Oppenheimer Dominates Oscars as Mountlake Terrace's Lily Gladstone Loses Best Actress to Emma Stone

Lily Gladstone, a 2004 graduate of Mountlake Terrace High School, did not win the best actress Oscar at the Academy Awards, despite being widely viewed by awards pundits as the favorite. The prize went instead to Emma Stone for her turn as Bella Baxter in "Poor Things."

Gladstone was nominated for "Killers of the Flower Moon." Had she won, she would have been the first Native American to take home an Academy Award.

Stone's victory is her second in the category, following her 2019 win for "La La Land." At 35, she joins an exclusive group of women who have won best actress at least twice, a list that includes Katharine Hepburn, Frances McDormand, Ingrid Bergman and Bette Davis. "Oh, boy, this is really overwhelming," Stone said.

The evening's biggest winner was "Oppenheimer," which collected seven awards, among them best director for Christopher Nolan, best actor for Cillian Murphy and best supporting actor for Robert Downey Jr. It also won for cinematography, editing and score. Though not the clean sweep some had predicted, the film outpaced its competition, including "Barbie," which opened on the same date. It is the first time in more than a decade the Academy has given its top prize to a widely seen, big-budget studio film.

Nolan, 53, had previously been in the Oscar conversation for films such as "Inception," "Dunkirk" and "The Dark Knight," but the directing award was his first. Noting that cinema is just over a hundred years old, he said: "We don't know where this incredible journey is going from here. But to think that I'm a meaningful part of it means the world to me." Downey, who had been nominated twice before, quipped: "I'd like to thank my terrible childhood and the academy, in that order."

World events loomed over the ceremony. Demonstrations over the war in Gaza snarled traffic around the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles and slowed arrivals on the red carpet, with some protesters shouting "Shame!" at those heading to the event. Jonathan Glazer, director of "The Zone of Interest," which won best international film, linked the dehumanization shown in his Auschwitz drama to the present day and asked, "how do we resist?"

The war in Ukraine was also on attendees' minds. "20 Days in Mariupol," by Ukrainian filmmaker and Associated Press journalist Mstyslav Chernov, won best documentary, a first for the AP and PBS's "Frontline." "This is the first Oscar in Ukrainian history," Chernov said, adding that he wished he had never had to make the film and would trade the award for Russia never having attacked Ukraine.

Elsewhere, "Poor Things" took three early prizes for production design, makeup and hairstyling, and costume design. Da'Vine Joy Randolph won best supporting actress for "The Holdovers," and Hayao Miyazaki's "The Boy and the Heron" upset "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" for best animated feature. Billie Eilish and Finneas won best song for "What Was I Made For?" from "Barbie," the film's only win, which came nearly three hours into the show. Cord Jefferson won adapted screenplay for "American Fiction," urging studios to make "20 $10 million movies" instead of one $200 million film.

Jimmy Kimmel, hosting for the fourth time, drew a standing ovation by bringing out teamsters and behind-the-scenes workers as the industry heads into new labor negotiations. The broadcast also featured a large-scale performance of "I'm Just Ken" by Ryan Gosling, joined by guitarist Slash.