Oscars 2016: Spotlight wins Best Picture but Mad Max: Fury Road dominates awards

The Spotlight cast and crew celebrate their win (Getty)

Tom McCarthy's investigative journalism crime drama Spotlight has won Best Picture at the 2016 Oscars, but Mad Max: Fury Road stormed the stage at LA's Dolby Theater, picking up six awards.

Spotlight's only other win was for Best Original Screenplay, while Mad Max was honoured in costume, production design, makeup and hair, editing, sound editing and sound mixing categories.

What delighted most at this year's ceremony, however, was Leonardo DiCaprio's Leading Actor win, something pretty much universally accepted as overdue.

The film he won for - The Revenant - didn't perform as well as expected, though director Alejandro G. Iñárritu and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki both collected prizes.

Mad Max: Fury Road had a superb night in the technical categories (Getty)


 DiCaprio finally won Best Actor

In the Leading Actress category, relative newcomer Brie Larson beat fearsome actresses Cate Blanchett, Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Winslet, high-fiving her 9-year-old Room co-star, Jacob Tremblay.

The Best Supporting Actor and Actress categories were swept by Brits - Alicia Vikander and Mark Rylance.

Awards aside, there was performances from Lady Gaga, The Weeknd, Sam Smith and Dave Grohl, but what people will be talking about for days to come is Chris Rock's hosting of the ceremony.

The comedian was expected to tackle the diversity debate that has been rumbling of late, but perhaps not so aggressively, giving over almost every joke at the ceremony to it and enlisting the help of other comedians and actors.

Rock excoriated Hollywood for its "why now?" counterarguments, saying: "We were too busy being raped and lynched to care about who won best cinematographer." Watch his opening monologue here.