If this year's Screen Actors Guild Awards pointed to anything in terms of next month's Oscars, it's that Oppenheimer has, on the acting front at least, mostly cemented its path once more towards some shiny gold statuettes. Saturday night saw the film take Outstanding Performance By A Cast In Motion Picture, Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role for Cillian Murphy and Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role for Robert Downey Jr.
Following a year in which actors walked the picket line for a better contract with studios, there was even more impetus to celebrate, the show switching from its former Stateside cable home to Netflix's live offerings, where there were no commercials and a more liberal swearing policy. Billie Eilish signed "superfan" Melissa McCarthy's head. The casts of Breaking Bad, Modern Family and leads from The Devil Wears Prada and The Lord Of The Rings reunited to hand out gongs. Barbara Streisand got a rousing standing ovation as she collected a Lifetime Achievement Award.
But yes, on the film side it was certainly Oppenheimer's night, Barbie going home with zilch, The Holdovers Da’Vine Joy Randolph nabbing another Supporting Actor award and Lily Gladstone's Killers Of The Flower Moon work named Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role. Which means Best Actress might be one of the few Academy Award categories still considered a race – will it be Gladstone or Emma Stone on 10 March?
Indeed, for the most part, the awards followed the pattern of previous ceremonies this years – to paraphrase both JM Barrie's Peter Pan and Battlestar Galactica's Cylons, "All of this has happened before. All of this will happen again." Well, perhaps not the "again" part on the TV front, since the delayed SAG event meant it followed the Emmys. But there were certainly repeat trips to the stage for The Bear leads Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edebiri (while the show won Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series) and Beef main duo Ali Wong and Steven Yeun. Perhaps the only real surprise was Pedro Pascal in a rare victory over Succession's Kieran Culkin, the Last Of Us star accepting in teary-eyed, self-professed drunk fashion.
Still Succession's cast could content themselves with Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series to see off the show, while Elizabeth Debicki won Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series for playing Princess Diana in The Crown. And because SAG is one of the few bodies to recognize stunts, the teams behind The Last Of Us and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One took their respective categories.