Oscars: Birdman wins Best Picture

After being nominated for nine Academy Awards, Birdman went home with four golden statuettes on Sunday night, among which were prizes for Best Original Screenplay and Best Cinematography.

In his acceptance speech for the Best Director award, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu paid tribute to his fellow nominees.

"For someone to win, someone has to lose - but true art, true individual expression cannot be compared. Our work, as always, will be judged by time," he said.

Following in the footsteps of Alfonso Cuaron, Gonzalez Inarritu is now the second Mexican director to have won both the Academy Awary and the Directors Guild of America award for Best Director.

On par with Birdman for the number of awards at this year's Oscars was Wes Anderson's Grand Budapest Hotel. The British-German co-production, which was largely filmed in the eastern German town of Görlitz, scooped awards for Costume Design, Hair and Makeup, Production Design and Original Score.

Hotly-tipped American drama, Boyhood which won Best Drama and Best Director at the Golden Globes last month as well as Best Film at the BAFTAs, came close to going home empty-handed until Patricia Arquette collected an award for Best Supporting Actress. Taking home Best Supporting Actor was JK Simmons for his performance in Whiplash.

British actor, Eddie Redmayne added to his collection of awards for his portrayal of physicist Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything after winning the prize for Best Actor.

"This Oscar belongs to all those people around the world battling ALS," Redmayne said in his acceptance speech.

"It belongs to one exceptional family - Stephen, Jane and the Hawking children - and I will be its custodian and I will look after him; I'll polish him and wait on him hand and foot."

The 33-year-old also paid tribute to his "partner in crime" and Theory of Everything co-star Felicity Jones, as well as his "ferocious and kind director" James Marsh.

After previously being nominated four times for an academy award, American actress Julianne Moore finally took home the Best Actress award for her performance as Dr. Alice Howland, a woman with Alzheimer's, in the film adaptation of Lisa Genova's 2007 bestselling novel, "Still Alice."

In a nod to her fellow female nominees, which included Reese Witherspoon, Marion Cotillard, Felicity Jones and Rosamund Pike, Moore said there was "no such thing as best actress."

"I'm thrilled we were able to shine a light on Alzheimer's disease. So many people with this disease feel isolated and marginalised and one of the wonderful things about movies is things are able to be seen. Hopefully this movie will be seen and it will help find a cure," the 54-year-old said.

There was disappointment on the night for Russia, however, whose film Leviathan lost out in the foreign language category to Poland's Ida. The 2013 drama tells the story of a young woman on the verge of taking her vows to become a Catholic nun after being orphaned as a child during the German occupation.

In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the release of The Sound of Music, Lady Gaga also performed a medley of favorites from the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic on Sunday evening. The adaptation of the 1959 Broadway musical won five Oscars in 1966, including Best Picture.

Oscar Winners

Best Picture- Birdman

Best Actress- Julianne Moore for Still Alice

Best Actor - Eddie Redmayne for The Theory of Everything

Best Director- Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu for Birdman

Adapted Screenplay- Graham Moore for The Imitation Game

Original Screenplay - Alejandro González Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Armando Bo for Birdman

Best Original Score - Alexandre Desplat for The Grand Budapest Hotel

Best Original Song - Glory from Selma

Best Documentary Feature - Citizenfour

Achievement in film editing - Tom Crash for Whiplash

Best Production Design - Adam Stockhausen, Anna Pinnock for The Grand Budapest Hotel

Best Animated Feature Film - Big Hero 6

Best Animated Short Film - Feast

Achievement in Visual Effects - Paul J Franklin, Andrew Lockley, Ian Hunter and Scott R Fisher for Interstellar

Best supporting Actress - Patricia Arquette for Boyhood

Achievement in Sound Editing - Alan Robert Murray, Bub Asman for American Sniper

Achievement in Soundmixing - Craig Mann, ben Wilkins, Thomas Curley for Whiplash

Best Documentary Short Subject - Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1

Best live-action Short Film - The Phone Call

Best Foreign Language Film - Ida

Acheivement in Makeup and Hairstyling - Milena Canonero for The Grand Budapest Hotel

Best Supporting Actor - JK Simmons for Whiplash