Oppenheimer dominates 2024 Critics’ Choice Awards with eight wins

Oppenheimer won eight prizes at the 2024 Critics' Choice Awards. Photo / Getty Images

Oppenheimer dominated the 2024 Critics’ Choice Awards, winning eight prizes.

Christopher Nolan continues to lead the Barbienheimer battle this awards season after his epic biological thriller scooped the most prizes at Sunday’s ceremony at Santa Monica’s Barker Hangar, where the blockbuster was named Best Picture and he won Best Director.

Robert Downey Jr. also won Best Supporting Actor for his role as Rear Admiral Lewis Strauss.

During his speech, the 58-year-old actor shared some of the harsh criticism he’s received during his career.

Robert Downey Jr. won Best Supporting Actor for his role as Rear Admiral Lewis Strauss. Photo / Getty Images

He began: “The Critics’ Choice Association, they’ve given me such beautiful feedback, really just so many great moments.”

”And some of it’s so poetic, I just want to share some of their thoughts with you over the years.”

One he shared was that he’s “sloppy, messy and lazy”, and another compared him to “Pee-wee Herman emerging from a coma”.

He’s also been dubbed “a puzzling waste of talent”.

The flick also won Best Cinematography, Best Acting Ensemble, Best Visual Effects, Best Editing and Best Score.

Greta Gerwig’s Barbie followed shortly behind with six prizes, including Best Comedy and Best Original Screenplay, despite going into the awards with a whopping 18 nominations.

The live-action musical film also landed Best Production Design, Best Costume Design, Best Hair and Makeup, and Ryan Gosling won the music award for Best Original Song for the hit I’m Just Ken.

Elsewhere, in the movie categories, Paul Giamatti was named Best Actor for Alexander Payne’s comedy-drama The Holdovers.

Da’Vine Joy Randolph won Best Supporting Actress and Dominic Sessa claimed Best Young Actor. Emma Stone scooped Best Actress for Poor Things and thanked her critics.

Emma Stone scooped the Best Actress award for Poor Things and thanked her critics. Photo / AP

She said: “This is the Critics’ Choice Awards — and it is about outside opinion — but I’m very grateful to the critics for this. But I’m just learning not to care what you think.”

In TV, meanwhile, it was a big night for Beef, Succession and The Bear.

Netflix comedy-drama Beef was named Best Limited Series, and Best Actor in a Limited Series or Movie Made for Television went to the show’s Steven Yeun. His co-star Ali Wong won also Best Actress. Maria Bello also took home Best Supporting Actress.

Kieran Culkin and Sarah Snook took Best Actor and Actress in a Drama for Succession, and Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edebiri landed Best Actor and Actress in a Comedy Series for The Bear. Ebon Moss-Bachrach also claimed Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for the latter show.

Elsewhere, Billy Crudup and Elizabeth Debicki won Best Supporting Actor and Actress in a Drama Series for The Morning Show and The Crown, respectively.

Meryl Streep wasn’t in attendance but was named Best Support Actress for Only Murders in the Building.

Special honours were handed out, with Margot Robbie presenting the SeeHer Award to her Barbie co-star America Ferrera, and James Mangold gave his Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny castmate Harrison Ford the Career Achievement Award.

Comic Chelsea Handler was on hosting duties and made sure to poke fun at her boyfriend Jo Koy’s Golden Globes disaster, in which his jokes fall flat.

In her opening monologue, she quipped: “Thank you for laughing at that — my writers wrote it.”