Oppenheimer dominates Critics Choice Awards with eight wins – but Cillian Murphy misses out
Hollywood blockbuster Oppenheimer has topped the Critics Choice Awards taking home eight gongs.
London-born filmmaker Christopher Nolan won the award for best director for his film about J Robert Oppenheimer, the so-called father of the atomic bomb.
The film also won best picture, while Robert Downey Jr won the award for best supporting actor for his role as Lewis Strauss, the former head of the US Atomic Energy Commission.
However, Irish actor Cillian Murphy, who played Oppenheimer, was snubbed in the best actor category, with the award going to The Holdovers star Paul Giamatti.
The 29th ceremony also saw success for Greta Gerwig’s box office hit Barbie, which picked up six awards including best comedy, best original screenplay and best original song for British star Mark Ronson’s I’m Just Ken – sung by Ryan Gosling.
The TV categories saw Succession, Beef and The Bear dominate in the major awards.
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Oppenheimer – the ‘destroyer of worlds’ who built the atomic bomb
Christopher Nolan receives the best director award
Robert Downey Jr receives the best supporting actor award for his role in Oppenheimer
Collecting his award for best director, Nolan said: “To mangle a quote from Sir Isaac Newton, ‘If I appear tall it’s because I stand on the shoulders of giants’ – the particular giants I am standing on is Kai (Bird) and Marty (Sherwin) who wrote the incredible book American Prometheus and spent 25 years doing it.
“I thank you Kai for trusting me with your work and Marty, unfortunately he left us before I was able to show him the final script, but Kai your constant reassurances once you saw the film that he would have approved meant the world to me.”
Greta Gerwig (L) and Margot Robbie receive the best comedy award for Barbie
Emily Blunt collects the award for best acting ensemble for Oppenheimer
Oppenheimer star Emily Blunt, who played the American physicist’s wife Katherine, also thanked Nolan for his “ability to connect with actors” as she collected the award for best ensemble on behalf of the cast.
“I love that we’re calling this an ensemble and we’re very grateful, but most of us were part-timers that gathered around this completely riveting fire of Cillian Murphy. Truly,” she said.
While Downey Jr read his own worst reviews from critics as he accepted the award for best supporting actor.
“I was thinking this morning, I just love critics… you know, they’ve given me such beautiful feedback, really just so many great moments, and some of it is so poetic. I just want to share some of their thoughts with you over the year.
“The first one is kind of like Haiku: ‘Sloppy, messy and lazy’. The next one is more metaphoric: ‘Like Pee-Wee Herman emerging from a coma’. This was from a Brit: ‘A puzzling waste of talent’. And lastly, and this one lingered: ‘Amusing as a bed-locked fart’.”
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Sarah Snook, winner of the best actress in a drama series award for Succession, poses with Kieran Culkin, winner of the best actor in a drama series for the same programme
Emma Stone won best actress for her role in Poor Things
He went on to thank his “Oppen-homies” who he worked alongside on the film, joking: “Every day of filming was like having my ego’s ass handed to me at the door, and I think it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.”
However, Cord Jefferson trumped Nolan’s Oppenheimer in the best adapted screenplay category for his directorial debut American Fiction based on the 2001 novel titled Erasure by Percival Everett.
A number of awards, including best comedy for Barbie, were not televised, however Critics Choice presenter Chelsea Handler encouraged Gerwig and Robbie to come on stage to collect the award – which was not part of the scheduled show.
The ceremony also saw best supporting actress go to Da’Vine Joy Randolph for The Holdovers, while Emma Stone won best actress for Poor Things.
Donald Trump has said he is considering “taking away” the US citizenship of actress and comedian Rosie O’Donnell, despite a Supreme Court ruling that expressly prohibits a government from doing so.
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, the US president said: “Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship.”
He also labelled O’Donnell, who has moved to Ireland, as a “threat to humanity” and said she should “remain in the wonderful country of Ireland, if they want her”.
O’Donnell responded on Instagram by posting a photograph of Mr Trump with Jeffrey Epstein.
“You are everything that is wrong with America and I’m everything you hate about what’s still right with it,” she wrote in the caption.
“I’m not yours to silence. I never was.”
Rosie O’Donnell moved to Ireland after Donald Trump secured a second term. Pic: AP
O’Donnell moved to Ireland with her 12-year-old son in January after Mr Trump had secured a second term.
She has said she’s in the process of obtaining Irish citizenship based on family lineage and that she would only return to the US “when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America”.
O’Donnell and the US president have criticised each other publicly for years, in an often-bitter back-and-forth that predates Mr Trump’s move into politics.
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Will Trump address parliament on UK state visit?
This is just the latest threat by the president to revoke the citizenship of someone he has disagreed with, most recently his former ally Elon Musk.
But the two situations are different as while Musk was born in South Africa, O’Donnell was born in the US and has a constitutional right to American citizenship.
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Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said the Supreme Court ruled in a 1967 case that the fourteenth amendment of the constitution prevents the government from taking away citizenship.
“The president has no authority to take away the citizenship of a native-born US citizen,” he added.
“In short, we are nation founded on the principle that the people choose the government; the government cannot choose the people.”
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