Emily Blunt’s 2024 Oscars Nomination Will Help End 1 Of Christopher Nolan’s Biggest Career Criticisms

Emily Blunt’s significant Oscars chances after Oppenheimer could be the key to breaking a surprising Christopher Nolan trend. Emily Blunt, who plays J. Robert Oppenheimer’s wife Kitty in the biopic movie, is long overdue for Oscars attention. Despite a filmography that has earned the actress a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and three BAFTA nominations, Blunt has never been considered for an Academy Award. With Oppenheimer, she is in a strong position to change this fact and secure one of the five 2024 Oscars Best Supporting Actress nominations.

Blunt’s performance is predicted as one of many Oscar nominations likely to be heaped upon Oppenheimer. Nolan himself stands a good chance of finally bagging a Best Picture Academy Award with Oppenheimer; the R-rated, 3-hour biopic is exactly the kind of “prestige” film that the Oscars typically reward. Several other awards are serious prospects, including Best Editing, Best Screenplay, and a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Robert Downey Jr’s Oppenheimer role. Yet it’s the predicted Blunt nomination that may prove the most consequential, as the award can finally put a longstanding Christopher Nolan criticism to bed.

Emily Blunt’s Oscar Nomination Would Be A First For Christopher Nolan

Numerous Christopher Nolan films have seen memorable performances from leading ladies; Elizabeth Debicki injected the role of Kat with a quiet yet enduring sadness in Tenet, while Marion Cotillard brought unstable intensity to the part of Cobb’s wife, Mal, in Inception. However, no single woman in Christopher Nolan’s filmography has had an Oscar-nominated performance. Indeed, the only Nolan actor to ever see an Academy Award nomination is Heath Ledger, who posthumously won the Best Supporting Actor statue for portraying the Joker in The Dark Knight. If Emily Blunt does see the Best Actress nod for Oppenheimer, she will be the first actress to be nominated for a Nolan film.

Blunt’s Oppenheimer Role Is So Much Better Than Women In Nolan’s Other Movies

Oppenheimer being an Oscars-friendly prestige biopic rather than an action blockbuster will certainly help Emily Blunt’s chances at a nomination, but the biggest reason Blunt’s chances are better than those of other Nolan actresses comes down to the complexity of the role. Christopher Nolan is an extremely capable writer, with two Best Screenplay Oscar nominations under his belt to prove it. However, the filmmaker has repeatedly come under fire for his representations of women. The criticisms have a point, as Nolan has never written a female protagonist and many of the female characters in his films seem to lack the complexity of their male counterparts.

Nolan strikes new ground with his rendering of Kitty Oppenheimer. It’s possible that the considerable wealth of background information on the real Kitty Oppenheimer helped Nolan to create an unprecedentedly complex female character. Whatever the reason, Emily Blunt’s Kitty Oppenheimer materializes as one of the best parts of Oppenheimer’s stacked cast. The role even comes complete with its own “Oscars moment” as Kitty delivers a fierce defense of her husband during Oppenheimer’s AEC hearing. It’s a great role and, regardless of the Oscars outcome, it provides a powerful rebuke to a criticism that has plagued Nolan throughout his career.