Christopher Nolan to be given knighthood as 'Oppenheimer' screens in Japan

Film producer and Nolan's wife Emma Thomas will receive a damehood, the female equivalent of a knighthood, the British government said on Thursday in a list of honours recommended by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak

London: British-American filmmaker Christopher Nolan, fresh from his Oscar victory for historical drama Oppenheimer, will receive a knighthood from Britain for services to film.

His wife and film producer Emma Thomas will receive a damehood, the female equivalent of a knighthood, the British government said on Thursday in a list of honours recommended by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak that also included Conservative politicians and tech industry leaders.

The news of Nolan about to be conferred with the knighthood comes amid the movie being screened in Japan for the first time on Friday. Eight months after a controversial grassroots marketing push and concerns about how its nuclear theme would be received in the only country to suffer atomic bombing, Japan finally decided to premiere the film.

Nuclear blasts devastated its western city of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the south at the close of World War Two, killing more than 200,000.

Oppenheimer, a blockbuster biopic about the race to build the first atomic bomb, claimed seven Academy Awards earlier this month, including the best picture trophy and Nolan's first best director Academy Award. His career includes other highly regarded films such as Interstellar, Inception, Dunkirk and the Batman trilogy.

Nolan wrote the screenplay for Oppenheimer and produced the film with Thomas.

Among others to receive a knighthood were Demis Hassabis, the CEO of Google's DeepMind. Other figures from the world of artificial intelligence who were honoured include Matthew Clifford, an AI adviser to the British government, and entrepreneur Ian Hogarth, chair of the AI Safety Institute, both of whom were bestowed with CBEs (Commander of the Order of the British Empire.)

Billionaire businessman and Conservative Party donor Mohamed Mansour was given a knighthood for business, charity and political service.

Sunak doled out awards to his Conservative lawmakers, too - with knighthoods for Philip Davies and Mark Spencer and damehoods for Tracey Crouch and Harriett Baldwin.

Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos was awarded an honorary CBE for services to creative industries.