Oscars 2017: Moonlight wins best picture after La La Land mix-up

Updated February 27, 2017 19:06:47

Video: Faye Dunaway reads the wrong Best Picture winner (ABC News)

The most coveted award of the Oscars has descended into chaos, with an unprecedented blunder seeing La La Land mistakenly named the Best Picture winner, instead of Moonlight.

The celebrated musical had been widely tipped to win, and its cast and crew were on the stage accepting the gong when they were interrupted with the awkward words no Oscar winner wants to hear: "I'm sorry, there's a mistake."

Shockwaves rippled through the Dolby Theatre as it became apparent there had been a major mishap.

Photo: Ryan Gosling appeared to find a funny side to the mishap. (AP/Invision: Chris Pizzello)

Presenter Warren Beatty tried to explain that he and Faye Dunaway announced the wrong winner because they had been given the wrong envelope to open.

"I opened the envelope and it said 'Emma Stone, La La Land'. I wasn't trying to be funny," said Beatty, who had looked confused as he fumbled with the card for a long time before the ill-fated announcement.

Host Jimmy Kimmel came forward to inform the cast that Moonlight had indeed claimed an upset win, showing the envelope as proof.

Photo: The real Best Picture card showing Moonlight is the winner. (Screengrab)

La La Land producer Jordan Horowitz repeatedly said "this is not a joke" before graciously passing his statue to the Moonlight team, saying they deserved the golden statuette.

Photo: La La Land producer Jordan Horowitz (centre) had the awkward job of calling Moonlight's crew up to the stage. (Reuters: Lucy Nicholson)

"It is true. It's not fake. My love to La La Land, my love to everybody," Moonlight director Barry Jenkins told the stunned crowd.

Why Moonlight deserved to win

Moonlight's sophisticated depiction of conflicted masculinity deserved the Best Picture award, writes Jason Di Rosso.

He went on to attempt to salvage a normal acceptance speech, saying: "There was a time when I thought this movie was impossible."

"So I just want to thank everybody up here behind me. Everybody out there in that room. Because we didn't do this, you guys chose us," he said.

Backstage, Stone — who had won the best actress award for her La La Land role minutes before the embarrassing gaffe unfolded — asked if it was "the craziest Oscar moment of all time".

Photo: Joi McMillon of Moonlight reacts during the awkward mix-up. (Reuters: Lucy Nicholson)

"It's a very strange happening for Oscar history. I think everyone is in a state of confusion ... and so excited for Moonlight," she added, saying it was "one of the best films of all time".

Photo: Best Actress winner Emma Stone accepts her award for La La Land.  (Reuters: Lucy Nicholson)

Kimmel tried to focus the audience's attention firmly on the silver lining, joking that he knew he would "screw this show up".

"I don't know what happened. I blame myself for this. Let's remember it's just an awards show," he said.

"I mean, we hate to see people disappointed. But the good news is we got to see some extra speeches."

Photo: Barry Jenkins and the cast accept the Best Picture award. (AP/Invision: Chris Pizzello)

So, what else happened?

Until the final blunder, the glittering ceremony had swung between jabs at US President Donald Trump and passionate arguments for inclusivity.

Look back at how the Oscars unfolded in our blog.

Though many expected the awards to be one long parade for La La Land, which was up for a record-tying 14 nominations, it did not play out that way.

La La Land took home six awards, including for its 32-year-old director Damien Chazelle, who became to youngest person to ever win a best director Oscar.

Video: Oscars shock as La La Land mistakenly named best picture winner (ABC News)

But films like Manchester by the Sea and Hacksaw Ridge also shared in the Academy spoils.

Despite the resurgence of 2010 sexual harassment allegations, Casey Affleck claimed the best actor award for his role as a grief-stricken father in Manchester by the Sea.

"I'm proud to be in your company. You guys are very brave and I admire what you do," the actor told his fellow nominees, including Ryan Gosling (La La Land) and Denzel Washington (Fences).

"I wish I had something bigger and more meaningful to say, but I'm ... just dumbfounded to be included. It means a lot to me."

Photo: Casey Affleck speaks as he accepts the Oscar for Best Actor. (Reuters: Lucy Nicholson)

As expected, Viola Davis and Mahershala Ali won Oscars for their supporting roles. They were among a record seven actors of colour nominated this year, in stark contrast to 2016 when there were none.

Davis was honoured for her turn in Fences, the story of an African-American father struggling with race relations in the United States while trying to raise his family in the 1950s.

Photo: Viola Davis accepts her long-awaited Oscar. (AP/Invision: Chris Pizzello)

She spoke of her pride at being part of an industry that exhumes and exalts the extraordinary stories of ordinary people from the past.

"The people who dreamed big and never saw those dreams to fruition. People that fell in love and lost," she said in an emotional speech.

"I became an artist and thank God I did because we are the only profession that celebrates what it means to live a life."

Ali won best supporting actor for Moonlight, which tells the story of a young boy struggling with poverty and his sexuality.

At the Screen Actors Guild Awards he spoke of his experience being Muslim, but he kept his politics out of his Oscars speech, thanking his wife, who gave birth to a daughter four days ago.

Photo: Mahershala Ali accepts the award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Moonlight. (AP: Chris Pizzello)

Harry Potter spinoff Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them bested La La Land in the costume design category, though La La Land picked up wins for its score and theme song City of Stars.

Australian war film Hacksaw Ridge won the Oscar for sound mixing and film editing, but lost to sci-fi flick Arrival in sound editing.

Jabs directed at Trump

Photo: Host Jimmy Kimmel took several jabs at the US President. (AP/Invision: Chris Pizzello)

Mr Trump was the butt of numerous jokes, capping an awards season marked by fiery protests at his policies.

Kimmel fired off political zingers and even tweeted at the Republican President, getting no immediate response.

"I want to say, 'Thank you, President Trump'. I mean, remember last year when it seemed like the Oscars were racist?" he asked, in reference to the #OscarsSoWhite controversy that clouded the event last year.

But for the most part, speeches were more general pleas for tolerance and diversity. The most political moment of the Oscars came from a winner not in the room.

Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, who picked up the Academy Award for best foreign language film for The Salesman, boycotted the ceremony in protest at Mr Trump's controversial US travel ban.

He condemned the "inhumane" measure in a powerful statement read to Hollywood's finest by Anousheh Ansari, an Iranian astronaut.

The travel ban was also the focus of a low-key red carpet protest against Mr Trump, with stars sporting blue ribbons in a show of support for the American Civil Liberties Union, which fought to overturn the measure.

Topics: academy-awards-oscars, event, arts-and-entertainment, film-movies, human-interest, awards-and-prizes, actor, united-states

First posted February 27, 2017 16:13:22