23 January 2024
Oppenheimer, the film about the lead scientist in the American project to create a nuclear weapon, led the Academy Awards, or Oscars, with 13 nominations on Tuesday.
The three-hour film was expected to be a top candidate for best picture. Oppenheimer also received nominations for best director for Christopher Nolan, lead actor for Cillian Murphy and supporting actors for Emily Blunt and Robert Downey, Jr. The film also received nominations for several production categories such as film editing and sound.
Nolan is known as one of the top directors working in Hollywood today, but he has never won the award for director. None of his movies have won best picture. Experts say this may be his year to win both awards.
Nolan told the Associated Press, "... getting this kind of recognition from the academy, I don't know what to say, really. It certainly confirms our faith in what studio filmmaking can be."
Nine other films were nominated for best picture this year. They are Barbie, Poor Things, Killers of the Flower Moon, The Holdovers, Maestro, American Fiction, Past Lives, Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest.
After Oppenheimer, the films with the most nominations were Poor Things with 11 and Killers of the Flower Moon with 10.
Poor Things is a film about a Victorian-era woman brought back to life by a scientist and stars Emma Stone. She was nominated for best actress, along with Annette Bening in Nyad, Lily Gladstone in Killers of the Flower Moon, Sandra Huller in Anatomy of a Fall and Carey Mulligan in Maestro.
Barbie was the most successful movie in 2023. Greta Gerwig's film based on the famous toy brought in over $1.4 billion around the world. It received eight nominations. Gerwig, however, was not nominated for best director.
Barbie received nominations for best picture, best supporting actor (Ryan Gosling as Ken) and two nominations for best song.
The best director nominees were Nolan, Justine Triet of Anatomy of a Fall, Martin Scorsese of Killers of the Flower Moon, Yorgos Lanthimos of Poor Things and Jonathan Glazer of Zone of Interest. Scorsese was nominated in the category for the 10th time.
The nominees for best international film were Society of the Snow, (from Spain); The Zone of Interest, (from Great Britain); The Teachers' Lounge (from Germany); Io Capitano (of Italy); and Perfect Days (from Japan).
Experts say this year's group of nominees reflects a return to the traditional idea that films should be shown first in movie theaters before going to streaming services such as Netflix, Apple TV+ or Amazon Prime Video.
All of the top films spent at least one month in movie theaters first. Netflix was the top streaming video service with 18 nominations led by its film Maestro. That film tells the story of American composer Leonard Bernstein, and it stars actor Bradley Cooper, who also wrote and directed the movie.
The host of the awards broadcast on March 10 will be American late-night television presenter Jimmy Kimmel.
I'm Dan Friedell.
Dan Friedell adapted this story for Learning English based on a report by the Associated Press.
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Words in This Story
category – n. a group that individual items belong to for classification
faith – n. hope and a belief in or trust in someone or something
composer – n. a person who writes music that is to be performed by a band or orchestra
host – n. in entertainment, a person who presents a program and introduces guests and the next part of a program