Christopher Nolan, Cillian Murphy and Robert Downey Jr took home Academy awards for the atomic bomb drama, while Emma Stone won a surprise best actress honour
In all the excitement, I forgot to mention one of the best original song performances – Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People) from Killers of the Flower Moon. It was a banger, quite literally – a spirited, percussive performance from a group of Osage and indigenous American musicians. Jon Batiste has just performed his own best song nominee, a solo piano version of It Never Went Away. Pleasant enough, but not a patch on that drumming.
Look behind you, Poor Things – it’s closing in! Oppenheimer’s second win of the night.
And the team come to the stage wielding little Godzilla models! There are some slight language-barrier challenges in the speech but it’s utterly charming nevertheless – even an orchestral playing-off can’t blunt their euphoria.
Impossibly exciting news from the Dolby: roving reporter Stuart Heritage has spotted another attendee READING THIS VERY LIVEBLOG.
Thank you for your support, mysterious Guardianista (who I am going to assume is definitely Ryan Gosling).
The night’s surest bet pays off. Downey Jr’s first Oscar is accompanied by an absolute belter of a speech, full of big gags and epic grandstanding. He thanks his wife, who “found me a snarling rescue pet and loved me back to life” and his agent, who “spent half of his career trying to get me insured”.
Another of these endless acting category presentations, this time for supporting actor. It is at least enlivened a bit by Tim Robbins’ accidentally calling De Niro’s performance in Killers of the Flower Moon as “Oscar-winning” instead of “Oscar-worthy”. Everyone chuckles away – except a glowering De Niro.
In a slightly whiplash-inducing segue, we go from Glazer’s bracing speech to Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling joshing about Barbenheimer. They’re both trying to one up each other’s film – Blunt boasting about Oppenheimer’s many Oscar noms, Gosling accusing Nolan’s film of riding on Barbie’s coat-tails.
History is made as a British film wins best international film for the first time – albeit a British film not in the English language.
Jonathan Glazer is speaking now, and ties his film directly to events in Israel and Gaza. “It’s not a film that says look at what they did then, look at what we do now,” he says.
That Cena bit – a homage to the 1974 Oscars streaker – went down very well indeed in the room. Between that and the clutch of wins for Poor Things, nudity is tonight’s big winner so far
Presented by a naked John Cena, with envelope covering his modesty! It’s another win for Poor Things – does this augur well for its chances in the big categories?
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