‘Oppenheimer’ wins seven prizes, together with greatest photo, at the British Academy Movie Awards

LONDON (AP) — Atom bomb epic “Oppenheimer” gained seven prizes, which include ideal photograph, director and actor, at the 77th British Academy Movie Awards on Sunday, cementing its front-runner position for the Oscars following month.

Gothic fantasia “Poor Things” took five prizes and Holocaust drama “The Zone of Interest” received 3.

British-born filmmaker Christopher Nolan gained his to start with ideal director BAFTA for “Oppenheimer,” and Irish performer Cillian Murphy won the finest actor prize for taking part in physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb.

Murphy reported he was grateful to enjoy such a “colossally knotty, intricate character.”

Nolan famous that nuclear weapons are “a nihilistic matter and the film inevitably demonstrates that,” telling the movie’s backers: “Thank you for using on some thing dim.”

Emma Stone was named finest actress for actively playing the wild and spirited Bella Baxter in “Poor Things,” a steampunk-type visual extravaganza that received prizes for visible outcomes, production structure, make-up and hair and costume layout.

“Oppenheimer” had a subject-primary 13 nominations, but missed out on the file of 9 trophies, established in 1971 by “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Child.”

It gained the ideal film race from “Poor Things,” “Killers of the Flower Moon,” “Anatomy of a Fall” and “The Holdovers.” “Oppenheimer” also scooped trophies for enhancing, cinematography and musical score, as nicely as the finest supporting actor prize for Robert Downey Jr., who performed Atomic Energy Commission head Lewis Strauss.

Da’Vine Pleasure Randolph was named very best supporting actress for enjoying a boarding university cook dinner in “The Holdovers” and claimed she felt a “responsibility I really don’t consider lightly” to notify the stories of underrepresented persons like her character Mary.

“Oppenheimer” faced rigid level of competition in what is actually broadly thought of a vintage calendar year for cinema and an awards time energized by the conclude of actors’ and writers’ strikes that shut down Hollywood for months.

“ The Zone of Fascination,” a British-made film shot in Poland with a mostly German forged, was named equally finest British film and finest movie not in English — a to start with — and also took the prize for its audio, which has been described as the genuine star of the movie.

Jonathan Glazer’s unsettling drama takes spot in a household household just exterior the partitions of the Auschwitz loss of life camp, whose horrors are read and hinted at, instead than noticed.

“Walls aren’t new from prior to or because the Holocaust, and it appears stark right now that we should care about innocent people today currently being killed in Gaza or Yemen or Mariupol or Israel,” producer James Wilson mentioned. “Thank you for recognizing a film that asks us to assume in all those areas.”

Ukraine war documentary “20 Times in Mariupol,” manufactured by The Affiliated Push and PBS “Frontline,” received the prize for greatest documentary.

“This is not about us,” claimed filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov, who captured the harrowing reality of existence in the besieged town with an AP crew. “This is about Ukraine, about the men and women of Mariupol.”

Chernov mentioned the story of the metropolis and its drop into Russian profession “is a image of battle and a symbol of faith. Thank you for empowering our voice and let us just preserve combating.”

The awards ceremony, hosted by “Doctor Who” star David Tennant — who entered wearing a kilt and sequined top when carrying a puppy named Bark Ruffalo — was a glitzy, British-accented appetizer for Hollywood’s Academy Awards, carefully viewed for hints about who could gain at the Oscars on March 10.

The prize for initial screenplay went to French courtroom drama “Anatomy of a Drop.” The film about a female on demo above the loss of life of her partner was prepared by director Justine Triet and her partner, Arthur Harari.

“It is a fiction, and we are reasonably good,” Triet joked.

Twine Jefferson received the adapted screenplay prize for the satirical “American Fiction,” about the struggles of an African-American novelist

Jefferson explained he hoped the achievements of the motion picture “perhaps alterations the minds of the people today who are in demand of greenlighting movies and Tv exhibits, lets them to be fewer hazard-averse.”

Historical epic “Killers of the Flower Moon,” Leonard Bernstein biopic “Maestro,” grief-flecked enjoy tale “All of Us Strangers” and course-war dramedy “Saltburn ” all won nothing even with various nominations.

“ Barbie,” one half of 2023’s “Barbenheimer” box business office juggernaut and the year’s prime-grossing movie, also came up vacant from five nominations. “Barbie” director Greta Gerwig failed to get a directing nomination for either the BAFTAs or the Oscars, in what was observed by quite a few as a main snub.

Britain’s film academy launched adjustments to improve the awards’ range in 2020, when no girls were being nominated as very best director for the seventh year jogging and all 20 nominees in the direct and supporting performer groups had been white. Having said that, Triet was the only female amongst this year’s 6 best-director nominees.

The Climbing Star award, the only classification resolved by general public vote, went to Mia McKenna-Bruce, star of “How to Have Sexual intercourse.”

Before the ceremony, nominees, together with Bradley Cooper, Carey Mulligan, Emily Blunt, Rosamund Pike, Ryan Gosling and Ayo Edebiri all walked the pink carpet at London’s Royal Competition Hall, alongside with presenters Andrew Scott, Cate Blanchett, Idirs Elba and David Beckham.

Visitor of honor was Prince William, in his purpose as president of the British Academy of Movie and Television Arts. He arrived without having his spouse, Kate, who is recovering from stomach medical procedures previous thirty day period.

The ceremony included musical performances by “Ted Lasso” star Hannah Waddingham, singing “Time Right after Time,” and Sophie Ellis-Bextor, singing her 2001 strike “Murder on the Dancefloor,” which shot back again up the charts immediately after showcasing in “Saltburn.”

Movie curator June Givanni, founder of the June Givanni PanAfrican Cinema Archive, was honored for remarkable British contribution to cinema, when actress Samantha Morton gained the academy’s highest honor, the BAFTA Fellowship.

Morton, who grew up in foster care and children’s homes, said that “representation matters.”

“The tales we inform, they have the electricity to improve people’s life,” she reported. “Film modified my existence, it remodeled me, and it led me in this article these days.”

___

Hilary Fox contributed to this story.