Their eighth consecutive defeat of Atletico leaves Real five points behind leaders Barcelona, who earlier on Saturday beat Getafe 2-1 at home.
Barca have a record-breaking 78 points from 29 games, Real have 73.
Barca's win meant that Real had no choice but to beat Atletico in order to stay in the race. They went ahead after 12 minutes, when the in-form Benzema calmly finished after being played through by Sami Khedira.
Benzema has scored in Real's last six games, including Wednesday's 3-0 Champions League thrashing of Lyon.
Oezil, the most effective player on the field, made it 2-0 for the whites in the 34th minute with a precise high left-foot shot, after good work down the left by Marcelo.
Atletico - who have not beaten Real since 1999 - created several good chances only to be foiled time and again by Spain goalkeeper Iker Casillas.
Atletico forward Sergio Aguero finally beat Casillas six minutes from time, with a low toe-poke, but it came too late to save Atletico from yet another derby defeat.
Real hero Casillas said: "They will beat us one day. Maybe the result was unjust because they had more chances. We were a little tired in the second half ... These are three very important points for us."
Earlier on Saturday, Barca had beaten Getafe with goals from Dani Alves and Bojan.
Barca coach Pep Guardiola said: "This is a magnificent result, we played very well. We must continue to play like this and continue with this dynamic."
Before the game there was a moving homage to Barca left-back Eric Abidal, who will miss the rest of the season after undergoing, on Thursday, an emergency operation to remove a liver tumour.
As expected, Barca dominated from start to finish and created countless chances, but only managed two goals. They had three good penalty claims turned down and a goal wrongly disallowed for offside. In addition, strikers David Villa and Lionel Messi were imprecise in front of goal.
Right-back Alves made it 1-0 in the 17th minute with a screaming volley from outside the penalty area, after the Getafe defence had failed to clear a corner.
Five minutes into the second half, Bojan put away the second goal, which killed off Getafe's lingering hopes of springing a surprise. Messi fed Bojan down the right and the youngster's left-foot shot went in with the help of a deflection off defender Cata Diaz.
Barca should have finished off Getafe with a third goal but wasted chances to do so. Just two minutes from time, Manu del Moral scored for Getafe by volleying in a centre from Victor Sanchez, which meant that Barca had to play out time rather nervously.
In Saturday's early match, Zaragoza suffered a luckless 1-0 defeat at midtable Mallorca.
Zaragoza, who were relegated in 2002 and 2008, seem to be in for another relegation struggle after this defeat. They are currently sixth from bottom but could fall down to fourth from bottom in the weekend's other results go against them.
They seemed to be heading for a draw until disaster struck in the 65th minute, when goalkeeper Toni Doblas was correctly sent off for handling outside the penalty area, with Pierre Webo preparing to score.
Just two minutes later, things went from bad to worse for Javier Aguirre's troubled team when Mallorca's Jonathan de Guzman scored the only goal with a classy free-kick.
Zaragoza battled for an equalizer from then on but their foul luck continued. Substitute Braulio almost snatched a draw for them in injury-time but his shot came back off the crossbar.
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