February 27, 2012 
The winners of the 84th Academy Awards were announced in Los Angeles today, at a ceremony hosted by nine-timer Billy Crystal. Surprises were few and far between; in fact, the only shocker was that the show wrapped up after a relatively brisk three hours.
Michel Hazanavicius’ award-gobbling juggernaut The Artist was named the Best Picture of the Year, becoming the first silent film to take the prize since Wings proved victorious at the very first Oscars.
Hazanavicius beat out luminaries such as Martin Scorsese, Terrence Malick, Alexander Payne, and Woody Allen to be named Best Director for his work on the black-and-white flick, while star Jean Dujardin bested George Clooney in the race for Best Actor. The production also took home prizes for Original Score and Costume Design.
Scorsese’s Hugo equalled The Artist’s tally of five Oscars, bringing home awards for Visual Effects, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Art Direction, and Cinematography.
Meryl Streep ended her 20-year drought by winning the Best Actress gong for The Iron Lady. It marks her third victory from seventeen nominations.
Christopher Plummer, at the age of 82, became the oldest acting Academy Award winner for his supporting turn in Beginners. However, it was Supporting Actress victor Octavia Spencer from The Help who holds the honour of the most charming and emotional speech at the beginning of the event.
Best Picture also-rans The Descendants and Midnight in Paris received their consolation in the Adapted Screenplay and Original Screenplay categories respectively. Fellow BP nominees Moneyball, War Horse, The Tree of Life, and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close walked away empty handed.
A Separation became the first Iranian picture to win Best Foreign Language Film, football doco Undefeated beat out favourite Paradise Lost 3 to win Best Documentary, and Rango was named Best Animated Feature Film.
We’ve saved the best news for last: Aussie Kirk Baxter and colleague Angus Wall won an Oscar for Editing The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and Flight of the Conchords’ Bret McKenzie claimed Best Original Song for his show-stopping track Man or Muppet (from The Muppets, obviously).
Check out all the winners, as well as our thoughts on the ceremony, over at our live-blog!
Quickflix 
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…wake me when it’s over.