Oppenheimer: Christopher Nolan Wins 2024 Critics Choice Award For Best Director

Oppenheimer helmer Christopher Nolan is 2024's Critics Choice Best Director recipient.

By Adam Barnhardt

Christopher Nolan has some more hardware to add to his trophy case. Sunday, the auteur walked away with the 2024 Critics Choice Award for Best Director for his role in the Oppenheimer director's chair. The Critics Choice Award is his second such win of the awards season, one that's likely only going to get busier for Nolan and his colleagues on the J. Robert Oppenheimer biopic.

Earlier this month, Nolan won a Golden Globe for Best Director on the same project, which also won Best Motion Picture – Drama at the annual awards gala. Oppenheimer has already been an awards season darling, with Cillian Murphy and Robert Downey Jr. each winning the Golden Globe for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, respectively.

The film's performance so far should be a positive indicator for Nolan and crew at the Oscars in March. Nominations for the highest awards show in Hollywood are set to be unveiled on January 23rd before the ceremony on March 10th. Nolan has been nominated for an Oscar five times throughout his career, but is still pursuing his first Academy Award.

Interestingly enough, Nolan said earlier this month he's already looking forward to leaving the film behind because of its dark material.

"I definitely– part of me wants to leave the story behind," Nolan told Yahoo! Entertainment in a recent interview. "I mean, it's a great privilege to be able to talk about a film that you've made that's now going into the home and on 4k and Blu-ray and all the rest. It's great to be able to sit here and talk to you about the success of the movie. That's a huge privilege. But the subject matter is very dark. It's nihilistic. And, yeah, there's part of me that's quite keen to move on and maybe do something, you know, not quite as bleak."

Oppenheimer stars Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer and Emily Blunt as his wife, biologist and botanist Katherine "Kitty" Oppenheimer. Oscar® winner Matt Damon portrays General Leslie Groves Jr., director of the Manhattan Project, and Robert Downey, Jr. plays Lewis Strauss, a founding commissioner of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.

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The film is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and the late Martin J. Sherwin. The film is produced by Emma Thomas, Atlas Entertainment's Charles Roven and Christopher Nolan.

Oppenheimer is set to start streaming on Peacock beginning February 16th, or now available on home media wherever movies are sold.

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