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- 'Oppenheimer' swept the board on Sunday at the Oscars with seven awards, including best picture and best director, crowning a triumphant year for filmmaker Christopher Nolan.
- The film was nominated for 13 prizes, but with seven statuettes on the night, it is still one of the most awarded films in Oscar history.
- 'Poor Things', directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, also took home four awards, including best actress for Emma Stone.
Oppenheimer swept the board on Sunday at the Oscars, Hollywood's biggest night of the year, with seven awards, including best picture and best director, crowning a triumphant year for filmmaker Christopher Nolan.
Nolan's masterful drama about the father of the atomic bomb, half of last summer's massive Barbenheimer phenomenon, also bagged acting prizes for lead Cillian Murphy and supporting actor Robert Downey Jr.
Nolan - a British-American filmmaker hailed as a generational talent - said that film as an art form still has room to grow.
"Movies are just a little bit over 100 years old. I mean, imagine being there 100 years into painting or theatre," he told the audience at the Dolby Theatre.
"We don't know where this incredible journey is going from here. But to know that you think that I'm a meaningful part of it means the world to me."
The haul was not quite complete - Oppenheimer was nominated for 13 prizes, but with seven statuettes on the night, it is still one of the most awarded films in Oscar history.
Robert Downey Jr was recognised for his stellar performance as J Robert Oppenheimer's political nemesis, Lewis Strauss.
"I would like to thank my terrible childhood and the Academy, in that order," Downey said after accepting the statuette.
Downey, who had been the butt of a joke by host Jimmy Kimmel about his well-documented drug problems, lavished thanks on his wife Susan for her support.
"She found me a snarling rescue pet and loved me back to life," he said.
Nolan's cerebral take on the man he has called "the most important person who ever lived" also snapped up prizes for editing, cinematography and best original score.
It seemed fitting that the story of the development of nuclear weapons was recognised on a night when the drumbeat of war was never far away.
"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 would really like to dedicate this to the peacemakers everywhere," Murphy said as he accepted his award.
Four wins for Poor Things
In one of the few competitive awards of the evening, Emma Stone won best actress for her daring performance in the surreal Frankenstein-esque Poor Things, which won three other technical prizes.
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She pipped Lily Gladstone, who was bidding to become the first Native American to win an acting Oscar for her role in Martin Scorsese's crime saga Killers of the Flower Moon.
Stone, who previously won an Academy Award for La La Land, paid tribute to the other women in her category, and the five women on stage who presented the category.
Stone also beat out Sandra Huller of Oscars sleeper Anatomy of a Fall.
But the French courtroom thriller did not go home empty-handed, with a win for best original screenplay.
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Co-writer Justine Triet revealed backstage that the 50 Cent song that features heavily in the film was originally going to be a Dolly Parton track.
"But they refused to give us the rights," she told reporters.
As well as the legacy of Oppenheimer, there were several other reminders of the toll of human conflict.
The United Kingdom scored its first-ever best international film Oscar with Auschwitz drama The Zone of Interest, which also won best sound.
Several nominees wore lapel pins calling for a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, while sporadic protests erupted around the event's security perimeter.
There were also references to the war in Ukraine, with a best documentary statuette for 20 Days in Mariupol and a brief tribute paid to Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny, the subject of last year's Oscar-winning documentary.
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