Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty present the award for best picture. Photo / AP
Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty present the award for best picture. Photo / AP
Diversity took centre-stage - while protest took a back seat - at this year's Oscars with a ceremony that acknowledged both last year's infamous envelope mistake and the #metoo movement that swept Hollywood in 2017.
The otherwordly fairytale The Shape of Water took out best picture, which was again presented by last year's presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.
The win makes The Shape of Water this year's best-winning and most-nominated film, with four wins and 13 nominations. The film also nabbed best director, best original score and best production design.
Host Jimmy Kimmel, Dunaway and Beatty each acknowledged last year's best picture gaffe, during which the award was mistakenly given to La La Land instead of Moonlight.
Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty present the award for best picture. Photo / AP
Kimmel's opening monologue frequently referenced the incident, with the talk show host joking that winners should be hesitant to accept their awards.
"This year, when you hear your name called, don't get up right away, we don't want it to be a whole thing," he said. "We can't ruin this year, it's a big one."
Kimmel also referenced Harvey Weinstein's ousting from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the #metoo movement, saying: "What happened wtih Harvey was long overdue, the world is watching us, we need to set an example"
In the first of the acting categories, Allison Janney fulfilled expectations by winning the best supporting actress award for her performance as Tonya Harding's mother in I, Tonya.
Allison Janney accepts the award for best performance by an actress in a supporting role for I, Tonya. Photo / AP
Sam Rockwell won best supporting actor for his performance in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, while Gary Oldman won best actor for his performance as Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour.
Best actress winner Frances McDormand's acceptance speech made for one of the more memorable moments of the night as she accepted the award for her fiery performance as a grieving mother in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
McDormand invited all of the female nominees in the room to stand up in the crowd with her, saying: "Look around ladies and gentleman, because we all have stories to tell and projects we need financed."
Frances McDormand accepts the award for best performance by an actress in a leading role for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Photo / AP
McDormand finished with two cryptic words; "inclusion rider". 2 Broke girls creator Whitney Cummings elaborated on the term on Twitter: "An inclusion rider is something actors put into their contracts to ensure gender and racial equality in hiring on movie sets."
The Oscars were a much more muted ceremony than the Golden Globes, at which protest dominated the ceremony, with actresses showing up in black and bringing along a number of women's rights activists.
The Oscars only featured brief moments that pushed the envelope, such as Emma Stone reference the gender disparity of the best directing category by saying; "these four men, and Greta Gerwig".
Emma Stone presents the award for best director. Photo / AP
Stone's comment echoed Natalie Portman's rousing statement at the Golden Globes, at which the best director category excluded women entirely. Portman presented the award by saying, "here are the all-male nominees".
Gerwig is only the fifth woman to be nominated for a best directing oscar. Kathryn Bigelow is the only woman to have won, receiving the award for The Hurt Locker in 2009.
Get Out writer-director Jordan Peele's win for best original screenplay was a milestone for Hollywood diversity, with Peele's genre-defying film proving the box-office power of diverse films.
Get Out writer-director Jordan Peele accepts the award for best original screenplay. Photo / AP
Widely regarded as one of the most resonant and important films of 2017 for its biting commentary on race in America, Get Out made US$255 million (NZ$352.9m) from its US$4.5 million (NZ$6.2m) budget.
Cinematographer Roger Deakins won his first Oscar for Blade Runner 2049 after a staggering 14 nominations throughout his career. Deakins has been nominated in the cinematography category for films such as Sicario, Skyfall and The Shawshank Redemption.
Eighty-nine-year-old James Ivory became the oldest-ever winner of the best adapted screenplay award for Call Me By Your Name, a poetic love story which he adapted from the Andre Aciman novel of the same name. Ivory has previously been nominated for three best directing Oscars since 1987.
James Ivory accepts the award for best adapted screenplay for Call Me by Your Name. Photo / AP
As a nod to Call Me By Your Name, Ivory was sporting a shirt with an illustration of actor Timothee Chalamet as the lead character, Elio.
THE WINNERS
Best Picture WINNER: The Shape of Water Call Me by Your Name Darkest Hour Dunkirk Get Out Lady Bird Phantom Thread The Post Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri
Actress WINNER: Frances McDormand, Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water Margot Robbie, I, Tonya Saoirse Ronan in Lady Bird Meryl Streep in The Post
Actor WINNER: Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour Timothee Chalamet, Call Me by Your Name Daniel Day-Lewis, Phantom Thread Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out Denzel Washington, Roman J Israel, Esq
Directing WINNER: The Shape of Water, Guillermo del Toro Dunkirk, Christopher Nolan Get Out, Jordan Peele Lady Bird, Greta Gerwig Phantom Thread, Paul Thomas Anderson
Original Song WINNER: Remember Me from Coco Mighty River from Mudbound Mystery Of Love from Call Me by Your Name Stand Up For Something from Marshall This Is Me from The Greatest Showman
Original Score WINNER: The Shape of Water, Alexandre Desplat Dunkirk, Hans Zimmer Phantom Thread, Jonny Greenwood Star Wars: The Last Jedi, John Williams Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri, Carter Burwell
Cinematography WINNER: Blade Runner 2049 Darkest Hour Dunkirk Mudbound The Shape of Water
Original Screenplay WINNER: Get Out The Big Sick Lady Bird The Shape of Water Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Adapted Screenplay WINNER: Call Me By Your Name The Disaster Artist Logan Molly's Game Mudbound
Supporting Actress WINNER: Allison Janney, I, Tonya Mary J Blige, Mudbound Lesley Manville, Phantom Thread Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird Octavia Spencer, The Shape of Water
Supporting Actor: WINNER: Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project Woody Harrelson, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri Richard Jenkins, The Shape of Water Christopher Plummer, All the Money in the World
Documentary Feature WINNER: Icarus Abacus: Small Enough to Jail Faces Places Last Men in Aleppo Strong Island
Foreign Language Film WINNER: A Fantastic Woman, Chile The Insult, Lebanon Loveless, Russia On Body and Soul, Hungary The Square, Sweden
Animated Feature Film WINNER: Coco The Boss Baby The Breadwinner Ferdinand Loving Vincent
