2015 Academy Awards show

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It was also a very good night for “Birdman, ” which beat out its chief competitor “Boyhood” for best picture, director, original screenplay and cinematography honors, tying with “The Grand Budapest Hotel” with a leading four wins. The backstage comedy was clearly embraced by Oscar voters, although it remains little seen by the general public. With domestic ticket sales of less than $40 million, it ranks as the lowest-earning Best Picture winner since 2009’s “The Hurt Locker” and one of the lowest-grossing recipients in the past 40 years. It’s also an unlikely winner in that it takes on Hollywood’s comic book movie fixation with its portrait of a superhero franchise star desperate to hang up the cowl, daring to poke fun at the film industry’s most successful genre.

If “Birdman’s” victory represents a triumph of art over commerce, it owes a great deal to the collapse of “Boyhood.” Richard Linklater’s 12-years-in-the-making coming of age film had been viewed as the front-runner, but stumbled at the Producers and Directors Guild awards. The film only managed to win a supporting actress statue for Patricia Arquette, getting shut out in five of its six nominations.

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“Birdman” director Alejandro G. Inarritu was a three-time victor, earning statues for producing and writing his satire of Hollywood’s superhero obsession. He embraced the politically charged atmosphere in his Best Picture acceptance speech. Referencing the politics unrest in his native Mexico, Inarritu said, “I pray that we can find and build a government that we deserve.” He also offered a message for anti-immigration factions in the United States, urging them to treat immigrants with “…the same dignity and respect as the ones that came before and built this incredible immigrant nation.”

Keaton couldn’t prevail in the Best Actor race, however, losing to “Theory of Everything’s” Eddie Redmayne for his portrayal of theoretical physicist and ALS sufferer Stephen Hawking.

“I’m fully aware that I’m a lucky, lucky man, ” said Redmayne, before noting that the award “belongs to all of the people around the world battling ALS.”

Julianne Moore earned an Oscar for playing a woman struggling with early onset Alzheimer’s in “Still Alice” — her first statue after four previous nominations. Like Redmayne she also spoke passionately about the disease at the center of her film and the people who are afflicted with the illness.

“So many people with this disease feel isolated and marginalized…people with Alzheimer’s deserve to be seen, ” Moore said.

“Boyhood’s” Patricia Arquette and “Whiplash’s” J.K. Simmons scored supporting actor honors, winning for their performances as a single mother and a demanding jazz instructor.

“The Grand Budapest Hotel” scored in key technical categories, earning a leading four Oscars for costume design, production design, score and for achievement in makeup and hairstyling. “Whiplash” ranked as the second most-honored picture, nabbing best sound mixing and film editing Oscars, in addition to the award for Simmons.

Most victors used their speeches for more than a litany of thank you’s to agents and spouses. In his best adapted screenplay acceptance speech, Graham Moore, the writer of “The Imitation Game, ” offered a message of hope for teenagers struggling to fit in, revealing that he tried to kill himself as a depressed adolescent.

“Stay weird, stay different, ” he said.

Arquette also had a polemical moment, delivering a rallying cry to women in the workplace that was in keeping with the character she played in “Boyhood’s” struggles to balance raising children with her professional growth and achievement.

“We have fought for everybody else’s equal rights, ” she said. “It’s our time to have wage equality once and for all, and equal rights for women in the United States of America.”

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Not every speech was a piece of agitprop. Inarritu did offer a moment of levity in a ceremony that was often somber in tone.

The Mexican director said he had a lucky charm.

In fact, tight underwear was a theme of sorts during the night. Host Neil Patrick Harris also copped Keaton’s look at one point in the show, walking across stage in his briefs.

It had been expected to be a politically-charged broadcast given the hack attack at Sony Pictures and the snub of “Selma” in many major categories. Host Neil Patrick Harris didn’t disappoint, kicking off the evening with a reference to the controversy that has dogged the Oscars due to the lack of people of color nominated for acting, directing or screenwriting.

“Tonight we honor Hollywood’s best and whitest…sorry brightest, ” joked Harris.

It was a criticism that did not go unanswered. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Cheryl Boone Isaacs addressed the need for diversity in film, pairing it with a plea for freedom of expression that brought to mind the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo and the cyber assault on Sony Pictures over the release of “The Interview.”