LOS ANGELES – Actors including Jamie Lee Curtis, Rita Moreno and Simu Liu gathered on March 10 to celebrate the best performances in film at the 96th Academy Awards, a ceremony expected to turn into a toast to blockbuster atomic bomb drama Oppenheimer (2023).

American talk show host Jimmy Kimmel is set to return for the fourth time to emcee the film industry’s highest honours from the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. The live broadcast on Mediacorp starts at 4 p.m. PDT (7 a.m. Singapore time), an hour earlier than usual.

As stars began arriving to walk the red carpet for the annual event, hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters angered by the Israel-Gaza conflict shouted and slowed traffic in the blocks surrounding the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.

“While you’re watching, bombs are dropping,” one sign read.

“The Oscars are happening down the road while people are being murdered, killed, bombed,” said 38-year-old business owner Zinab Nassrou.

American newspaper The New York Times reported that some attendees of the Academy Awards will wear red pins calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war, a notable exception to an awards season in which many Hollywood stars have been reluctant to draw attention to the conflict.

Oppenheimer, the three-hour drama directed by British filmmaker Christopher Nolan, leads the field with 13 nominations. The movie is the frontrunner to win the prestigious best picture prize, capping its sweep of other major awards this year including the Golden Globes in January.

“If the best picture isn’t Oppenheimer, it will be one of the biggest upsets, if not the biggest upset, in the history of the Oscars,” said Scott Feinberg, executive editor for awards at The Hollywood Reporter.

After 2023 was marred by actors and writers strikes, the Oscars give Hollywood a chance to celebrate two global hits. Oppenheimer and feminist doll adventure Barbie, another best picture nominee, brought in a combined $2.4 billion in a summer box office battle dubbed “Barbenheimer.”

Oscar producers said they have planned unannounced cameos and other surprises to entertain audiences at home.

“My biggest hope is that they go through a range of emotions with us, that they feel happiness and joy, that we maybe make them shed a tear. And then they somehow feel connected and inspired to also live their dreams,” Barbie executive producer Raj Kapoor said.

Supporting actor nominee Ryan Gosling will sing the ‘80s-style rock anthem I’m Just Ken from Barbie. Members of the Native American tribe Osage Nation will perform the nominated Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People) from western crime drama Killers of the Flower Moon.

Cillian Murphy, the Irish actor who played physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer as he led the race to build the first atomic bomb, is considered the favorite for best actor. Murphy’s main competition, according to awards pundits, is American actor Paul Giamatti, who starred in comedy-drama The Holdovers.

Best actress may go to American actress Lily Gladstone of Killers of the Flower Moon, the real-life story about a murder plot to take over lucrative Osage oil rights in 1920s Oklahoma. If she prevails, Gladstone would be the first Native American actress to win an acting Oscar.

Gladstone’s rivals include previous Oscar winner Emma Stone, nominated this year for playing a woman revived from the dead in the dark and wacky comedy Poor Things.

The supporting actor race features Oppenheimer star Robert Downey Jr., who played the scientist’s professional nemesis, and Sterling K. Brown from comedy-drama American Fiction.

American actress Da’Vine Joy Randolph, praised for her role as a grieving mother in The Holdovers, vies for best supporting actress against Danielle Brooks from musical period drama film The Colour Purple, America Ferrera from Barbie and others.

Barbie, last year’s No. 1 film with US$1.4 billion (S$1.86 billion) in global ticket sales, may be shut out of the top awards. Billie Eilish’s Barbie ballad What Was I Made For is likely to win the original song prize, Feinberg said, and could snag the awards for costumes and production design.

For Nolan, the night could bring his first directing Oscar, as well as the award for adapted screenplay. The director of The Dark Knight trilogy (2005 to 2012), Inception (2010) and other acclaimed films has never had a movie win best picture.

The ceremony may end with “the industry-wide coronation for Christopher Nolan,” Feinberg said. With Oppenheimer, “he has made his best possible argument yet for why he is worthy of this recognition.” REUTERS, NYT