With big ‘Oppenheimer’ and ‘Poor Things’ wins, the Oscars nailed their dual mandate

They had us worried there for a minute. When the 96th Academy Awards uncharacteristically kicked off a few minutes late Sunday in Hollywood and nearly a half hour passed with only one statuette doled out (to Da’Vine Joy Randolph, winning supporting actress for “The Holdovers” in a moment she seized with gusto), it looked like the audience was in for a long show. “What, is this going to take five hours?” you might have thought to yourself, as I did.

But any worries were largely washed away, and not just by Paul Giamatti’s joyful tears as he watched his co-star accept her long-expected award. The show finished in just under 3½ hours, about the length of Martin Scorsese’s best picture nominee “Killers of the Flower Moon.”

Four-time host Jimmy Kimmel and the producers kept the evening rolling at a relatively even pace for ABC, with some genuinely funny moments thrown in, including John Cena’s nearly nude presentation of (ha!) costume design.

More important, with major wins for “Oppenheimer” and “Poor Things,” the motion picture academy succeeded in its dual mandate: to promote the commercial act of moviegoing while also honoring artistic achievement in cinema. As past telecasts have demonstrated, that’s not always an easy balance to strike.

Christopher Nolan’s Atomic Age biodrama ended up with seven trophies, including best picture, director, actor (Cillian Murphy) and supporting actor (Robert Downey Jr.), to add to its $958 million in global ticket sales. It’s a huge win for Universal Pictures and its chief, Donna Langley, who bet big on “Oppenheimer” after Nolan’s public feud with Warner Bros.

Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Poor Things,” itself a solid box office performer for Disney’s Searchlight with $108 million worldwide, won four awards: three crafts categories and lead actress to a visibly stunned Emma Stone, who beat Lily Gladstone of “Killers” in one of the night’s few truly competitive races.

In “Oppenheimer,” the academy had a chance to honor a full-blown blockbuster. Not since Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy-capper “The Return of the King” ruled them all two decades ago has a best picture winner topped $200 million at the domestic box office. And the voters didn’t pass up that opportunity. At the same time, “Poor Things” represented the artsy weirdos, with its not-safe-for-TV portrayal of a grown woman with the mind of a child learning about the world and herself.

And yes, “Barbie,” 2023’s box office champ ($1.44 billion), took home only one award (original song, for Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell’s ballad “What Was I Made For?”). But Greta Gerwig’s cultural juggernaut could not be stopped, as Ryan Gosling delivered on the promise of a highly anticipated “I’m Just Ken” performance, complete with an army of cowboy hat-sporting dancers and a wailing guitar solo by Slash.

Political moments felt unforced, for the most part. The end of Kimmel’s monologue gave the stage to Teamsters and members of IATSE, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, who are in the midst of contract negotiations with the studios after a year marred by industry-halting strikes by members of the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.

Jonathan Glazer, director of “The Zone of Interest,” used his speech accepting the international feature award to decry “dehumanization” in the Israel-Hamas war. Outside, pro-Palestinian protesters calling for a cease-fire snarled traffic ahead of the event.

Mstyslav Chernov, accepting the documentary feature award for “20 Days In Mariupol,” which follows a group of journalists during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, said: “And I am honored. But probably I will be the first director on this stage who will say I wish I had never made this film. I wish to be able to exchange this to Russia never attacking Ukraine, never occupying our cities.” Fittingly, the in memoriam segment led with a clip from the Oscar-winning 2022 documentary “Navalny,” which followed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died last month while imprisoned in Russia.

And Kimmel pounced on a social media post by former President Trump ridiculing the host’s performance. “Isn’t it past your jail time?” the late-night comic quipped.

There were, of course, some causes for disappointment. Gladstone not winning was a bummer. She’s been a powerful presence throughout the long awards campaign season, and she’s the best part of Scorsese’s historical crime epic about the killing of Osage people by greedy white men. By any stroke of movie-business justice, she’ll be back. Stone, for her part, handled the moment with poise.

Overall, the Academy Awards were successful because they had a year of strong films to celebrate. Yes, the Oscars can tweak the show at the margins. They can add categories and bits and musical performances. But like J. Robert Oppenheimer’s team at Los Alamos waiting for the right amount of plutonium to build an atomic bomb, the academy needs the raw materials to work with — the same materials that fuel the movie business itself: high-quality hit films.

Our Oscars coverage:

• The top 5 takeaways from the 2024 Oscars, according to those who were there
• Ryan Gosling, a drum circle and the rest of the Oscars 2024 original song performances, ranked
• Review: An upbeat Oscars, on the edge of good taste and not entirely divorced from reality
• L.A. Times wins first Oscar for ‘The Last Repair Shop,’ about LAUSD music program
• 1,000 Gaza protesters rally in Hollywood ahead of Oscars, blocking traffic

Stuff we wrote

What does the ‘Rust’ armorer’s criminal conviction mean for Alec Baldwin’s case? Special prosecutor Kari T. Morrissey gave a glimpse into the Alec Baldwin criminal proceedings, saying his judgment day was coming.

Rooster Teeth is being shut down by Warner Bros. Discovery, ending two-decade run. Its demise comes as digital media companies have struggled to survive amid broader cost cutting. ALSO: Warner Bros. Discovery is turning truTV into a sports channel.

How Netflix survived the streaming wars to stay the subscription video king. Netflix faced a formidable challenge to its dominance during the streaming wars. But the company has bounced back in a big way with its stock up nearly 90% in the last year.

Mike Tyson to fight Jake Paul. Yes, an ex-heavyweight champ is boxing a YouTuber on Netflix. Paul has been criticized for facing no-name boxers. The 27-year-old’s next bout is against all-time great Tyson, who will be 58 for the July 20 match.

Number of the week

44%

Speaking of hit movies, box office has been fairly lackluster so far this year, as my colleague Christi Carras recently wrote, so it’s with some relief that “Dune: Part Two” continues to perform well, thanks to strong word of mouth.

The Denis Villeneuve sci-fi spectacle grossed $46.2 million during its second weekend in the U.S. and Canada, a mere 44% decline from its debut. Globally, the Warner Bros.-Legendary epic has amassed $367 million so far on a production budget of $190 million.

Universal and DreamWorks Animation’s “Kung Fu Panda 4” opened with a strong $58.3 million in North America, topping the domestic charts. Overall ticket sales so far this year are down 10% compared to the same period of time in 2023.

Finally ...

After the six-string theatrics Sunday night, here’s my guitar hero pick of the week: Slash playing blues classic “Killing Floor” with AC/DC’s Brian Johnson.