Emma Stone Wins Best Actress Oscar for Poor Things

Emma Stone has won the Oscar for Best Actress at the 96th Academy Awards for her performance in Poor Things in one of the toughest fought award categories of the night. While many of the other awards could have had Oppenheimer written all over them, the Best Actress winner could have gone a number of ways. Addressing her fellow nominees, Stone said in her speech:

“My voice is also a little gone. Sandra, Annette, Carey, Lily, I share this with you. The other night I was panicking, and Yorgos said to me ‘take yourself out of it’. And he’s right, because it’s not about me. It’s about a team that came together to make something that is better than the sum of its parts. Yorgos, thank you for the gift of a lifetime in Bella Baxter.”

Based on the 1992 novel by Alasdair Gray, Poor Things centers on the fantastical evolution of Bella Baxter (Stone), a young woman brought back to life by the brilliant and unorthodox scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe). Under Baxter’s protection, Bella is eager to learn. Hungry for the worldliness she is lacking, Bella runs off with Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), a slick and debauched lawyer, on a whirlwind adventure across the continents. Free from the prejudices of her times, Bella grows steadfast in her purpose to stand for equality and liberation.

Poor Things

4/5

Release Date: December 8, 2023
Runtime: 2hr 21min
Studio: Element Pictures, Film4, Searchlight Pictures

The Best Actress category this year also included Lily Gladstone for Killers of the Flower Moon, Annette Bening for her performance in Nyad as Diana Nyad, Sandra Hüller for her performance as Sandra Voyter in Anatomy of a Fall, and Carey Mulligan for her role in Maestro as Felicia Montealegre.

Killers of the Flower Moon Was Also a Strong Contender For the Award

Lily Gladstone in Killers of the Flower Moon. — Paramount Pictures/Apple Original Films

Lily Gladstone was also hotly tipped to take the Best Actress Award for her role in Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, but in a tough year the category was one that was hard to call ahead of the announcement.

Based on David Grann’s broadly lauded best-selling book, Killers of the Flower Moon is co-written, produced, and directed by Martin Scorsese and stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone, Jesse Plemons, Tantoo Cardinal, John Lithgow, and Brendan Fraser. Set in 1920s Oklahoma, the Western crime drama depicts the serial murder of members of the oil-wealthy Osage Nation, a string of brutal crimes that came to be known as the Reign of Terror.