The filmmakers of “Oppenheimer” are polishing seven statuettes from the 96th Academy Awards. Other than a few flat moments, the night returned to heralding storytellers at the top of their art.

Actors and presenters seemed sincere rather than self-indulgent. Emma Stone, who won Best Actress for “Poor Things,” shared that her dress had broken. Nominated four times before, this win seemed to come as a genuine surprise.

Billie Eilish, who co-wrote the Best Original Song “What Was I Made For?” featured in “Barbie,” struggled to find the right words. With her co-writer and brother, Finneas O’Connell, they expressed the power of the moment better than polished remarks could.

The Best Supporting Actress winner, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, gave a tearful acceptance for her performance in “The Holdovers.” When she said, “Now I realize I just need to be myself, and I thank you for seeing me,” she made a tender connection with the unseen audience at home.

“Oppenheimer” cleaned up the big three awards — Best Actor, Best Director, and Best Picture — but even its filmmakers were humble. The Best Actor winner, Cillian Murphy, dedicated his award to “peacemakers everywhere,” forgoing a lecture on atomic war of the sort that have caused the event’s ratings to plummet.

The host, Jimmy Kimmel, deserves credit for keeping the event moving and making frequent mention of the individuals — including Teamsters — who stood with the actors and writers during last year’s strike and who help make movie magic.

However, despite being performed at Los Angeles’ Dolby Theatre before men in tuxedoes and women in gowns, Mr. Kimmel’s opening monologue was more fitting for a junior high locker room. Full of verbal snapping towels, it drew more cringes than laughs. 

Robert Downey Jr., who won the Best Supporting Actor for “Oppenheimer,” was a good sport after Mr. Kimmel’s jokes about his struggle with drug addiction and his manhood. But the host’s barb at Sandra Hüller, who appeared in two best-picture contenders, couldn’t be saved.

“Sondra,” Mr. Kimmel said in one cringe-worthy moment, “plays a woman on trial for murdering her husband in ‘Anatomy of a Fall’ and a Nazi housewife living next to Auschwitz in ‘The Zone of Interest,’ and while these are very heavy for American moviegoers, in Sondra’s native Germany, they are called rom-coms.”

Reality also intruded in the form of pins from the group Artists4Ceasefire, which said in a press release that the bauble “symbolizes collective support for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, the release of all of the hostages, and for the urgent delivery of humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza.”

Pointing to his pin, the director of “The Zone of Interest,” Jonathan Glazer — Best International Feature winner — rejected “Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation, which has led to conflict for so many innocent people.”

Although Mr. Glazer inspired applause, he didn’t open the floodgates to political harangues. Mr. Kimmel mocked Senator Britt of Alabama, who gave the GOP response to the State of the Union, as a child in a woman’s body, but avoided jokes about Presidents Trump or Biden.

That is, until Mr. Trump took to Truth Social to ask, “Has there EVER been a WORSE HOST than Jimmy Kimmel?” Mr. Kimmel read the remarks as the clock approached 10 p.m. Eastern, thanked the former president for watching, and asked if it wasn’t “after his jailtime.”

Ratings will tell the tale of the show’s success. It’s a shame, though, about the political remarks. It was a night when no darkness could rob the stars of their glitter — one that gave audiences a chance to admire those who offer celluloid escapes from the grim realities of life.