The Academy Isn't Built for Sweeps Anymore
Seven statues is the new 11, Nolan and Langley ascend, and a new membership pool reveals its taste
So that’s a wrap for the 96th Academy Awards, or, as it might as well have been subtitled, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. To no one’s surprise, Christopher Nolan’s explosive yet ruminative masterwork Oppenheimer prevailed, taking home the top best picture prize as well as six other Oscars. But while the movie and its creative team entered the Dolby Theatre with a leading 13 nominations, the early-going suggested that their ultimate victory was not necessarily going to be a foregone conclusion.
First, writer/director Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction snatched away the best adapted screenplay prize. Yorgos Lanthimos’ unapologetically quirky Poor Things captured three of the technical awards for which Oppenheimer was also nominated — costumes, production design and hair and makeup. Most ominously, the Holocaust-adjacent drama The Zone of Interest then claimed the sound award. Although sound was certainly one of that film’s most unsettling elements, it was also essential to Oppenheimer’s immersive impact.
In the show’s final innings, though, Oppenheimer rallied, earning honors for picture, director, best actor Cillian Murphy, supporting actor Robert Downey Jr., cinematography, film editing and score. In the end, it collected a total of seven Oscars, the same number as last year’s big winner Everything Everywhere All at Once. While that boosted both titles into an exclusive list of best picture winners that can boast seven Oscars — ranging from The Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia to Schindler’s List and Shakespeare in Love — Oppenheimer fell short of the 11-trophy record-setters The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Titanic and Ben-Hur.
Now, if any movie in the modern-era looked as if it might be in a position to pull off an old-fashioned sweep and ascend to that rarified top rank, it was Oppenheimer. It had a Great-Man-of-History narrative in the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb, whose malignant creation still poses an apocalyptic danger. As Murphy said in accepting his best actor honor, “We made a film about the man who created the atomic bomb, and for better or for worse, we’re all living in Oppenheimer’s world. So I would really like to dedicate this to the peacemakers everywhere.” Visually and aurally stunning, Oppenheimer had also confounded the skeptics by turning into a box-office bonanza, grossing nearly $1 billion globally.
Seven is the New 11
But if the 96th Oscars demonstrated anything, it’s that the modern Academy isn’t in the business of simply rubber-stamping a hugely successful movie, even one that could legitimately claim a mantle of high seriousness. (As for 2023’s top-grossing movie, Barbie, whose own seriousness about the role of women in the world was masked by a pink sheen of fizzy fun, it was rewarded with just one Oscar, for Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell’s song “What Was I Made For?,” even though that movie grossed $1.4 billion worldwide.)
Instead, what this year’s final Oscar results suggest is that the Academy, after inviting in more younger members as well as a far-flung international contingent, isn’t interested in just applauding a mainstream movie.
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