Oppenheimer was the big winner at the Bafta Awards last night, claiming seven awards, including best film, best director and best actor.
The biopic of the man known as the ‘father of the atomic bomb’, Robert J Oppenheimer, was a box office smash last year and has already won numerous awards. The other big winner at the awards was Poor Things, which won five awards.
Cillian Murphy, who played Oppenheimer, took the first Bafta of his career as he received the best actor gong. In his acceptance speech, he thanked director Christopher Nolan for “always pushing me and demanding excellence because that is what you deliver time and time again.”
Nolan himself took the best director award – again it was the first Bafta in his long career. This is perhaps surprising as he has directed blockbusters such as Dunkirk and Inception over the years.
Robert Downey Jr also picked up the best supporting actor award for his role as Lewis Strauss in Oppenheimer. He also thanked Nolan, joking “that dude suggested I attempt an understated approach as a last-ditch effort to resurrect my dwindling credibility.”
Downey’s win was also notable as it set a record for the longest period between Bafta wins – he took his first award way back in 1993, taking best actor for his turn as Charlie Chaplin in Chaplin.
There was a surprise guest to announce Oppenheimer as the best film winner – actor Michael J Fox. The Back to the Future star, who has lived with Parkinson’s for more than 30 years, received a standing ovation from the audience as he took to the stage.
Poor Things, the offbeat comedy-drama about a young woman in Victorian London, who is resurrected by a scientist following her suicide and embarks on an odyssey of self-discovery, was the next biggest winner on the night, taking five awards, including best actress for Emma Stone.
Elsewhere, The Zone of Interest, a historical drama centring on German Nazi commandant Rudolf Höss striving to build a dream life with his wife, Hedwig, in a new home next to the Auschwitz concentration camp, took two awards. The Holdovers, which was about the staff and pupils who stay in a US boarding school during the Christmas holidays in 1970 took two, including best supporting actress for Da’Vine Joy Randolph.
With the Oscars three weeks away, the Baftas are often seen as an indicator of who might win there, but there is a long history of the Bafta and Oscar judges disagreeing.
