Jeff Bridges Sandra Bullock and Kathryn Bigelow take away golden statuettes against heavy competition.
Kathryn Bigelow has made history, becoming the first woman to win an Academy Award for best director, for her film The Hurt Locker.
Jeff Bridges has won best actor for his role as a down-and-out singer in Crazy Heart.
And Sandra Bullock has picked up the best actress award for her role as an open-hearted Christian mom in The Blind Side.
The best supporting actor award went to the favourite Christoph Waltz, who took out the award for his role in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds.
Best supporting actress went to Mo'Nique, who had been highly favoured to win for her powerful role in the drama Precious.
Precious took out its first anticipated award for best adapted screenplay. Likewise, The Hurt Locker took out its first award of the night when writer Mark Boal received the Oscar for best screenplay.
Beating Avatar for sound mixing and sound editing gave The Hurt Locker an early edge in the struggle for Oscars supremacy.
But Avatar fought back with best cinematography (Mauro Fiore) best art design (Rick Carter, Robert Stromberg and Kim Sinclair) and best visual effects (Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham and Andrew R Jones).
Then Hurt Locker won again, for best editing (Bob Murawski and Chris Innis).
Following a powerful memorial to esteemed filmmaker John Hughes, came the best short film awards. The live action category was one of Australia's few hopes this year, with Luke Doolan nominated the film he made with Drew Bailey, Miracle Fish.
But first we had to wait for best animated short, which went to Nicolas Shmerkin for his film Logorama and best short documentary, which went to Roger Ross Williams and Elinor Burkett for Music by Prudence.
After all that, Miracle Fish didn't win. The award went to Joachim Back and Tivi Mugnusson for The New Tenants.
Our hope for best costume design, Janet Patterson for Bright Star, was pipped at the post by Sandy Powell for her work in another period piece, The Young Victoria.
The second award of the evening went to Pete Docter for best animated feature film for his movie Up.
The Secret in Their Eyes (El Secreto de Sus Ojos) picked up best foreign language film for Argentina.
Louie Psihoyos and Fisher Stevens picked up best documentary for The Cove.
Star Trek took out the award for best make-up, presented by a Na'vi-fied Ben Stiller.
Michael Giacchino received best original score for Up.
Lead photo via AP