‘Oppenheimer’ gets 13 Oscar nominations

Oppenheimer – Christopher Nolan’s masterly portrait of the father of the atomic bomb – topped the Oscars nominations on Tuesday, earning an impressive 13 nods, including for best picture.

It was followed by Poor Things, a female-focused take on the Frankenstein myth, on 11, and Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon on 10, in the race for Hollywood’s most prestigious awards.

But it was somewhat disappointing for Barbie, the other half of last summer’s “Barbenheimer” box office phenomenon and the year’s highest-grossing film.

The comedy had to settle for eight nods – not bad for a satire based on a popular line of plastic dolls, but lower than many had predicted, and missing out on key nominations for Greta Gerwig as director, and star Margot Robbie in best actress.

Oppenheimer, which came out in theatres on the same day, and itself almost grossed $1 billion (about R19 billion), led the way with nods for Nolan, and stars Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr and Emily Blunt. The film – which is the clear favourite to win best picture, the industry’s top prize, at the 96th Academy Awards on 10 March – also racked up nods in an array of technical categories.

Killers of the Flower Moon, Scorsese’s threeand-a-half-hour true crime opus on murders ripping through the oil-rich Osage community in early 20th century Oklahoma, made history. Star Lily Gladstone became the Oscars’ first Native American nominee for best actress. She will now go head-to-head with Emma Stone, the star of Poor Things, which also earned an acting nod for Mark Ruffalo, along with a swathe of technical nominations, from cinematography to costume design.

But there was disappointment for Killers star Leonardo DiCaprio, who failed to earn a best actor nomination. –