Stars in their eyes

The award for Best Picture went to drama "12 Years a Slave," directed by Steve McQueen (right).

It made history as the first movie from a black director to win the film industry's highest honour in 86 years of the Oscars.

McQueen’s unflinching portrayal of pre-Civil War American slavery won two other Oscars, including best supporting actress for newcomer Lupita Nyong'o (second left) and best adapted screenplay based on the memoir of Solomon Northup, a free man tricked and sold into slavery in Louisiana.

"Everyone deserves not just to survive but to live. This is the most important legacy of Solomon Northup," said McQueen in his acceptance speech.

The space thriller “Gravity” racked up the most Oscars of the night with seven, including the best director honour for Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron, a first for a Latin American director.

The film starring Sandra Bullock as an astronaut lost in space swept the technical awards like visual effects and cinematography, a reward for its groundbreaking work on conveying space and weightlessness.

Referring to the "transformative" experience he and others undertook in the years spent making "Gravity," Cuaron said, "For a lot of these people, that transformation was wisdom. For me, it was just the colour of my hair."

Matthew McConaughey (right) won the Oscar for best actor for his role in "Dallas Buyers Club" as a homophobic, rodeo-loving Texan who contracts AIDS and becomes an unlikely saviour for gay patients and drug addicts desperate for treatment.

McConaughey lost some 50 pounds (23 kg) for the role, looking gaunt as real-life crusader Ron Woodroof, a cowboy who fought the U.S. government during the early AIDS epidemic of the 1980s to provide patients with medicines he imported from foreign countries.

McConaughey beat rival Oscar nominee Leonardo DiCaprio (left), who played the lead in “The Wolf of Wall Street," a tale of financial greed directed by Martin Scorsese.

Lupita Nyong'o won the Oscar for best supporting actress for her performance as the slave Patsey in drama "12 Years a Slave," capping a breakout awards season for the Yale-trained Kenyan actress.

Nyong'o, 31, won the Oscar in her first feature film role, earning a thunderous standing ovation from the Hollywood audience. She beat fellow frontrunner Jennifer Lawrence's portrayal of a loopy housewife in caper "American Hustle" in one of the most closely-watched Academy Award races this year.

"It doesn't escape me for one moment that so much joy in my life is thanks to so much pain in someone else's, and so I want to salute the spirit of Patsey, for her guidance,” Nyong'o said.

Comedienne and talk show star Ellen DeGeneres hosted the awards, bringing her deadpan affability, and free pizza, to the Oscar night while also poking fun at Hollywood royalty.

She handed a faux consolation prize - a pair of lottery tickets - to "American Hustle" star Bradley Cooper after he lost his bid for best supporting actor and ushered a pizza delivery guy into the auditorium to hand out slices to the stars. Actor Brad Pitt even helped to distribute paper plates.

The winners of Hollywood’s most prestigious acting prizes stand together: (left to right) Matthew McConaughey, who won the Oscar for Best Actor, Cate Blanchett for Best Actress, Lupita Nyong'o for Best Supporting Actress and Jared Leto for Best Supporting Actor.