As it happened Oscars 2024: Oppenheimer sweeps Oscars, while Ryan Gosling wows audience as Ken

Speaking backstage, best actress Oscar winner Emma Stone said she was still in shock over her win. “Oh boy. I still feel like I am spinning a little bit,” she said. “I think I blacked out. I was very shocked. It is a huge honour. And I am very surprised.”

Stone said the character of Bella Baxter had given her a rare opportunity to play someone “from scratch, but in a total, metaphorical, can’t-really-happen-in-real-life way.”

The 35-year-old actress described Bella’s journey – “gaining language and skills at a rapid pace every day and getting to chart that course and realising she was just full of joy and curiosity” – was an “amazing life lesson to take with me.”

“I miss playing her,” Stone added. “Ever since we wrapped filming, which was like two-and-a-half years ago, I miss her, and I am really grateful that we got to celebrate the film tonight and over these past few months.”

As Stone took to the stage to accept her Oscar, she realised she was experiencing a wardrobe malfunction. “My dress is broken,” she joked, as presenters Charlize Theron, Michelle Yeoh, Jessica Lange, Sally Field and Jennifer Lawrence moved to help her.

Backstage, however, Stone was showing off a fixed gown.

“They sewed me back in,” she joked. “I genuinely do think I lost it during [Ryan Gosling’s performance of] I’m Just Ken. That number blew my mind. I was going for it, and things happened.”

Speaking backstage, best actor Oscar winner Cillian Murphy said he was “in a little bit of a daze, very overwhelmed, very humbled and proud to be Irish”,

“You’ve got to move forward, but this has been a huge moment for me,” Murphy added. “The movie is so special to me. I am very proud that this is a film that is provocative and challenging and asks questions, and yet so many people went to see it. I am proud of that.”

Murphy said it was a particular honour to share the Oscar stage in the night’s final moments with both the film’s director, Christopher Nolan, and the entire company, who came on stage for the best picture win.

“It’s very special to do this with Chris,” he said. “Myself and Chris have such a special relationship. We’ve been working together for 20 years. He’s the perfect director, and he’s an extraordinary writer and producer. He’s an extraordinary director of actors. He presents this film like no one else does.”

Murphy acknowledged that the pair had been lifelong collaborators, beginning with an audition Murphy did barely out of his teens.

“I did a screen test for him when I was kid, and I thought that would be it,” Murphy said. “And here we are. I am just so humbled and thankful.

“I don’t know if I said this is in my speech, because I can’t remember what I said, but I did want to say, in Ireland, we’re great at supporting artists, and I think we need to continue to support artists, the next generation of actors and directors.”

You know what they say – just to be nominated is honour enough. But they don’t really mean it. Everyone who’s in this thing wants to go home a winner. So who actually did?

Obviously, Oppenheimer was the big winner, collecting seven out of the 13 awards for which it was nominated, including the really big ones: best actor (Cillian Murphy), best director (Christopher Nolan), and best picture (which officially goes to the producers of the best film, in this case Nolan, his wife Emma Thomas and Charles Roven).

As with most of the other gongs given out at the 96th Academy Awards, there was little surprise in any of that.

In fact, if you’re looking for upsets, only Emma Stone’s win as best actress – the second for the 35-year-old, following her win in 2017 for La La Land – over Lily Gladstone in Killers of the Flower Moon even gives the oddometer (you know, the dial that measures oddness) a nudge. Not that she wasn’t superb (she was), but in what had become more or less a two-horse race, the indicators seemed to favour Gladstone (who would have become the first ever indigenous American winner of an acting Oscar) ever so slightly.

Poor Things nabbing four awards made it the second most successful film of the night. Was Mark Ruffalo unlucky not to win best supporting actor? For sure, but how could anyone begrudge Robert Downey Jr in Oppenheimer? (And, as is so often the case, you could argue that his win was as much a career- and lifetime award as it was a nod for this particular performance. But hey, that didn’t help Nyad’s Annette Bening any, so it’s not a hard-and-fast rule that applies consistently or universally, so maybe it’s not a rule at all.)

Was Yorgos Lanthimos, one of the most innovative and thrilling and risk-taking directors around, robbed? Was Aussie Tony McNamara robbed for his brilliantly funny and inventive Poor Things screenplay? Probably, but also not. You can argue the toss as much as you like on these things, but I can’t think of another year in which the awards fell so much in line with how they were expected to go, or how I thought they should.

One point of divergence, perhaps, was best documentary. I will argue until the cows come home that Four Daughters is thematically and formally inventive, tells an incredibly powerful story, and should have won the prize. But I’ll also acknowledge that 20 Days in Mariupol is a piece of work that speaks to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine with incredible power and urgency, and its win makes sense as both statement and reward.

So, just to address the numbers, let’s wrap.

Oppenheimer: Seven wins from 13 clearly makes it the big winner.

Poor Things: Four from 11, including best actress and production design, is a very decent showing.

The Zone of Interest: Two wins (best international picture and best sound design) from five is a good result for an incredibly challenging film.

Maestro: Cursed by the perception that he simply wanted it too much, Bradley Cooper (nominated as producer, actor and writer for the biopic of conductor Leonard Bernstein) went home empty handed. The film won none of the seven awards for which it was nominated ,and is surely the second-biggest loser of the night.

Killers of the Flower Moon: And, perhaps surprisingly, the most overlooked film of the night belongs to Martin Scorsese. His Killers of the Flower Moon was up for 10 awards, and won precisely zero. At least he’s had plenty of practice at being overlooked: the 81-year-old director may be one of the most revered figures in the business, but he has been nominated 16 times as producer, director or writer, winning just once (for The Departed in 2006, as director).

And finally, the ceremony itself: Over in 3½ hours. That’s not much longer than some of the nominated movies (Killers of the Flower Moon runs for 3 hours and 26 minutes, Oppenheimer an even three hours). If for no other reason, Kimmel and co. deserve some sort of award for that.

Well, that ceremony was… unsurprising.

Each winner was deserving of their award, which is marvellous, but that came at the expense of any spice – the “je ne sais quoi” of an Academy Awards show. Where were the shock wins, like when Crash won over Brokeback Mountain in 2006? Where were the scandalous interludes, such as the infamous slap between Will Smith and Chris Rock in 2022?

Instead of ruffling any feathers, the Oscars more or less directly resembled the winners of previous major award shows. Emma Stone picked up best actress at the Golden Globes, BAFTAs and Critics’ Choice Awards, and though Lily Gladstone technically won the prize at the SAG Awards, Stone was still largely predicted to win tonight. Meanwhile, Cillian Murphy has won pretty much any best actor award available, and the same goes for his co-star Robert Downey Jr.

As for best picture, Oppenheimer was projected to sweep the awards. What did it do? It swept the awards. You know it isn’t a super riveting show when you can predict almost every single prize before it is announced (admittedly, it does make a journalist’s job a lot easier).

Perhaps the only slight surprise (the closest to umami that the vanilla show got) was American Fiction’s win for best adapted screenplay. It was gunning against some hard-hitters, including Oppenheimer and Poor Things, yet it managed to clinch the win for its interpretation of Percival Everett’s novel Erasure. That was a refreshing break from and otherwise predictable show.

It may have been vanilla, but you know what? I still enjoy that flavour. There’s not necessarily anything wrong with picking the safe choice.

The Oscars may be over, but I still have one Oscar I’d like to give out: the Oscar for most dull Oscars, which goes to...the Oscars.

I had grave concerns heading into tonight’s ceremony that Oppenheimer’s overwhelming dominance would have a trickle-down effect, creating a ceremony that lacked excitement.

What do you get when you have a three-hour award show with no surprises? A Zone of Disinterest (I’m sorry).

Seriously though, while every category was won by someone involved with Oppenheimer (save for the few awards won by the Poor Things team), the remainder of the ceremony was a controversy-free drag that had me desperately wishing Will Smith was in the room.

To make matters worse, Jimmy Kimmel – who is usually the best Jimmy in the late-night TV show game – played it so safe that even Jo Koy was likely embarrassed for him. We all know the host has a thankless job, but it’s their duty to take some risk.

Instead, Kimmel played it with a mostly straight bat, save for a weird joke about Christopher Nolan’s porn addiction and reading out a bizarre Donald Trump tweet.

Even the Oscars’ new addition of having five previous winners on hand to award the acting categories fell flat. Much like the event itself, it was self-indulgent, time-consuming and designed to make you switch off.

All of which is to say, we should all be forever thankful for Ryan Gosling performing I’m Just Ken. It was a bright (pink) spot in a ceremony that was otherwise dim and dull, a high point in a low moment for the Oscars.

The Oscars have been accused of all sorts of crimes in recent years: too white, too long, too much slapping.

But having sat through this year’s ceremony, I can confidently declare that the greatest sin of all is when they’re too boring.

American cinephiles who tuned in to watch the Oscars telecast were surprised to see the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine pact being advertised between award categories.

The undoubtedly expensive prime-time advertisement, designed to boost the US naval industrial base, has the feel of a Hollywood movie preview.

Featuring soaring music and dramatic images of Virginia-class submarines being built at US shipyards, the ad’s narrator says: “It’s a new day, one where our shared values propel us towards a more secure future.

“Through AUKUS, a partnership built upon cutting-edge American, Australian and British technologies, we’ll develop state-of-the-art next-generation submarines and build something stronger together – securing decades of peace and prosperity for America and our allies.”

The 30-second advertisement ends with the national flags of the US, UK and Australia, directing those interested to this website. 

But those who visit the site get the message “this page has been decommissioned” and are directed to the homepage to explore career options.

Run by BlueForge Alliance, which describes itself as a non-profit entity created to build the US defence industrial base, the website directs those interested to 100,000 open roles with 15,000 suppliers across the US including welders, 3D printers, forklift drivers, plumbers and marine biologists.

AUKUS has a much lower profile among the general public in the US than in Australia. The airing of the advertisement comes almost exactly a year since the three nations announced the so-called “optimal pathway” for Australia to acquire a fleet of nuclear-submarines by purchasing at least three Virginia-class submarines from the US and developing a new SSN AUKUS submarine in collaboration with the UK.

It is not without some irony that the one night of the year intended to honour performances that dazzle, so often finds itself largely composed of performances that did not. The Oscars may be cinema’s night of nights, but sometimes you wonder if there is enough meat on the bone to win the Oscars an Emmy.

The toughest part of this year’s gig is selling a photo finish to an audience who is largely already aware of who’s going to win what. Oppenheimer scoops the pool? It’s not breaking news to the people at home who follow awards season. Even those folks who skipped everything but the Golden Globes have a fairly good idea.

There was no glory for Australia this year, but there were some stunning moments. And most of them fuelled by people willing to cross the boundary from pretence and pageantry into something real.

“How do we resist?” asked The Zone of Interest director Jonathan Glazer in an acceptance speech which became a plea for peace. “I cannot change history,” said 20 Days in Mariupol director Mstyslav Chernov, standing on stage reconciling an almost absurd transaction: trading his Oscar for the restoration of his homeland.

Even the show’s host Jimmy Kimmel did his best work when he stopped trying to milk the A-list audience for mediocre awards telecast gags, and instead leaning into something real: the many months of bruising industrial action which had battered the entertainment industry as its workers sought to get a fairer deal from the studios which make billions off their labour.

“We were able to make a deal because of the people who rallied beside us,” Kimmel said. And the audience responded, turning a light wave of laughter into a standing ovation.

And then there are those moments, wrought out of glitter, nonsense and imagination, that become the moment that steals the show. He offered nothing political, nothing substantial and nothing of any real meaning, and yet somehow Ken – alias actor Ryan Gosling – became the biggest moment of the night.

Maybe in Hollywood you have to look for something meaningful among the nonsense, and maybe there is a life lesson in something as bland and plastic as Barbie’s occasional boyfriend Ken.

Am I Kenough? I am Kenough. And Ryan Gosling is Kenough for all of us.

Oppenheimer was the big winner from this year’s Oscars, picking up seven awards from 13 nominations.

But how does that compare to other big winners?

It’s more than La La Land and All About Eve, which have six each. But just one shy of Slumdog Millionaire, Amadeus, Gandhi, and a handful of others who have eight.

The all time record is held by Titanic, Ben-Hur and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, which each have 11.