- By Ian Youngs
- Entertainment and Arts Reporter
8 hours ago
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Oppenheimer cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema (left) and stars Cillian Murphy (center) and Robert Downey Jr
Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr and director Christopher Nolan were all honored for their work on Oppenheimer as the film dominated the Bafta Awards.
Murphy won best actor for his role as J. Robert Oppenheimer, known as the father of the atomic bomb, while Downey Jr. won best supporting actor.
The drama won seven Baftas, including best film. “Poor Things” won five awards, including best actress for Emma Stone.
Best Supporting Actress went to Da'Vine Joy Randolph for “The Holdovers.”
Oppenheimer and the reigning winners could well repeat their success at the Oscars in three weeks' time – although Oscar and Bafta voters rarely completely agree.
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Watch: Highlights from the Bafta Awards 2024
In a surprise appearance, Michael J Fox announced Oppenheimer as the winner of best picture, the top prize at Sunday's ceremony. The 62-year-old, who has suffered from Parkinson's disease for more than 30 years, received a standing ovation from the audience.
Murphy said at the ceremony after winning the first Bafta of his career: “Oh man. Holy moly. Thank you so much, Bafta.”
The Irish actor paid tribute to his “Oppenhomies” and praised Nolan, adding: “Thank you for always pushing me and demanding excellence because that's what you keep delivering.”
It was also the British director's first Bafta win after a career that also included Dunkirk, Inception and The Dark Knight.
Nolan thanked the cast, led by the “incomparable and fearless Cillian Murphy,” and also acknowledged the film's supporters “for taking on something dark.”
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Christopher Nolan with his wife and producer Emma Thomas and their Baftas
Downey Jr's win came 31 years after his previous Bafta win for the 1993 film Chaplin – a new record for the longest gap between wins by any actor.
The actor played Oppenheimer's adversary Lewis Strauss after his role as Tony Stark/Iron Man in a number of Marvel films.
He thanked Nolan and told the audience: “Recently this guy suggested I try a low-key approach as a last-ditch effort to revive my waning credibility.”
The best films from the Bafta Awards
- 7 wins – Oppenheimer
- 5 – Poor things
- 3 – The zone of interest
- 2 – The Remnants
Stone received her second career Bafta award, winning for playing a British woman who is revived after being given a baby's brain in the steampunk fantasy “Poor Things.”
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Emma Stone received the best actress trophy from Idris Elba
Meanwhile, Randolph was rewarded for playing Mary, the head of a school kitchen and grieving mother, in The Holdovers, about the staff and students at a US boarding school during the Christmas holidays in 1970 remain.
In her acceptance speech, she became emotional as she paid tribute to “countless Marys throughout history” who never had the chance to wear a beautiful dress and stand on that stage in London.
The US actress added: “Telling her story is a responsibility I don't take lightly.” The Holdovers also won best cast.
This was the second year in a row that no Briton won one of the four acting awards at the most prestigious evening in the British film calendar.
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Barbie's Ryan Gosling gave Kenergy as Emma Stone approached her to accept the Best Actress award
The Best British Film award went to “The Zone of Interest,” about the concentration camp commandant and his family living near Auschwitz during World War II.
British director Jonathan Glazer's drama, which was shot in Poland and played primarily in German, also won the awards for best non-English language film and best sound.
Meanwhile, legendary animator Hayao Miyazaki's The Boy and the Heron became the first Japanese production to win the Best Animated Film award.
The two awards for best screenplay went to the suspenseful French courtroom drama “Anatomy of a Fall” and “American Fiction,” a satire about an American writer who is dismayed by his parody of the “black genre” of books will be a complete success.
Samantha Morton received the Bafta Fellowship, the organisation's highest honor, and in her acceptance speech paid tribute to looked-after children: “I dedicate this award to any looked-after child, or any child who has been looked after and has not survived.”
Morton himself grew up in the care system in Nottingham.
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Michael J Fox and David Beckham were among the award presenters
Former Doctor Who star David Tennant hosted the ceremony in a kilt and referenced the blockbuster Barbie in his opening monologue. He joked that the ceremony would be “softer than Ken's chest.”
However, things didn't go according to plan for “Barbie”: the film received no awards, despite being the highest-grossing film at the box office last year and having five Bafta nominations.
Other films that had multiple nominations but lost that night included “Killers of the Flower Moon,” “Maestro,” “All of Us Strangers” and “Saltburn.”
Sophie Ellis-Bextor was among the performers, continuing the remarkable resurgence of her 2001 hit Murder on the Dancefloor after it was used as the soundtrack for a scene in Saltburn in which Barry Keoghan dances naked around a stately home.
Based on the film, the dancers were supposed to look like upper-class partygoers – but they were all fully clothed.
The Prince of Wales, Bafta president, took his place in the audience among Hollywood superstars in his first high-profile royal engagement since his wife Kate's recent operation.
Read more about this year's Bafta winners: