Recognition at last for Christopher Nolan. Oscars, over to you

THE winds of film awards season often blow in bizarre, confusing ways, but this year, with a decisive gust, a historic wrong has been set right.

Before last night’s British Academy Film Awards, despite being arguably our nation’s most successful filmmaker since Alfred Hitchcock, Christopher Nolan had never personally won a competitive Bafta. But at the 2024 ceremony he picked up two – for Best Film and Best Director – as part of Oppenheimer’s rousing seven-category victory streak.

Admittedly, both of these felt like forgone conclusions, more or less as soon as the nominations were announced last month. Nolan’s success in contemporary Hollywood is almost without parallel: he regularly secures full creative control over projects with unusual premises and eight-figure budgets and earns studios a healthy return on that investment.

But his habit of working in genres that typically turn off awards voters, like science-fiction and superheroism, has made attention from the British and US academies hard to come by.

Nor is he much of an industry game player. The only status that matters to him is total creative control – he and his wife and producer, Emma Thomas, have fought hard to secure it on each of their studio projects before a second of footage is shot.

And the only test of his work that concerns him is how it’s received by its audience, which is why he obsesses over release windows and premium projection formats such as Imax and 35mm. Hence his high-profile fallingout with Warner Bros over what he regarded as the bungled release of 2020’s Tenet, the only studio blockbuster to make it to cinemas during Covid.

Hence, too, his abrupt post-tenet move to Universal, which surely can’t believe its luck as his first film there has proven such a critical, commercial and now awards season hit. The stage has been set for another night of triumph at the Academy Awards next month: perhaps not a sweep, but surely not far off.

The Oscars shouldn’t mistake Oppenheimer’s victory as a solely British concern, though. The film is a truly international production – so much so that it was ineligible for last night’s Outstanding British Film category – so there should be no sense that its pile of Baftas mean it has now had its moment. Again, at the Oscars, Nolan has been a long-time bridesmaid: pre-oppenheimer, five nominations, no wins. Again, there’s an injustice there to be set right.

Poor Things, which was ( just) home-grown enough to qualify for Outstanding British Film, also had a successful evening, winning in five categories including Best Actress. (When Emma Stone’s name was read out, the Royal Festival Hall erupted – on decibel levels alone, she was surely the most popular winner of the night.) But surprisingly close behind it was The Zone of Interest – a brilliant but unapologetically challenging film, which not long ago would have perhaps been too much of a test for Bafta’s middlebrow tastes.

Not now, though. Jonathan Glazer’s unblinking chronicle of an Auschwitz commandant’s family life won three awards, including the evening’s unlikeliest double: Outstanding British Film and Film Not in the English Language. (It was co-produced by Film4, and performed mostly in German.) It has proven popular with Oscar voters, and is in the running for five awards next month.

Does have a new Best Picture rival? Probably not, though for a cinematic vintage as strong as this, it makes sense to spread the wealth.