Christopher Nolan and Producing Partner and Wife Emma Thomas to Receive Knighthood and Damehood

Christopher Nolan and his producer wife Emma Thomas will receive a knighthood and a damehood, respectively, for their services to film, the U.K. government announced on Thursday.

Nolan directed and cowrote the Oscar Best Picture winner “Oppenheimer” and Thomas produced, as she has on her husband’s previous films, including “Inception,” “Dunkirk” and “The Dark Knight.”

“Oppenheimer,” the three-hour biopic about “father of the atomic bomb,” J. Robert Oppenheimer, collected seven Oscars earlier this month. In addition to Best Picture, it won Best Director, Best Actor (Cillian Murphy) and Best Supporting Actor (Robert Downey Jr.) It was nominated for 13 Academy Awards.

The honors are usually announced only twice a year, once at year’s end and another on King Charles III’s birthday, but, as The Standard noted, exceptions have been made for special achievements.

With the king on leave from royal duties to receive treatment for cancer, it’s unlikely that the honors will be bestowed via the traditional in-person ceremony at Buckingham Palace.

In his acceptance speech for Best Director, Nolan thanked “the incredible Emma Thomas, producer of all our films and all our children.” The couple met at University College London, married in 1997 and share four children: Flora, Oliver, Rory and Magnus. They also run the production company Syncopy, which they founded in 2001.

When Nolan was presented with the British Film Institute Fellowship in February, he thanked Thomas again, saying, “[she] always saw things the same way I did in terms of the importance of the medium.”

Most of the film industry legends who have been recognized as a knight or dame of the British Empire hail from the U.K. — including Sir Anthony Hopkins, Sir Ben Kingsley, Dame Judi Dench and Dame Maggie Smith. However, a few Americans have slipped in, such as “Schindler’s List” director Steven Spielberg and his frequent collaborator, composer John Williams.