After an unusually short yet jam-packed awards season, the 2024 Oscars finally arrived.

The 96th Academy Awards kicked off Sunday at a new time—an hour earlier on the day daylight savings time began, no less—as comedian and late-night host Jimmy Kimmel returned as emcee. Oppenheimer took home Best Picture and several other major awards. Find out which actors, directors, screenwriters, musicians, and films captured coveted golden statuettes to become 2024 Oscar winners.

Jump to:

  • Breaking Down the Winners
  • Acting Categories
  • Best Director
  • Motion Picture Categories
  • Screenplay Categories
  • Music Categories

Breaking Down the Winners

Oppenheimer’s moment in the Oscar spotlight arrived in splendid fashion. The year’s most nominated movie took home seven of its 13 nominations, most notably Best Picture. Star Cillian Murphy, who portrayed the titular physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, won Best Actor as his onscreen foe Robert Downey Jr. captured Best Supporting Actor for his performance as Atomic Energy Commission chairman Lewis Strauss. Director Christopher Nolan also won.

“We made a film about the man who created the atomic bomb, and for better or worse, we’re living in Oppenheimer’s world,” Murphy, 47, said in his acceptance speech. “I’d really like to dedicate this to the peacemakers everywhere.”

All three men are first-time Oscar winners, with Nolan collecting two trophies Sunday night for his work as the movie’s director and co-producer. He also wrote the screenplay, based on the 2005 biography American Prometheus, but notably didn’t win Best Adapted Screenplay. That honor went to Cord Jefferson for American Fiction. Elsewhere, the massively successful biopic won for cinematography, film editing, and original score.

Beyond Oppenheimer’s triumphs, the fantasy comedy Poor Things enjoyed its own successes with four awards. Emma Stone took home the highly competitive Best Actress trophy for her turn as Bella Baxter. She and Killers of the Flower Moon’s Lily Gladstone were the leading favorites, and Stone, who previously won the category for 2016’s La La Land, was clearly overwhelmed throughout her acceptance speech. She struggled to hold back tears and had to collect her thoughts more than once.

Poor Things also won for Costume Design (Holly Waddington), Makeup and Hairstyling (Nadia Stacey, Mark Coulier and Josh Weston), and Production Design (James Price and Shona Heath with set decorations by Zsuzsa Mihalek). Overall, the movie netted four of its 11 nods.

Rounding out the acting categories, Da'Vine Joy Randolph collected Best Supporting Actress. She played cafeteria cook Mary Lamb in the holiday drama The Holdovers.

The year’s biggest moneymaker Barbie, directed by Greta Gerwig and produced by star Margot Robbie, saw one Oscar for singer-songwriter Billie Eilish and her brother, Finneas O’Connell. They wrote and Eilish performed the award-winning song “What Was I Made For?” The sibling duo previously won the category in 2022 for the James Bond song “No Time To Die,” and their win this year makes Eilish the youngest multi-time Oscar recipient in history.

Shut out from the night’s accolades was Killers of the Flower Moon, Martin Scorsese’s latest crime drama about a real-life 1920s murder conspiracy on the Osage Reservation. That’s despite 10 nominations for the movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone, and Robert De Niro. Gladstone made history as the first Native American to receive a nomination for Best Actress for her portrayal of Mollie Kyle Burkhart. Scorsese also earned a nod for Best Director, making him the most nominated director alive today.

Acting Categories

Actor in a Leading Role

“I’m a very proud Irish man standing here tonight,” 47-year-old Cillian Murphy said upon receiving his first Academy Award. The actor portrayed physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer in the past year’s biggest biopic. “We made a film about the man who created the atomic bomb and for better or worse, we’re living in Oppenheimer’s world. I’d really like to dedicate this to the peace makers everywhere.”

Actor in a Supporting Role

Robert Downey Jr. is no stranger to the awards stage this season, and he capped off his incredibly successful run with his first Oscar. The 58-year-old was honored for portraying Lewis Strauss in the 2023 blockbuster Oppenheimer. “Here’s my little secret: I needed this job more than it needed me,” Downey said in his acceptance speech. He won similar accolades at the Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild Awards, BAFTAs, and more.

Actress in a Leading Role

This is Emma Stone’s second trophy in the category. The 35-year-old previously won for La La Land (2016).

Actress in a Supporting Role

The Holdovers breakout star Da'Vine Joy Randolph took home her first Oscar, not to mentione the first trophy of the night. “I didn’t think I was supposed to be doing this as a career,” the 37-year-old said in her acceptance speech. “I started off as a singer, and my mother said to me, ‘Go across that street to that theater department. There’s something for you there.’” Something, indeed.

Best Director

  • Justine Triet, Anatomy of a Fall
  • Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon
  • WINNER: Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
  • Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor Things
  • Jonathan Glazer, The Zone of Interest

Eight-time Oscar nominee Christopher Nolan, 53, captured his first two Academy Awards, first in the directory category, then for producing the year’s Best Picture.

Motion Picture Categories

Best Picture

  • American Fiction
  • Anatomy of a Fall
  • Barbie
  • The Holdovers
  • Killers of the Flower Moon
  • Maestro
  • WINNER: Oppenheimer
  • Past Lives
  • Poor Things
  • The Zone of Interest

Director Christopher Nolan has been in a near constant presence in the film industry spotlight since the lead up to the release of his most recent movie, Oppenheimer. But when the biopic took the night’s final award, it was his fellow producers Emma Thomas, also his wife, and Charles Roven who stepped up to the mic after their win.

Animated Feature Film

  • WINNER: The Boy and the Heron, Hayao Miyazaki and Toshio Suzuki
  • Elemental, Peter Sohn and Denise Ream
  • Nimona, Nick Bruno, Troy Quane, Karen Ryan, and Julie Zackary
  • Robot Dreams, Pablo Berger, Ibon Cormenzana, Ignasi Estapé, and Sandra Tapia Díaz
  • Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, and Amy Pascal

Documentary Feature Film

  • Bobi Wine: The People’s President, Moses Bwayo, Christopher Sharp, and John Battsek
  • The Eternal Memory
  • Four Daughters, Kaouther Ben Hania and Nadim Cheikhrouha
  • To Kill a Tiger, Nisha Pahuja, Cornelia Principe, and David Oppenheim
  • WINNER: 20 Days in Mariupol, Mstyslav Chernov, Michelle Mizner, and Raney Aronson-Rath

International Feature Film

  • Io Capitano (Italy)
  • Perfect Days (Japan)
  • Society of the Snow (Spain)
  • The Teachers’ Lounge (Germany)
  • WINNER: The Zone of Interest (United Kingdom)

The Zone of Interest is the ninth movie to be nominated in both the international category and Best Picture.

Screenplay Categories

Adapted Screenplay

  • WINNER: American Fiction, written by Cord Jefferson
  • Barbie, written by Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach
  • Oppenheimer, written by Christopher Nolan
  • Poor Things, written by Tony McNamara
  • The Zone of Interest, written by Jonathan Glazer

Original Screenplay

  • WINNER: Anatomy of a Fall, written by Justine Triet and Arthur Harari
  • The Holdovers, written by David Hemingson
  • Maestro, written by Bradley Cooper and Josh Singer
  • May December, written by Samy Burch; story by Samy Burch and Alex Mechanik
  • Past Lives, written by Celine Song

Music Categories

Original Score

  • American Fiction, Laura Karpman
  • Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, John Williams
  • Killers of the Flower Moon, Robbie Robertson
  • WINNER: Oppenheimer, Ludwig Göransson
  • Poor Things, Jerskin Fendrix

Original Song

  • “The Fire Inside” from Flamin’ Hot, music and lyric by Diane Warren
  • “I’m Just Ken” from Barbie, music and lyric by Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt
  • “It Never Went Away” from American Symphony, music and lyric by Jon Batiste and Dan Wilson
  • “Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People)” from Killers of the Flower Moon, music and lyric by Scott George
  • WINNER: “What Was I Made For?” from Barbie, music and lyric by Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell

When it comes to Academy Awards, Billie Eilish and her brother, Finneas O’Connell, are two for two. They collected the trophy for Best Original Song for their hit “What Was I Made For?” from the Barbie movie. “I’m grateful for this song and this movie and how this movie made me feel,” Eilish, 22, said in her acceptance speech. The pair won in 2022 for “No Time To Die” from the James Bond movie of the same name.

Headshot of Adrienne Donica
Adrienne Donica
Deputy Editor

Adrienne directs the daily news operation and content production for Biography.com. She joined the staff in October 2022 and most recently worked as an editor for Popular Mechanics, Runner’s World, and Bicycling. Adrienne has served as editor-in-chief of two regional print magazines, and her work has won several awards, including the Best Explanatory Journalism award from the Alliance of Area Business Publishers. Her current working theory is that people are the point of life, and she’s fascinated by everyone who (and every system that) creates our societal norms. When she’s not behind the news desk, find her hiking, working on her latest cocktail project, or eating mint chocolate chip ice cream. 

Headshot of Tyler Piccotti
Tyler Piccotti
News and Culture Editor, Biography.com

Tyler Piccotti first joined the Biography.com staff as an Associate News Editor in February 2023, and before that worked almost eight years as a newspaper reporter and copy editor. He is a graduate of Syracuse University. When he's not writing and researching his next story, you can find him at the nearest amusement park, catching the latest movie, or cheering on his favorite sports teams.