Raise your hands if you, like me, woke up unusually early or stayed up late, depending on which part of the world you’re from, to watch Leo finally win an Oscar catch the 88th Academy Awards. 2016 was surely the year of many much-anticipated moments like Leo winning an Oscar a film like Mad Max walking home with most of the biggies and Spotlight coming up as a surprise win. But no moment took the internet by storm like Leonardo Di Caprio did , by finally fulfilling his golden dream There, I finally said it!

So whether you watched the Oscars first hand or not, here’s a glimpse into who took home the Oscar at the 88th Academy Awards.

Best Picture : Spotlight – Boston Globe’s explosive investigation into a couple of paedophile priests starring Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keating and Rachel McAdams

Best Director – Alejandro Inarritu for bringing out the best in Leo, for the Revenant

Best Actor in a Leading Role : Leonardo Di Caprio – The favorite this year finally took home the prize for a career-best performance in The Revenant where he battles a bear, eats bison liver and termed the experience “his most difficult role till date”.

Best Actress in a Leading Role : Brie Larson, the frontrunner for this award this year, won for her performance as a kidnapped mother in Room.

Best Actor in a Supporting Role : Marc Rylance won for Bridge of Spies, a film that was one of my favorites for the Best Picture award this year.

Best Actress in a Supporting Role : Alicia Vikander for a stellar performance in The Danish Girl

Best Cinematography : The Revenant

Best Costume Design : Mad Max – Fury Road

Best Film Editing : Mad Max – Fury Road

Best Foreign Language Film : Son of Saul, Hungary

Best Makeup and Styling : Mad Max – Fury Road

Best Production Design : Mad Max – Fury Road

Best Sound Editing : Mad Max – Fury Road

Best Sound Mixing : Mad Max – Fury Road

Best Visual Effects : Ex Machina

Best Music : The Hateful Eight (Ennio Morricone)

Best Original Screenplay : Spotlight

Best Documentary(Subject) – A Girl In The River – The Price of Forgiveness

Best Documentary (Feature) – Amy

Best Animated Film – Inside Out

Best Short Film (Animated) – Bear Story

Best Short Film (Live Action) – Stutterer

Best Original Song – Spectre, Sam Smith

Best Writing ( Adapted Screenplay) – The Big Short

Biggest Wins :

Leonardo Di Caprio finally won the Oscar after being nominated several years in a row.

Surprise Wins :

Spotlight for Best Picture. The collective favorites were The Revenant, and Mad Max, after its clean sweep of many technical awards.

Biggest Upsets :

Sylvester Stallone lost out to Marc Rylance for Bridge of Spies and Star Wars went home, well, empty. 🙁

Best Performance :

Lady Gaga gave a fitting tribute of empowerment to sexual abuse survivors with her anthem of “Till it Happens To You” . I’m still not over her performance last year where she gave a tribute to Julie Andrews and earlier this year in the Grammys where she bid goodbye to David Bowie. She’s such a powerhouse!

Biggest Social issues raised :

I always believe the Oscar stage is a great time to discuss pertinent issues because of the powerful stage and the biggest social influencers in the audience, not forgetting the huge global media coverage this event gets. Meryl Streep did it for wage inequality for female actors last year, Chris Rock spoke about Diversity in Race at the beginning of the show and Leo rounded it off with sparing a few moments from his time to shine, to talk about a very real problem – climate change.

“Let’s not take this planet for granted. I do not take tonight for granted”

What a beautiful quote to end a beautiful night !

What did you think of this year’s winners ? Comment on our social media platforms 🙂