Five literary adaptations won Academy Awards on Sunday evening, with Oppenheimer leading the pack.
The biopic about the physicist who was integral to creating the atomic bomb, based on Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, took home the prize for best picture, prevailing over other literary adaptations including Killers of the Flower Moon, based on David Grann’s nonfiction book.
The film also won in the best director category, with Christopher Nolan claiming his first-ever Oscar; he had been nominated seven times previously. In his acceptance speech, he thanked Bird and Sherwin (who died in 2021) “for the 25 years you put into the book.”
Oppenheimer also won prizes for best actor (Cillian Murphy), best supporting actor (Robert Downey Jr.), best cinematography (Hoyte van Hoytema), best original score (Ludwig Göransson), and best film editing (Jennifer Lame).
Poor Things, based on Alasdair Gray’s novel, won four awards: best actress (Emma Stone), best costume design (Holly Waddington), best makeup and hairstyling (Nadia Stacey, Mark Coulier and Josh Weston), and best production design (James Price, Shona Heath, and Zsuzsa Mihalek).
Cord Jefferson won the best adapted screenplay award for American Fiction, the film adaptation of Percival Everett’s novel Erasure, while The Zone of Interest, based on Martin Amis’ novel, took home prizes for best international feature film and best sound (Tarn Willers and Johnnie Burn).
The prize for best live-action short film went to Wes Anderson and Steven Rales for The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, based on a story by Roald Dahl.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
