actor (Cillian Murphy), and Best Supporting Actor (Robert Downey Jr). The film also won Best Original Score and technical awards.
But the Killers Of The Flower Moon star Lily Gladstone could not become the first indigenous Best Actress in Oscar history. Instead, the award went to Emma Stone for Poor Things which also scored three other Oscars.
Da’Vine Joy Randolph won it for Best Supporting Actress for The Holdovers, completing her clean sweep of this awards season.
Anatomy Of A Fall and American Fiction won awards for Best Original and Best Adapted Screenplay, respectively. Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell won it for Best Original Song for What Was I Made For? from Barbie–this was the film’s only win of the eight Oscars it was nominated for.
Indian audiences were thrilled to first see RRR featured in a reel celebrating stunt performers and then art director Nitin Chandrakant Desai honored in the tribute segment Memoriam.
India’s official entry, Malayalam film 2018: Everyone Is A Hero, exited the nomination race at the shortlist stage. To Kill A Tiger, set in India, competed for Best Documentary Feature, which was won by 20 Days In Mariupol.
The Oscar nominations this year made headlines for three notable omissions – snubs were delivered to Barbie director and lead star Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie, and Killers Of The Flower Moon actor Leonardo DiCaprio.
The Oscars were hosted by Jimmy Kimmel for the fourth time.
Highlights of the ceremony included a nearly-naked John Cena hilariously presenting the Oscar for Best Costume Design, Ryan Gosling’s crowd-favorite rendition of I’m Just Ken with a little help from his Barbie co-stars and rockstar Slash and Robert Downey Jr’s laugh riot acceptance speech in which he referred to wife Susan Levin as his “veterinarian.”