"Oppenheimer," the highly acclaimed biopic chronicling the intense competition to construct the inaugural atomic bomb, secured an impressive seven Academy Awards, notably clinching the esteemed Best Picture accolade.

Irish actor Cillian Murphy won best actor for playing theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, leader of the U.S. effort in the 1940s to create the weapon that ended World War II. "Oppenheimer" director Christopher Nolan took home the directing Oscar.

"We made a film about the man who created the atomic bomb, and for better or worse, we are living in Oppenheimer's world," Murphy said as he held his trophy on stage. "So I would really like to dedicate this to the peacemakers everywhere."

Nolan's first Oscar

The 53-year-old British visionary has garnered critical acclaim throughout his career but had never won at the Oscars until now. He was nominated for directing "Dunkirk" in 2017 and for original screenplay in 2010 for "Inception" and in 2001 for "Memento."

"Winning this recognition from my peers is the icing on the cake," he said backstage. "It’s very important to me. It’s a wonderful finish to what’s been an incredible year."

Nolan quickly added a second statue when "Oppenheimer" closed the evening by winning Best Picture, one of seven Oscars it earned, including Best Actor for Cillian Murphy and Supporting Actor for Robert Downey Jr. The film earned a leading 13 nominations and has earned nearly $1 billion worldwide.

"It means I can do curls," Nolan joked, with an Oscar in each hand. "They’re very heavy."

Onstage, Nolan noted that movies are just a little over 100 years old and thanked the Academy for the honor. "We don’t know where this incredible journey is going from here," he said. "But to know that you think I am a meaningful part of it means the world to me."

At 81, Scorsese was the oldest directing nominee.

Nolan was cheered on by his wife, Emma Thomas, who twice shared best picture nominations with her husband for producing "Dunkirk" and "Inception." The college sweethearts have been producing partners on all of his films since 1997.

The couple planned to celebrate with their children, starting at the Governors Ball, the Academy's official post-show celebration.

Nolan had been the frontrunner throughout awards season, earning the top prize from the Directors Guild of America along with directing honors at the BAFTA Film Awards and Golden Globes.

Besides directing, Nolan earned nominations for adapted screenplay and best picture for "Oppenheimer," the three-hour, ambitious, R-rated epic about the American physicist who developed the atomic bomb.

"Starting with the response of audiences around the world to ‘Oppenheimer,’ which far exceeded our expectations, there were so many things that came together for us on this film," Nolan said.

The auteur filmmaker is known for a style that favors documentary-style lighting, hand-held cameras and on-location shooting rather than indoor studios. He has been regularly praised by many of his contemporaries, including Scorsese, who has hailed Nolan for creating "beautifully made films on a big scale."

Among his other credits are "Tenet," "Interstellar" and the Batman trilogy of "Batman Begins," "The Dark Knight" and "The Dark Knight Rises."

Two-time Oscar winner

In "Poor Things," Emma Stone embraces an offbeat challenge: playing a Victorian-era woman who dies by suicide, is brought back to life with the brain of her unborn child by a mad scientist and embraces a journey of bold self-discovery.

Her risky, no-holds-barred female take on the Frankenstein myth paid off, and Stone now has a second Academy Award for Best Actress on her shelf, putting her on par with legends like Meryl Streep, Jodie Foster and Elizabeth Taylor.

The 35-year-old Arizona native took home the Oscar on Sunday, besting Lily Gladstone ("Killers of the Flower Moon"), Annette Bening ("Nyad"), Sandra Hueller ("Anatomy of a Fall") and Carey Mulligan ("Maestro").

"It's not about me. It's about a team that came together to make something greater than the sum of its parts," Stone said as she accepted her award.

"And that is the best part about making movies, it's all of us together."

Stone's first Oscar came in 2017 for her turn as struggling actress Mia in the dreamy musical romance "La La Land," an ode to Hollywood's Golden Age.

But in "Poor Things," directed by Greece's Yorgos Lanthimos, she created a much more daring character in Bella Baxter.

Bella at first speaks in a sort of pidgin English and gradually learns proper speech; she dances awkwardly, but with unbridled joy; and she is naked –quite a lot – as she gleefully explores the pleasures of what she calls "furious jumping."

But as she matures, Bella finds her newfound freedom threatened by men who are seduced by her nonconformism and yet want to possess her.

Bella is without shame or judgment – a trait that Stone has emphasized often as she has accepted a slew of awards in the run-up to the Oscars.

Sibling duo's triumph

What were Billie Eilish and Finneas O'Connell made for? Winning awards, apparently. The sibling duo’s "Barbie" blockbuster ballad "What Was I Made For?" won the Academy Award for Best Original Song on Sunday night.

In doing so, Eilish, 22, has become the youngest person by far to have won two career Oscars.

That beats a very old record set by Luise Rainer, who won her second best actress Oscar at 28 in 1938.

The second youngest is now Eilish’s 26-year-old brother and co-writer Finneas. The pair won their first Oscar for "No Time to Die" in 2021. That year, they beat out some impressive names, including Beyoncé, Van Morrison, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Diane Warren.

Hilary Swank and Jodie Foster – a best supporting actor nominee this year – are the only others to win two before 30.

Gaza remarks

About a mile from the red carpet, protesters shut down a section of Hollywood’s Sunset Boulevard calling for an end to the violence in Rafah, a dense city on Gaza’s border with Egypt.

Meanwhile, on the red carpet, Mark Ruffalo, Billie Eilish, Ramy Youssef, Ava DuVernay and others donned red pins in support of a cease-fire in Gaza. The bold design features a single hand holding a heart and was organized by the group Artists4Ceasefire.

"Our film shows where dehumanization leads, at its worst," writer-director Jonathan Glazer said in accepting the Oscar for best international feature for "The Zone of Interest," a film about the Holocaust. He spoke out against the war in Gaza.

Kimmel's Trump joke

Talk show host Jimmy Kimmel, hosting the show for the fourth time, opened the ceremony by complimenting, and taking jabs at, many of the nominees and their films.

The comedian praised "Barbie," the pink-drenched doll adventure, for remaking a "plastic doll nobody even liked anymore" into a feminist icon.

Before the film, there was "a better chance of getting my wife to buy our daughter a pack of Marlboro Reds" than a Barbie, Kimmel said on the broadcast, which was shown live on the U.S. ABC network.

Kimmel said many of this year's movies were too long, particularly Martin Scorsese's 3-1/2-hour epic "Killer of the Flower Moon" about the murders of members of the Osage Nation in 1920s Oklahoma.

"In the time it takes you to watch it, you could drive to Oklahoma and solve the murders," Kimmel joked.

Late in the show, Kimmel read aloud from a scathing online review of his performance as host, disclosing at the end that it was written by former U.S. President Donald Trump.

Kimmel jokingly asked the audience to guess which former president had written the post and then quipped: "Thank you, President Trump. Isn't it past your jail time?"