Cillian Murphy wins Best Actor while Irish-produced Poor Things scoops 4 Oscar wins

It was another incredible year for Irish film with both Cillian Murphy and Poor Things honoured at the 96th Academy Awards last night. 

Nominated for 13 different awards, including Best Actor, Best Director and Best Picture, Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer was the clear favourite – securing a win in seven of those categories. 

After much speculation, Cork native Cillian Murphy made history as the first Irish-born actor to win an Academy Award. Speaking directly to Nolan and Emma Thomas, with whom he’s collaborated many times before, Murphy said, “It’s been the wildest, most exhilarating, most creatively satisfying journey you’ve taken me on over the past 20 years. I owe you more than I can say.” 

“I’m a very proud Irish man standing here tonight,” he continued to raucous cheers from the audience. “We made a film about the man who created the atomic bomb and for better or for worse, we’re all living in Oppenheimer’s world so I’d really like to dedicate this to the peacemakers everywhere.” 

If rumours are to be believed, Murphy will arrive home to quite the celebration in Rebel County where there have even been calls for him to be awarded the Freedom of Cork – the city’s highest honour. 

Best Actress went to Emma Stone who had her very own Regina George moment on stage and shared her gold statuette with the four other women in her category – Lily Gladstone, Carey Mulligan, Sandra Hüller and Annette Bening. She did have a wardrobe malfunction (which she blamed on Ryan Gosling’s crowd-pleasing performance of I’m Just Ken) but she handled it with as much grace and decorum as Bella Baxter would. 

Nominated for an incredible 11 awards – the highest number of Academy Award nominations ever received by an Irish-produced film – Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things secured four wins including Makeup and Hairstyling, Production Design, Costume Design and of course, Best Actress. Produced and developed by Ed Guiney, Andrew Lowe and the team at Element Pictures, if you haven’t already seen it, it’s brilliant and bizarre in equal measure; an absolute must-watch. 

After an incredible ceremony hosted by Jimmy Kimmel (who really did a stellar job), Al Pacino closed the show out, announcing Oppenheimer – which secured a total of seven wins – as Best Picture. 

You can see the full list of winners at the 96th Academy Awards below:

Actress in a Supporting Role
Da’Vine Joy, The Holdovers 

Animated Short Film
War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko, Dave Mullins and Brad Booker

Animated Feature Film
The Boy and the Heron, Hayao Miyazaki and Toshio Suzuki

Writing (Original Screenplay)
Anatomy of a Fall, Screenplay – Justine Triet and Arthur Harari

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
American Fiction, Written for the screen by Cord Jefferson

Makeup and Hairstyling
Poor Things, Nadia Stacey, Mark Coulier and Josh Weston

Production Design
Poor Things, Production Design: James Price and Shona Heath; Set Decoration: Zsuzsa Mihalek

Costume Design
Poor Things, Holly Waddington

International Feature Film
The Zone of Interest, United Kingdom

Actor in a Supporting Role
Robert Downey Jr., Oppenheimer  

Visual Effects
Godzilla Minus One, Takashi Yamazaki, Kiyoko Shibuya, Masaki Takahashi and Tatsuji Nojima

Film Editing
Oppenheimer, Jennifer Lame

Documentary Short Film
The Last Repair Shop, Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers

Documentary Feature Film
20 Days in Mariupol, Mstyslav Chernov, Michelle Mizner and Raney Aronson-Rath

Cinematography
Oppenheimer, Hoyte van Hoytema

Live-Action Short Film
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, Wes Anderson and Steven Rales

Sound
The Zone of Interest, Tarn Willers and Johnnie Burn

Music (Original Score)
Oppenheimer, Ludwig Göransson

Music (Original Song)
What Was I Made For?, from Barbie; Music and Lyric by Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell

Actor in a Leading Role
Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer 

Directing
Christophher Nolan, Oppenheimer

Actress in a Leading Role
Emma Stone, Poor Things

Best Picture
Oppenheimer, Emma Thomas, Charles Roven and Christopher Nolan, Producers

Feature image courtesy of the Academy Awards