Emma Stone wins the Oscar for Best Actress 2024 for Poor Things
Poor Things star Stone picked up the second Best Actress Oscar of her career, in a surprise win that saw her beat favourite Lily Gladstone to the statuette.
Emma Stone won the Best Actress Oscar for the second time in her career on Sunday, for her performance in Poor Things. Stone’s latest Academy Awards success comes just ten years after her first nomination. In 2014 and 2018, she was a candidate for Best Supporting Actress for Birdman and The Favourite, respectively, and in 2016 she showed all of Hollywood that she was capable of being the queen of the industry by winning Best Actress for La La Land.
Stone, who secured the 2024 award ahead of bookmakers’ favourite Lily Gladstone, did so thanks to a film that is an ode to freedom and surrealism by Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos. She plays Bella Baxter, a young woman hungry for the world who escapes with a lawyer to live a libertarian journey; her peculiarity is her origin, her life force: she is born by being brought back to life by a doctor who puts an infant brain in her head. It’s both a Victorian and current version of Frankenstein, of the modern Prometheus - one that Stone manages to embody with chilling naturalness.
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“The best part about making movies”
In an emotional acceptance speech, the 35-year-old said: “This is not about me. It’s about a team that came together to make something greater than the sum of its parts. And that is the best part about making movies. It’s all of us together, and I am so deeply honoured share this with every cast member, with every crew member, with every single person who poured their love and their care and their brilliance into the making of this film.”
Stone also paid tribute to her fellow Best Actress nominees. “Sandra [Hüller], Annette Bening, Carey [Mulligan], Lily, I share this with you,” she said. “I’m in awe of you, and it has been such an honour to do all this together. I hope we get to keep doing more together.”
Technical specifications
Original title: Poor Things
Year: 2023
Duration: 141 minutes
Country: Ireland
Direction: Yorgos Lanthimos
Screenplay: Tony McNamara (novel: Alasdair Gray)
Music: Jerskin Fendrix
Photography: Robbie Ryan
Cast: Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, Ramy Youssef, Christopher Abbott, Jerrod Carmichael, Kathryn Hunter, Margaret Qualley, Hanna Schygulla, Vicki Pepperdine, Suzy Bemba, Tom Stourton, Wayne Brett
Production companies: Film4 Productions, Element Pictures, TSG Entertainment
Distributor: Searchlight Pictures, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Genre: fantasy, science fiction, comedy, drama, erotic, magical realism
Winners of the Oscar for Best Actress in the 21st century
| Actress | Film | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Emma Stone | Poor Things | 2024 |
| Michelle Yeoh | Everything Everywhere All at Once | 2023 |
| Jessica Chastain | The Eyes of Tammy Faye | 2022 |
| Frances McDormand | Nomadland | 2021 |
| Renée Zellweger | Judy | 2020 |
| Olivia Colman | The Favourite | 2019 |
| Frances McDormand | Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri | 2018 |
| Emma Stone | La La Land | 2017 |
| Brie Larson | The Room | 2016 |
| Julianne Moore | Still Alice | 2015 |
| Cate Blanchett | Blue Jasmine | 2014 |
| Jennifer Lawrence | Silver Linings Playbook | 2013 |
| Meryl Streep | Iron Lady | 2012 |
| Natalie Portman | Black Swan | 2011 |
| Sandra Bullock | The Blind Side | 2010 |
| Kate Winslet | The Reader | 2009 |
| Marion Cotillard | La Vie en Rose: Edith Piaf | 2008 |
| Helen Mirren | The Queen | 2007 |
| Reese Witherspoon | Walk the Line | 2006 |
| Hilary Swank | Million Dollar Baby | 2005 |
| Charlize Theron | Monster | 2004 |
| Nicole Kidman | The Hours | 2003 |
| Halle Berry | Monster’s Ball | 2002 |
| Julia Roberts | Erin Brockovich | 2001 |
| Hilary Swank | Boys Don’t cry | 2000 |