Actually, a correction. It was in fact Faye Dunaway who announced La La Land as the winner. Warren Beatty may yet have a get-out clause.

In all this confusion and excitement over the stuff-up, it's easy to lose sight of what actually happened: Moonlight won best picture. That's quite incredible, on so many scores. 

This is a formally challenging movie about a young gay black man journeying rom bullied child to troubled teen to gangsta. The character is played by three different actors at three different ages. It's structured a little like the play it was based on, In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue, but it's totally filmic. It's taken a piddling $US29 million worldwide. 

This is a win for art cinema, for diversity, for recognition of moral complexity in storytelling. It's a bit special, really.

It's a huge win for Brad Pitt's Plan B, too. Though he's not one of the named producers on Moonlight, this is the fourth year in a row his boutique production company has had a best picture nominee, on the second time it has won (the first was 12 Years a Slave). You can read more about that side of Brad pitt here. 

Poor Warren Beatty. The guy has had 14 Oscar nominations, won an Oscar for best director (for Reds, 1982), was once considered the sexiest man alive, and one of the most powerful in Hollywood. And now he's going to be remembered as the guy who read out the wrong name. 

It reminds me of a certain joke about a farmer and a goat.

No matter how many times you watch that, it doesn't get any easier. Poor Warren Beatty trying to explain it away. 

"I want to tell you what happened. I opened the envelope. And it said Emma Stone, La La Land. That's why I took 
such a long look at Faye [Dunaway] and at you. I wasn't trying to be funny."

"Well, you were funny," said Kimmel.

I'm not sure the guys from La La Land are laughing right now.

I tell you, if there's one person who knows how Warren Beatty must be feeling right now, it's Sarah Murdoch. Remember when she announced the wrong winner on Australia's Next Top Model back in 2010? She must be feeling a little vindicated right now. Well, maybe not vindicated, just not quite so alone.

But then, her stuff-up was broadcast to a couple of hundred thousand viewers on pay TV. This one has gone live to north of 30 million in the US and, if the Academy's own figures are to be believed, around 1 billion viewers worldwide. 

What would Basil Fawlty say? "I may have mentioned the wrong film, but I think I got away with it."

"I have to say, and it is true, it is not fake," says director Barry Jenkins. "We have been 
on the road with these guys for so long and it was so gracious and so generous of them, my love to La La Land, my love to everybody. Man! "

Producer Adele Romanski chips in: "I don't know what to say. That was really – I'm not sure – I'm still not sure thisis real. But thank you to the Academy. And, um, it is so humbling to be standing up here with hopefully still the La La Land crew? No, OK, they are gone. But it is very humbling to be up here and I think I hope even more than that, that it's inspiring to people, little black boys an brown girls and other folks watching at home who feel marginalised."

So that's seven wins for La La Land. I love this film so think that's a pretty decent result, but this was an uncommonly strong year, in the best picture category particularly.

Best Picture

Arrival
Fences
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
Hidden Figures
La La Land
Lion
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight

Winner: La La Land

At 79, Warren Beatty is probably getting a bit old to be manning the barricades, but in a ceremony notably light on political gestures he gets close to the most rabble-rousing moment of the night. 

"I think that it could be said that our goal in politics is the same as our goal in art," he says. "And that's to get to the truth. The movies that we honour tonight not only entertain us and move us, they show us the increasing diversity in our community and a respect for diversity and freedom all over the world."

Not a call to arms so much as an invitation to link hands. 

This is the first time Australia has had two nominees for best picture: Hacksaw Ridge, represented by American producers Bill Mechanic and David Permut, and Lion, represented by Australian producers Emile Sherman and Angie Field with Brit Iain Canning.

Sherman and Canning, who are partners in See-Saw Films, have previously won best picture with The King's Speech.

Irrespective of how it fares, director Garth Davis recognises Lion has had an emotional impact on viewers that goes beyond awards. "They come up to me and they hold onto my arm and they tell me their stories and they thank me for the story that we've told," he told Fairfax Media.

Casey Affleck is a wonderful actor, and the award for his performance in Manchester by the Sea is thoroughly deserved but it isn't without its controversy over his (alleged) off-screen behaviour. 

That win means Casey and brother Ben now join the select band of siblings who have won Oscars. Ben has won two – for best original screenplay (Good Will Hunting, 1998) and best picture (Argo, 2013) – but not an acting award. 

The only siblings to have won lead actor awards are Joan Fontaine and Olivia de Havilland.

Actress in a Leading Role

Isabelle Huppert, Elle
Ruth Negga, Loving
Natalie Portman, Jackie
Emma Stone, La La Land
Meryl Streep, Florence Foster Jenkins

Winner: Emma Stone, La La Land

Actor in a Leading Role

Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea
Andrew Garfield, Hacksaw Ridge
Ryan Gosling, La La Land
Viggo Mortensen, Captain Fantastic
Denzel Washington, Fences

Winner: Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea

Ooh, we're at the pointy end now. Best director. And at 32, Damien Chazelle is the youngest ever winner. 

It's a huge night for him and his writing partner Justin Hurwitz, whom he has known since they were 17 or 18. Hurwitz has collected best original score and a share of best original song.

These two have made three feature films together: La La Land, Whiplash (2014) and Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench, the 2009 black-and-white real-world musical that was a kind of prototype for this one.