How many Oscars does Christopher Nolan have and how many times has he been nominated for an Academy Award?
The filmmaker has extensive experience at the Oscars and has now won the coveted statuette, with ‘Oppenheimer’.
Despite being one of the most prestigious directors of the last two decades, Christopher Nolan’s history with the Oscars has not been exactly a love story. From his first film ‘Following’ to the penultimate ‘Tenet’, the English filmmaker has not had luck at the Academy Awards. But now with ‘Oppenheimer’, he has redemption. A film that has captivated both audiences and critics and has received 13 nominations this year, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay.
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Nolan’s Films: Masterpieces
Most of Nolan’s films combine science fiction with thriller elements and also delve into metaphysical aspects and even the perception of time and space. In fact, in ‘Memento’ and ‘Inception’, the question of time is a central pillar of both films, while in ‘Interstellar’, the director, who studied English literature at University College London, blends space-time to create one of the greatest works of art in cinema history. His most famous but no less intense films are those of the Batman trilogy, starring Christian Bale.
His latest triumph, ‘Oppenheimer’, grossed $955.8 million at the global box office, making it the third highest-grossing film of 2023. Although it didn’t surpass Nolan’s highest-grossing film (which is ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ with $1.085 billion), ‘Oppenheimer’ is considered one of his best. This could be due to a bias of timeliness, but the Oscar nominations for the epic biographical thriller of 2023 suggest otherwise.
Nolan’s Nominated and Awarded Films at the Oscars
Nolan has been nominated twice for Best Director, including ‘Oppenheimer’. His first nomination came for ‘Dunkirk’ at the 90th Academy Awards in 2018. In that year, he lost to ‘The Shape of Water’ by Del Toro. For the 96th Academy Awards, Nolan’s competition in the Best Director category includes Justine Triet for ‘Academy of a Fall’, Martin Scorsese for ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’, Yorgos Lanthimos for ‘Poor Things’, and Jonathan Glazer for ‘The Zone of Interest’.
Nolan also received two nominations for Best Picture for ‘Inception’ and ‘Dunkirk’. Additionally, he was nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the 74th Academy Awards in 2002 for ‘Memento’ and in 2011 for ‘Inception’. All films involving Nolan have received 49 nominations and have only won 11 Academy Awards. On a personal level, the director hadn’t received any Academy Awards until this year’s win with ‘Oppenheimer’.