Christopher Nolan has won his first Oscar for Best Director at the 96th Academy Awards.
The British filmmaker, who has been leading the awards season with his highly successful three-hour biopic Oppenheimer, also became a BAFTA and Golden Globe winner for the first time earlier this year.
Receiving the award from Steven Spielberg, Nolan thanked the movie's team, including "the most incredible cast", "all at the top of their game, led by the incredible Cillian Murphy." Murphy won the Oscar for Best Lead Actor.
"I can't say enough about the incredible crew that we got together in this film," Nolan continued during his acceptance speech.
Related: Oppenheimer is the big winner at this year's Oscars
He most especially thanked Emma Thomas, "producer of all our films and all our children."
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"To the Academy, just to say movies are just a little bit over 100 years old. I mean, imagine being there 100 years into painting or theatre. We don't know where this incredible journey is going from here.
"But to know that you think that I'm a meaningful part of it means the world to me."
Out of its 13 nominations, which made it the most nominated movie at this year's ceremony, Oppenheimer has won seven awards including Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, Best Supporting Actor for Robert Downey Jr, Best Lead Actor for Cillian Murphy, Best Directing for Nolan and finally Best Picture.
This was Nolan's second nomination in this category in the Academy Awards, following his first nomination in 2018 for Dunkirk.
Related: Cillian Murphy wins his first Academy Award for Oppenheimer
He was first nominated for Best Original Screenplay for Memento in 2002, and he received Best Picture nominations for both Inception and, again, Dunkirk.
Besides now being an Oscar-winning movie, Oppenheimer was a huge box-office hit last summer, grossing nearly $1 billion at the box office worldwide. It's Nolan's third-biggest movie ever, and also the highest-grossing biopic of all time ahead of Bohemian Rhapsody.
"With certain films, your timing is just right in ways that you never could have predicted," Nolan said in an interview with Variety prior to his Oscar win.
"When you start making a film, you're two or three years out from when it's going to be released, so you're trying to hit a moving target as far as the interest of the audience. But sometimes you catch a wave and the story you're telling is one people are waiting for."
Oppenheimer is available to rent or buy now from Prime Video, iTunes, Microsoft Store and more in the UK.
Mireia (she/her) has been working as a movie and TV journalist for over eight years. Based in the UK, she is a former deputy movies editor at Digital Spy, and previously worked for the Spanish magazine Fotogramas. Mireia's work has been published in other outlets such as Esquire and Elle in Spain, and WeLoveCinema and GamesRadar+ in the UK. She is also a published author, having written the essay Biblioteca Studio Ghibli: Nicky, la aprendiz de bruja about Hayao Miyazaki's Kiki's Delivery Service.
During her years as a freelance journalist and film critic, Mireia has covered festivals around the world and has interviewed high-profile talents such as Kristen Stewart, Ryan Gosling, Jake Gyllenhaal and many more. She's also taken part in juries such as the FIPRESCI jury at Venice Film Festival and the short film jury at Kingston International Film Festival in London. LinkedIn
