Mario Anzuoni | Reuters
Producer Nicole Rocklin accepts the Oscar for Best Picture for the film "Spotlight" as she is accompanied by other producers and cast members at the 88th Academy Awards in Hollywood, California February 28, 2016.
In an underdog win for a movie about an underdog profession, the newspaper drama "Spotlight" took best picture at the 88th Academy Awards on Sunday, where remarks on lack of diversity in Hollywood dominated proceedings.
Tom McCarthy's film about the Boston Globe's investigative reporting on sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests won over the favored frontier epic "The Revenant." The well-crafted procedural, led by a strong ensemble cast, had lagged in the lead-up to the Oscars, losing ground to the flashier filmmaking of Alejandro Inarritu's film.
But "Spotlight" - an ode to the hard-nose, methodical work of a journalism increasingly seldom practiced - took the night's top honor despite winning only one other Oscar for McCarthy and Josh Singer's screenplay. Such a sparsely-awarded best picture winner hasn't happened since 1952's "The Greatest Show On Earth."
After four previous misses, Leonardo DiCaprio won his first Oscar for his grunting, gruff performance in "The Revenant." Best actress went to Brie Larson, the 26-year-old breakout of the mother-son captive drama "Room."
"Climate change is real, " said DiCaprio. "It is happening right now. It is the most urgent threat facing our entire species. Let us not take our planet for granted. I do not take tonight for granted."
Alejandro Inarritu took best director for a second straight year, a feat matched by only two other filmmakers: John Ford and Joseph L. Mankiewicz. His brutal frontier epic "The Revenant, " which came in with a leading 12 nods and the favorite for best picture, also won best cinematography for Emmanuel Lubezki. Renowned for his use of natural light in lengthy, balletic shots, Lubezki became the first cinematographer to win three times in a row (following wins for "Gravity" and "Birdman"), and only the seventh to three-peat in Oscar history.
Inarritu, the Mexican director of last year's best-picture winner "Birdman, " was one of the few winners to remark passionately on diversity in his speech.
"What a great opportunity for our generation to really liberate ourselves from all prejudice and this tribal thinking and to make sure for once and forever that the color of our skin becomes as irrelevant as the length of our hair, " said Inarritu.
But the night belonged to host Chris Rock, whose much anticipated opening monologue left few disappointed. He confronted head-on the uproar over the lack of diversity in this year's nominees, and returned to the topic throughout the show. ("We're black, " he said after a commercial break.)
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