The historical drama "Oppenheimer" was a big winner at Sunday's Oscars gala in Hollywood, taking home seven awards, including best picture, best director and best actor.

The start of the gala, hosted for the fourth time by Jimmy Kimmel, was delayed by five minutes as pro-Palestinian protesters gathered outside the awards ceremony.

Christopher Nolan won the Academy Award for best director for his film "Oppenheimer." The 53-year-old British director had never won an Oscar before. 

Cillian Murphy also earned his first Academy Award for his performance in "Oppenheimer" as the physicist who led the development of the atomic bomb in World War II.

Meanwhile, Robert Downey Jr. won the Oscar for best supporting actor for his portrayal of Rear Admiral Lewis Strauss in the same film. It was the veteran actor's first Academy Award.

And Emma Stone's risky, unapologetic female take on the Frankenstein myth in "Poor Things" won her the Oscar for best actress.

Who won other awards?

Da'Vine Joy Randolph won the Oscar for best supporting actress for her role as grieving mother Mary Lamb in the boarding school drama "The Holdovers."

Hayao Miyazaki won his second Oscar for his semi-autobiographical Japanese animated film "The Boy and the Heron," a fantasy tale about a boy mourning his dead mother.

The 83-year-old Japanese anime master, who came from retirement to make "The Boy and the Heron," did not attend the ceremony.

The Holocaust drama "The Zone of Interest," which explores questions of complicity while depicting the mundane life of a Nazi family in their home next to the Auschwitz death camp, won the Academy Award for best international film.

Mstyslav Chernov's "20 Days in Mariupol," a harrowing first-person account of the early days of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, won the Oscar for best documentary.

"This is the first Oscar in Ukrainian history," said Chernov. "And I'm honored. Probably I will be the first director on this stage to say I wish I'd never made this film. I wish to be able to exchange this (for) Russia never attacking Ukraine."

dh/jsi (AP, AFP, Reuters)