Move over Tinsel Town: Portions of “Oppenheimer,” the runaway hit that’s broken box-office records and received 13 2024 Oscar nominations, were filmed in New Jersey. Among the golden statues the film was nominated for were Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Director. The hit movie documents the Trinity Project, which gave the world the atomic bomb, also received five Golden Globe awards, including for Best Motion Picture. Several of the movie’s scenes were filmed at Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.

“Killers of the Flower Moon” was nominated for 10 Oscars. Peter Yorn, a member of the film’s cast, grew up in Montville. Yorn’s brother, Rick Yorn, was the film’s executive producer. Thelma Schoonmaker, a Ridgewood native, was also nominated for film editing.

Here’s a quick list of other movies with a New Jersey link that were nominated for or took home Academy Awards over the years:

• “On the Waterfront:” Filmed on both sides of the Hudson, this searing look at corruption, betrayal and life in the margins was nominated for 12 Oscars in 1955 and took home eight, including Best Actor for Marlon Brando and Best Director for Elia Kazan. Brando’s iconic, heartbreaking address to his brother is one of the greatest speeches in American film. (Even better than “E.T. phone home.”) “I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let’s face it.”
• “The Amityville Horror:” “The Tom’s River Horror” would have been more accurate. This 1979 horror movie was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Music (Original Score). The town of Amityville had no interest in embracing its horror-film fame, and the filmmakers were not given permission to shoot on the original site. Tom’s River proved far more inviting.
• “Annie:” Folks who pay attention to this sort of thing know that Daddy Warbucks lived in a mansion on 82nd Street. In the film, which was nominated for two Oscars — Best Art/Set Direction and Best Original Music Score — he lived a pampered life in Wilson Hall at Monmouth University in West Long Branch.
• “West Side Story:” The Jets and Sharks are locked in a battle for turf … on the streets of Paterson and Newark, which served as backdrop for this remake of the 1961 original. The film was up for seven Oscars this year, including Best Picture and Best Director.

Historic interlude: As the town of Fort Lee likes to remind anyone who’ll listen, “Before there was Hollywood, there was Fort Lee.” From approximately 1909 to 1918, Fort Lee was the “center of the cinematic universe.” Hollywood’s first film studio opened in 1911, but it took until the early ‘20s for the West Coast film industry to become well known.

You know those perilous cliffs that are always imperiling Pauline in the “Perils of Pauline”? If you were filming there now, you’d be making a movie of the George Washington Bridge.

“Oppenheimer” and nearly 150 productions to date have been attracted by the Film Tax Credit Program offered by the New Jersey Economic Development Authority. The program gives eligible production companies up to 35% transferrable tax credits on qualified film production expenses, plus an additional 2% or 4% diversity bonus for qualified productions.

We’re ready for our close-up, Mr. DeMille.