Oscar 2012: Live Coverage
And that's all folks! We'll leave you with a final tally of the awards:
The Artist has 5 wins:
Best Picture
Best Director - Michel Hazanavicius
Best Actor - Jean Dujardin
Best Costume Design
Best Original Score
Meryl Streep wins Best Actress for playing Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady
Best Supporting Actor for The Beginner, Christopher Plummer is the oldest winner at 82
First time nominee Octavia Spencer wins Best Supporting Actress for The Help
Hugo also bags 5 awards: Best Cinematography, Art Direction, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, and Visual Effects
Woody Allen wins Best Original Screenplay for Midnight In Paris
The Descendants gets Best Adapted Screenplay.
Good wishes pour in for Meryl Streep:
Best Picture: The Artist
The Artist has all the big wins today: Best Picture, Director and Actor. It ties with Hugo for most wins with 5 each
Tom Cruise now. Giving out Best Picture. If The Artist wins it will tie with Hugo for most wins today - 5 each
Best Actress: Meryl Streep for The Iron Lady
And she does! Ms Streep wins her third Oscar. She's now just 1 Oscar behind Katharine Hepburn who, with 4 awards, has the most acting wins.
Biting nails. Will it be Streep?
Another biggie coming up. Last year's Best Actor, Colin Firth, is announcing Best Actress for this year
And yes, for those of you wondering, that is A R Rahman in the Oscar band. He tweeted this picture earlier:
Jean Dujardin says: Merci beaucoup, I love you
Best Actor: Jean Dujardin for The Artist
Yippee! Win #4 for The Artist, just 1 behind Hugo now
Last year's Best Actress Natalie Portman is giving out this year's Best Actor
Trivia: Demian Bichir may not be well known outside of his native Mexico but he and his two actor brothers are so popular there that MTV Movie Awards - Mexico has a whole category called Best Bichir In A Movie. Fact!
A beautiful montage of those who passed away in the last year, set to What A Wonderful World sung live.Goodbye Jane Russell, Whitney Houston, Steve Jobs (he was CEO of Pixar, after all) and Elizabeth Taylor.....
Alec Baldwin has a shout out for Christopher Plummer. Did we mention Mr Plummer is now the oldest winner, at 82, beating Jessica Tandy who was 80 when she won for Driving Miss Daisy
James Earl Jones, Dick Smith and Oprah Winfrey receive honorary Oscars. James Earl Jones is famous for his deep bass which he used to great effect for Darth Vader from the Star Wars series. Dick Smith is a makeup artist best known for The Exorcist. Oprah needs no introduction and if you're wondering what she's doing getting an Oscar, consider the movies she's been in: The Color Purple and Beloved, among others
Meryl Streep is the next presenter. Ms Streep is also nominated for Best Actress and this is her 17th nomination. She's won 2 Oscars in her incredible career - if she wins this year she'll be 1 Oscar behind Katharine Hepburn who has the most acting Oscars ever with 4 in total.
Best Director: Michel Hazanavicius for The Artist
Wow, wow! He beat Scorsese and Woody Allen. That makes the tally 3 Oscars for The Artist
Michael Douglas is the next presenter. He's a two time winner, and he's recovering from throat cancer
True, this though the Bridesmaids certainly made up:
Ok so all 6 Bridesmaids get to speechify. And they all look lovely. We like.
Best Animated Short Film: The Fantastic Flying Books Of Mr Morris Lessmore
The Bridesmaids are doing their drinking game again - first seen at the Golden Globes. This time it's all 6. They have to have a drink everytime someone says Scorsese. The audience helps!
Best Documentary Feature: Saving Face
Here come the Bridesmaids!
And they're funny. Of course, when we say funny we mean Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph because they're the ones at the mic. But funny they were (and X rated!!)
Best Live Action Short Film: The Shore
Milla Jovovich presented the Technical Oscars on Feb 11. She's walking the audience through a recap of the evening
Best Original Screenplay: Midnight In Paris
Woody Allen wins his fourth Oscar - second for screenplay. He's not at the show, in fact he's only attended the Oscars once - after the 9/11 attacks - despite being nominated 23 times.
Best Adapted Screenplay: The Descendants
First win for The Descendants
Wow, look at Angelina!
No seriously - look at her:
Bret McKenzie (Original Song winner) had this to say about Kermit The Frog: Like a lot of stars here, he's much shorter in person. LOL.
After the break, Hollywood royalty: Angelina and Tom Cruise will present. This is turning out to be a helluva Oscar show
More funny guys on stage: Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis. They're giving out Best Original Song
And the Oscar goes to: Man Or Muppet from The Muppets
Best original Score - The Artist
Win #2 for The Artist. Trails Hugo by 3 awards
How lovely and classy Penelope Cruz is looking. She's presenting for Original Score with Owen Wilson
Billy Crystal gets funny on: Brad, Angelina, Morgan Freeman, Clooney, Scorsese and Uggie the Dog!
Christopher Plummer thanks his wife and says she deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. Great acceptance speech. And we can't forget him as Captain Von Trapp in The Sound Of Music (a role he disliked)
Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer for The Beginners
This is his second nomination, first win and, at 82, he is the oldest winner. Standing ovation!
Melissa Leo, last year's Best Supporting Actress, is presenting the award for this year's Best Supporting Actor
Best Visual Effects: Hugo
So that makes it 5 wins for Hugo. We can see how the show's shaping up
Emma is funnier than Ben Stiller. Haha, who knew!
How funny is Melissa McCarthy??!!! Did you see her little faceoff with Billy Crystal?
Emma Stone and Ben Stiller presenting now
Best Animated Feature Film: Rango
No Pixar nominee this year - Cars 2 was their 2011 release, but no Oscar nod. Gore Verbinski collects for Rango
Oh no! Undefeated team gets cut off by music cue. That's what you get for going over time - no mercy from the producers.
Chris Rock is here now. He's hosted earlier and presenting this year.
Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert Downey Jr are hilariously presenting the award for Best Documentary Feature. The Oscar goes to Undefeated
Billy Crystal just seems so comfortable and at home as host - unlike Anna Hathaway and James Franco last year.
A heartstopping display of dance and acrobatics by the Cirque du Soleil
Here are The Muppets. Kermit and Miss Piggy being very Kermit and Miss Piggy-like
So we think Meryl Streep will take home Best Actress but that Glenn Close is snapping at her heels. This is the third time they are both nominated together. Neither won the last two times - Ms Close has never won an Oscar despite 6 nominations. Ms Streep has two wins (Best Supporting Actress for Kramer vs Kramer, and Best Actress for Sophie's Choice)
Best Sound Mixing: Hugo
4 awards for Hugo!
Sound Editing: Hugo
That's 3 wins for Hugo which has 11 nominations
Best Film Editing: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
The same editing team who won last year for The Social Network!
Funny people: Tina Fey and Bradley Cooper are presenting
Octavia Spencer is 5th African-American woman to win Best Supporting Actress. She got a standing ovation. First on their feet were Oprah and Brangelina
Meryl Streep has said she votes for Viola Davis for Best Actress. Ms Streep and Ms Davis starred together in Doubt for which they were both nominated 2 years ago
The count so far: Hugo has 2 wins, 1 each for The Artist, The Help and The Iron Lady
The first acting award is out and Octavia Spencer slam dunks it. She's swept the awards season so far
Best Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer for The Help
Yes yes yes!
Christian Bale is presenting Best Supporting Actress. Looks much nicer than he did at the Oscars last year, but still not his best look. Disappointed.
Best Foreign Language - A Separation from Iran
Sandra Bullock gets a laugh, as she always does
Best Supporting Actress coming up after the break. Of the five nominees only Janet McTeer has been nominated before (for Tumbleweeds, Best Actress. Meryl Streep was nominated in the same year but neither won)
Best Make Up: The Iron Lady
JLo and Cam totally stole the thunder just then by displaying their stunning couture clad (and not clad much!) backs dresses before looking over their shoulders to announce the award.
3 awards so far: 2 for Hugo, 1 for The Artist. Hugo has 11 nominations, The Artist has 10
Mark Bridges wins Best Costume Design for The Artist
Jennifer Lopez and Cameron Diaz are stunning. On stage presenting the award for Costume Design
Best dressed so far: Michelle in Louis Vuitton, Gwyneth in Tom Ford, Jessica in McQueen
If you were wondering where Angelina was (trending on Twitter: Where's Angelina), here she is in Atelier Versace:
Hugo wins second award for Art Direction. 2 down, 9 to go!
Hugo wins the first award of the show, it's up for 11 awards
Tom Hanks is presenting the first award. Best Cinematography: Hugo
Martin Scorsese gets some personal attention from Mr Crystal
Mr Crystal introduces all the nominees in an old fashioned song routine
Who's going home with the biggest haul today? Hugo is up for 11 awards, The Artist for 10, Moneyball and War Horse for 6
Put your hands together for Billy Crystal: "Tonight, just call me War Horse"
Billy Crystal beats Tom Cruise to a bungee jump out of the skyscraper Mission Impossible style
Justin Bieber stars in a send up of Midnight In Paris. He just called Billy Crystal 'pop'!
Opening montage has Clooney in character from The Descendants giving a hospital-bed-bound Billy Crystal the kiss of life. Hilarious.
And it's begun! Here's Morgan Freeman
Well, hello Natalie Portman! Last year's Best Actress is stunning in vintage Christian Dior
OMG! Sacha Baron Cohen shows up as his character from The Dictator even after the Academy said he would only be welcome as himself:
Penelope Cruz in Armani Prive, on our Best Dressed list
Rooney Mara works the pale goth look she's mastered in recent red carpet appearances. This dress is Givenchy. Rooney is nominated for the first time for Best Actress. She played punk hacker Lisbeth Salander in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.
Steve Carell tweets: My favourite colour is Tina Fey
Ooh, Meryl Streep! Nominated an incredible 17 times, the most acting nominations ever. She's up for Best Actress for The Iron Lady. We're cheering for her.
Lovely Michelle Williams in Louis Vuitton. She's up for Best Actress for playing Marilyn Monroe in My Week With Marilyn. This is her third nomination, she's been nominated earlier for Brokeback Mountain and Blue Valentine.
Jean Dujardin is on the red carpet looking dapper and very French
Apart from host Billy Crystal, this year's presenter lineup is heavy on the funny people with comedians Tina Fey, Will Ferrell and the cast of The Bridesmaids all scheduled to hand out awards. We can't wait.
Best Supporting Actress nominee Jessica Chastain is also in two Best Picture nominees - The Help, for which she's a nominee, and The Tree Of Life
Best Actress nominee Viola Davis in Vera Wang. Viola is in two films nominated for Best Picture this year - The Help, for which she's up for Best Actress, and Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close
The stars begin to trickle in. Here's Best Actor nominee George Clooney with girlfriend Stacy Keibler. She's wearing Marchesa.
Billy Crystal is back as host this year after an 8 year gap. This will be his ninth time as host, but not without controversy. He stepped in when original host Eddie Murphy dropped out after producer Brett Ratner resigned following a controversial anti-gay comment. Brain Grazer serves as producer.
Predictions: We think Jean Dujardin (The Artist) and Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady) have it sewn up for Best Actor and Actress. But if there is to be a surprise upset, it could be George Clooney (The Descendants) and Glenn Close (Albert Nobbs).
Our money on Christopher Plummer (The Beginners) and Octavia Spencer (The Help) for Best Supporting Actor and Actress.
Belt Picture - The Artist? Hugo? War Horse? We'll reserve judgement
Good morning everyone. Just 30 mins to Oscar 2012. We're bringing you all the action from the red carpet and more. Stay tuned.