Oscars 2019 winners: Ceremony ends in shock as Green Book and Olivia Colman triumph

Spike Lee has also won his first Academy Award

The Oscars ended with two major shocks on Sunday night in Los Angeles, as Olivia Colman took home Best Actress for The Favourite and Green Book won Best Picture.

Colman’s win in the Best Actress category brought Yorgos Lanthimos’s period piece back in the spotlight after being shut out for most of the evening, missing out on its two Best Supporting Actress nominations (for Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz), as well as nods in the Cinematography, Costume Design, Directing, Film Editing, Production Design, and Writing (Original Screenplay) categories.

Green Book, meanwhile, took home the biggest trophy of the night despite an awards season marred by scandal, and even though it was up against mammoth contenders such as Bohemian Rhapsody, The Favourite, Roma and the extremely popular Black Panther – the first superhero movie to score a nomination in the Best Picture category.

Colman defeated Glenn Close for the Best Actress trophy, telling the actor in her emotional thank you speech: “Glenn Close, you’ve been my idol for so long and this is not how I wanted it to be.”

Close was one of the strongest nominees in the Best Actress category, which also included Yalitza Aparicio, Lady Gaga, and Melissa McCarthy.

Green Book earned Mahershala Ali his second Oscar win in the Actor in a Supporting Role category, and the film also took the Oscar for Writing (Original Screenplay).

Black Panther won big throughout the evening, receiving awards in the Costume Design, Music (Original Score), and Production Design categories. It had also scored nominations for Best Original Song, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing and Best Picture, for a total of seven nods.

The evening also saw Regina King pick up the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role in If Beale Street Could Talk. Roma won in the Cinematography, Directing, and Foreign Language Film categories.

One of the highlights of the ceremony came when Spike Lee won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for BlacKkKlansman. This is the 61-year-old director’s first Academy Award win, and he topped it off with an acceptance speech in which he urged American voters to “do the right thing” during the 2020 presidential election.