Oscars 2024: Cillian Murphy Wins Best Actor For Oppenheimer

The 96th annual Academy Awards are starting to wind down as film fans watch their favorite movies from 2023 take home big prizes. One of the most interesting races this season has been for Best Actor. The nominees included Paul Giamatti (The Holdovers), Bradley Cooper (Maestro), Colman Domingo (Rustin), Cillian Murphy (Oppenheimer), and Jeffrey Wright (American Fiction). Based on previous awards given out this season, many have believed the Best Actor race would come down to Murphy or Giamatti. Well, the results are in, and the Best Actor is… Cillian Murphy! 

This marks Murphy’s first nomination and first win at the Academy Awards. Throughout awards season, Murphy has won many prizes for his portrayal of J. Robert Oppenheimer in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. Before winning the Oscar, Murphy won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor and the SAG Award in addition to the Golden Globe for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama. Meanwhile, Giamatti took home the Golden Globe for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy while also winning the Critics’ Choice Movie Award for Best Actor. 

Cillian Murphy Explains Why Oppenheimer Has No Deleted Scenes:

Murphy previously explained to Collider why you won’t be seeing any deleted scenes on the DVD extras for Oppenheimer. 

“There’s no deleted scenes in Chris Nolan movies,” Murphy revealed. “That’s why there are no DVD extras on his movies because the script is the movie. He knows exactly what’s going to end up- he’s not fiddling around with it trying to change the story. That is the movie.”

“I tend to try and weed things out on paper because it’s crazy expensive to shoot things that aren’t going to be in the film,” Nolan explained to MTV back in 2012 when discussing The Dark Knight Rises. “It also takes up a lot of time and energy. Pretty much with all my films, there are very few deleted scenes, which always disappoints the DVD crowd.”

Oppenheimer stars Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, Robert Downey Jr. as Lewis Strauss, Emily Blunt as Kitty Oppenheimer, Matt Damon as Leslie Groves, Florence Pugh as Jean Tatlock, Benny Safdie as Edward Teller, Michael Angarano as Robert Serber, Josh Hartnett as Ernest Lawrence, Dylan Arnold as Frank Oppenheimer, David Krumholtz as Isidor Isaac Rabi, Matthew Modine as Vannevar Bush, Josh Peck as Kenneth Bainbridge, Devon Bostick as Seth Neddermeyer, Matthias Schweighöfer as Werner Heisenberg, Christopher Denham as Klaus Fuchs, Guy Burnet as George Eltenton, Danny Deferrari as Enrico Fermi, Emma Dumont as Jackie Oppenheimer, Gustaf Skarsgård as Hans Bethe, Trond Fausa Aurvåg as George Kistiakowsky, and Gary Oldman as Harry S. Truman.

Congrats to first-time Academy Award winner, Cillian Murphy! Stay tuned for more Oscars updates as they unfold on ABC.