12 Years a Slave, the film based on the memoir by author Solomon Northup, was named the Best Picture of the year by the American Academy for Motion Pictures. In doing so, it made history as the first movie from an African-American director to win Best Picture.
In an interesting split, director Alfonso Cuaron took the Best Director statuette for the movie Gravity. Often, the Best Director prize goes to the same film as Best Picture.
Actor Matthew McConaughey won the Best Actor prize for his role in Dallas Buyers Club and thanked his late father, saying, "You taught me what it is to be a man".
Meanwhile, Australian Cate Blanchett took the Best Actress Oscar for her work in Blue Jasmine and praised her other competitors, saying the work done in 2013 was "yet again extraordinary."
Blanchett also spoke up in support of female-centric movies.
"Audiences want to see them, and in fact, they earn money," she said. "The world is round, people."
To no one's surprise, 12 Years a Slave secured the Best Adapted Screenplay prize, while "Her" secured the Best Original Screenplay, and first-time nominee Lupita Nyong'o (who also made her feature film debut) was given the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her work in the film in which she portrayed the abused slave Patsey.
Nyong'o expressed an admirable awareness of the importance of the film's source material in her acceptance speech, thanking memoir author Solomon Northup for writing of his experiences, including meeting Patsey.
"So much joy in my life is thanks to so much pain in someone else's," she said.
She also thanked co-star Chiwetel Ejiofor for "how deeply [he] went into Solomon" and her brother, who accompanied her to the Oscars tonight.
Australian designer, Catherine Martin, also became the country’s most prolific Oscar winner when she won two awards – for best costumes and another, with Beverley Dunn for best production design, in Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby. It adds to her two won for Moulin Rouge 13 years ago.
And the award for audience participation? It’s tied with Ellen DeGeneres handing out pizza to the audience (she actually ordered it!) as well as attempting to break a new record with Meryl Streep: that of most retweeted picture ever. When the pizza arrived, Brad Pitt distributed plates while Harrison Ford nudged DeGeneres while she was speaking to ask for napkins. Actor Jared Leto snagged a slice, then informed the camera it was for his mother.
As for that photo (main picture), when Streep suggested actress Julia Roberts join in, a crowd of A-list stars also decided to do so, including Jennifer Lawrence, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Bradley Cooper and many more. Cooper volunteered to snap the photo, saying he would have the longest reach, and took a picture of the moment. Kevin Spacey received thousands of retweets for suggesting he had photo-bombed the selfie.
__small.png)
