In his acceptance speech, Cuaron thanked, “The wise guys at Warner Bros.,” before catching himself and amending the phrase to “the wise people at Warner Bros.” The Mexican director devoted four years of his life to making the technically challenging film about a space mission gone wrong.
“Gravity’s” other Oscars are for original score, visual effects, sound mixing and sound editing, cinematography and film editing.
Matthew McConaughey won best actor for his performance in “Dallas Buyers Club.” His co-star, Jared Leto, won best supporting actor, and the film won for makeup and hairstyling.
Cate Blanchett won best actress for her performance in “Blue Jasmine.”
“12 Years a Slave” had two key awards at Sunday’s 86th Academy Awards: best supporting actress and adapted screenplay.
Newcomer Lupita Nyong’o won best supporting actress.
“It doesn’t escape me for one moment that so much joy in my life is because of so much pain in someone else’s,” Nyong’o said, paying tribute to her character, Patsey, a slave in 1840s Louisiana. Her voice cracked noticeably as she spoke.
“Let It Go,” from the animated film “Frozen,” won best song. Robert Lopez, one of its songwriters, became an EGOT with his Oscar win: He now has an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony.
“Frozen” also for won best animated feature.
Darlene Love, one of the singers featured in documentary winner “20 Feet From Stardom,” launched into an impromptu version of “His Eye Is on the Sparrow” upon the film’s win. Her full-throated take brought down the house.
“The Great Gatsby” won two Oscars, for production design and costume design. Italy’s “The Great Beauty” took home the Oscar for foreign-language film.
The “In Memoriam” segment, which has received scrutiny in recent years after certain omissions, included notables who recently died -- among them Sid Caesar, Harold Ramis and Shirley Temple Black -- and concluded with Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Ellen DeGeneres managed to set a social media record with a celebrity-filled selfie that was retweeted more times than any photograph in Twitter history. She went into the audience and gathered a number of stars -- including Meryl Streep, Kevin Spacey and Bradley Cooper, who shot the image -- and encouraged people to send it around the Internet. She had a pretty good head start, given that she has more than 25 million followers on Twitter.
Amy Adams, who was a best actress nominee for “American Hustle,” confessed to being nervous, even though she’s been nominated four other times.
“I woke up at 5 a.m. I couldn’t get back to sleep,” she told CNN’s Piers Morgan on the red carpet.
Still, the main attraction of the 2014 Oscars isn’t so much the winners. It’s the event -- a showbiz extravaganza once described by Johnny Carson as “two hours of sparkling entertainment spread over a four-hour show.”
Among this year’s segments is a tribute to the 1939 film “The Wizard of Oz,” which is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year. Morgan talked with the children of “Oz” star Judy Garland -- Minnelli and Lorna and Joey Luft -- on the red carpet.
Asked who was the best singer in the family, Minnelli -- an Oscar winner for “Cabaret” -- responded quickly.
“Mama, we all know that,” she said.
For “12 Years” actress Alfre Woodard, very little of the glitter matters.
Asked by Morgan what she was wearing, Woodard laughingly turned the question back toward the work that got all the nominees to the red carpet in the first place.
“I hope I’m wearing my talent tonight,” she said. (CNN)
