Oppenheimer’s Oscars Success Breaks 6 Huge Records & Streaks Going Back 20+ Years

Oppenheimer was the big winner at the Oscars 2024, taking home multiple prizes and breaking several records in the process. Oppenheimer has been a dominant force ever since its release back in July 2023. Having first conquered the box office alongside Barbie, it’s since made its way through awards season, winning big at the Golden Globes, the BAFTAs, the SAG Awards, and more. It arrived at the 96th Academy Awards with a leading 13 nominations, and left with a total of seven wins.

Those included the night’s biggest award, as Christopher Nolan finally won Best Picture. The filmmaker also picked up Best Director for the first time, while stars Cillian Murphy and Robert Downey Jr. also took home their first-ever Oscar as well. Though it didn’t quite walk away with everything it was nominated for, Oppenheimer was undoubtedly the biggest of the 2024 Oscars’ winners. The film about such a key part of history made its own history, breaking records and ending streaks in impressive fashion.

6
Oppenheimer Is The Highest-Grossing Best Picture Winner Since Return Of The King

The biopic has grossed close to $1 billion.

Buoyed by great reviews, the draw of Christopher Nolan’s name, and the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon, Oppenheimer has managed to gross over $957 million worldwide since its release. While that’s an impressive feat by itself, it’s even more so when considering that makes it the highest-grossing Best Picture winner since The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, which was released over 20 years ago in 2003. The highest-grossing Best Picture winner between these two movies is The King’s Speech, which won at the 2011 Oscars after grossing $427 million.

5
Oppenheimer Has The Biggest Budget For A Best Picture Winner Since Gladiator

$100 million was set aside to bring the Manhattan Project to the big screen.

Considering some of the incredible scenes seen in Oppenheimer, it makes sense that it would have a large budget. However, this doesn’t always result in a good film. For example, in the case of Oppenheimer, a bigger production value helped it clinch the Academy Award for Best Picture. Considering some of the huge stars in the Oppenheimer cast, including Robert Downey Jr and Emily Blunt, as well as its beautiful cinematography and tense bomb scene, it makes sense that it had such a large budget.

Oppenheimer‘s budget of $100 million is the biggest since Gladiator, which won Best Picture in 2001, with $103 million. Others have been close too, though, with 2003’s The Return of the King coming in at $94 million and 2006’s The Departed at $90 million, although they didn’t manage to hit triple figures. Considering the way movies are made in recent years, especially with the cost of special effects, it’s still an impressive achievement for Oppenheimer.

4
Oppenheimer Is Robert Downey Jr’s First Oscar, 31 Years After His First Nomination

RDJ’s Oscar is well-deserved.

Oppenheimer saw world-renowned actor Robert Downey Jr take on the role of Admiral Lewis Strauss opposite Murphy’s titular character, winning Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal. This marked Robert Downey Jr’s third ever Oscar nomination, with the first being in 1993 for Best Actor in Chaplin and the second in 2009 for Best Supporting Actor in Tropic Thunder. However, until this point, he’d never managed to take home the gold statue.

Looking at Downey Jr’s incredible 31 years as an actor, it’s surprising that he only received three Oscar nominations during his career. However, given his most notable roles in the years since his nomination for Tropic Thunder has been as Iron Man in the MCU, it becomes easier to see why. Marvel has had some awards success, with Black Panther receiving a Best Picture nod, but it’s yet to make much of a breakthrough in the acting department. To date, Angela Bassett for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is the MCU’s only acting Oscar nomination.

3
Oppenheimer Is The First Best Director Oscar Win Of Christopher Nolan’s 26-Year Career

Nolan only had one previous Best Director nomination.

Christopher Nolan has directed some of Hollywood’s biggest films of all time, including titles like Inception and Dunkirk. With an incredible 26 years under his belt as a director, as well as several Oscar nominations in past years, including Best Original Screenplay for Momento, it seems odd that he’d never made it over the finish line before. However, at the 96th Academy Awards, Nolan managed to clinch not one but two Academy Awards for Oppenheimer in a single night, for Best Director and Best Picture, which more than makes up for the two decades losing out to other Hollywood legends.

2
Oppenheimer Is The Most Awards Universal Has Won Since 1994

Universal had one of its best-ever years at the 96th Academy Awards.

Universal Studios is one of the best-known production companies worldwide, having released hundreds of iconic movies under its umbrella over the years. While it’s been rather common for Universal to make such a large impression at the Oscars in recent years, Oppenheimer marked an incredible record for the studios at the Academy Awards 2024. Across the evening, Oppenheimer bagged an unbelievable seven awards altogether, resulting in a tie for the most Oscars with Universal Studios’ Schindler’s List in 1994.

Although plenty of other Universal movies were successful awards-wise, it’s a shock that it’s taken the studios over 20 years to match their own number of wins, but not so much that it was Oppenheimer that did so. However, there also seems to be a pattern in Universal’s winning streak. The only two other films that have managed to achieve the same level of success at the Oscars were in 1973 with The Sting, bagging seven wins out of its ten nominations, and in 1985 with Out of Africa, with seven out of eleven.

1
Oppenheimer Is The First Best Picture Winner Released In July Since Forrest Gump

Oppenheimer is a reminder that Summer blockbusters can win Best Picture.

In Hollywood, the summer period is considered to be the peak of the movie season, but Oppenheimer is the first recipient of Best Picture to be released in July in 20 years since the release of Tom Hanks’ Forrest Gump in 1994. It’s not unheard of for these summer movies to win, however. Over the years, several summer releases have won Best Picture, including Gladiator, which was released in May, and The Hurt Locker, which was released in June.

For Oppenheimer to receive the traction it has both in the Academy Awards and to the wider public is outstanding. For Oppenheimer to win so many Oscars in 2024 was truly a rare occurrence. Of course, this could set up the future for more summer movies to make an impression on the Academy.