'The Shape of Water' wins big; Jordan Peele makes history at Oscars

Full coverage of the Oscars ceremony from the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles

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Our full coverage of the 90th Academy Awards ceremony. News of all the gongs handed out, as well as pictures of the best red-carpet frocks and any moments of controversy from the year that saw the film industry deal with allegations of sexual abuse against some of the best known names such as Harvey Weinstein and Woody Allen.

8.55am Abu Dhabi 

And that brings our live Oscars coverage to a close. Congratulations to all the winners. I'm going to snuggle up in my lovely blanket and chair in the posh seats and see how long I can hide out here before anyone from Vox Cinemas notices - thanks to them for their hospitality. Check the Arts & Culture section for more Oscars coverage, and good morning.

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Read more:

Guillermo del Toro on the deeper meaning in ‘The Shape of Water’
Oscars 2018: 7 must-see and important moments

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8.47am Abu Dhabi

Best Picture

WINNER: The Shape of Water

Chris Newbould: Well, there we go. The Shape of Water wins it. Unless Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway are about to change their minds like last year...

Nope, they seem certain this time. That's a bit of a surprise - it's a great movie but I thought it would prove a little too "fantasy" for the normally staid Oscars panel. How wrong I was. Congrats to Guillermo Del Toro.

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8.35am Abu Dhabi

Best Actress

WINNER: Frances McDormand, Three Billboards in Ebbing, Missouri

Frances McDormand accepts the award for best performance by an actress in a leading role for "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)
Frances McDormand accepts the award for best performance by an actress in a leading role. Chris Pizzello / Invision / AP

Chris Newbould: McDormand it is, picking up a second Oscar following her 1997 one for Fargo. She's on a feminist tip, in keeping with the inclusion theme of the evening, and gets all the female nominees in the room to stand up with her. It would maybe be a grander gesture if she didn't keep periodically breaking into a giggle that makes her sound like she's on helium, but the sentiment is solid.

They're sure to drag it out for Best Film, so to kill time until we get there, and bearing in mind that my tips for director, actor and actress have all been correct, I'm going to stick my neck out and tip Three Billboards. Let's see how soon I regret that...

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8.25am Abu Dhabi

Best Actor

WINNER: Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour

Gary Oldman surprises no one as he does indeed pick up the Oscar for Best Actor for Darkest Hour. He gives a touching nod to his 99-year-old mother as he collects his prize. Having seen Oldman's autobiographical Nil By Mouth, it's hard to imagine any of his family as a sweet little old lady, but we'll take his word for it on this occasion. Best Actress up next, and all bets on Frances McDormand are off.

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8.15am Abu Dhabi

Best Director

WINNER: Guillermo del Toro, The Shape of Water

Chris Newbould: A cheeky Emma Stone introduces the Best Director nominees as "these four men and Greta Gerwig". It gets a big laugh, but doesn't stop the award going to the favourite Guillermo del Toro, who returns to the recurring theme of immigration in his acceptance speech. Mexico getting a lot of love tonight.

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Read more:

Best and worst dressed at the Oscars - in pictures

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8.03am Abu Dhabi: 

Original Song

WINNER: Remember Me, Coco

Chris Newbould: Best Original Song goes to Remember Me from Coco, and Kristen Anderson-Lopez uses her acceptance speech to applaud the fact that the category had a 50/50 gender split, as did her winning song, which she co-wrote with partner Robert Lopez. Go, team!

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8am Abu Dhabi:

Best Score

WINNER: The Shape of Water

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7.50am Abu Dhabi: 

Best Original Screenplay

WINNER Jordan Peele, Get Out

Chris Newbould: Jordan Peele picks up Best Original Screenplay, neatly sidestepping any controversy caused by a win for The Shape of Water - the estate of playwright Paul Zindel are currently taking legal action against Guillermo Del Toro over alleged similarities between his film and Zindel's 1969 play Let Me Hear You Whisper. So Best No-So = Original Screenplay, maybe?

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7.38am Abu Dhabi: 

Best Cinematography

WINNER Roger Deakins, Blade Runner 2049

Chris Newbould: Roger Deakins picks up cinematography for Blade Runner 2049, and no one can really argue with that. He sounds a bit like Mick Jagger.

Roger "13 times" Deakins, incidentally, was up against Rachel "first woman ever nominated: Morrison for cinematography, for her work on Mudbound. Let's hope she doesn't require another 13 goes to bag one.

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7.35am Abu Dhabi:

Best Adapted Screenplay

WINNER Call Me By Your Name

Chris Newbould: James Ivory finally bags himself an Oscar! Three unsuccessful nominations as a director, and all he needed to do was adapt a screenplay it turns out! Call Me by Your Name being the movie/novel in question.

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7.17am Abu Dhabi:

Best Live Action Short Film

WINNER The Silent Child

Chris Newbould: The Silent Child wins Best Live Action Short. Producer Rachel Shenton is far from silent, giving an impassioned, and protracted, speech which ends up being cut short by music.

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7.12am Abu Dhabi:

Best Documentary Short Subject

WINNER Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405

Chris Newbould: Best Short Documentary with Traffic in the Title sees Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405 steal the thunder from Traffic Stop. Will the producers get the green light for the feature version now? Or will they just kick it to the kerb?

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7am Abu Dhabi:

Best Editing

WINNER Dunkirk

Chris Newbould: Dunkirk cleaning up in the technical categories with an editing statue to add to the two sound wins now. For an editor Lee Smith doesn't half go on. Is he going to thank me next?

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Read more:

Host Jimmy Kimmel doesn't hold back in Oscars monologue

14th time's the charm: cinematographer Roger Deakins finally snags Oscar

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6.55am Abu Dhabi:

Best Visual Effects

WINNER Blade Runner 2049

Chris Newbould: Blade Runner 2049 picks up Visual Effects. Some justice after audiences unfathomable ambivalence towards Denis Villeneuve's under-earning masterpiece.

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6.42am Abu Dhabi:

Best Animated Feature

WINNER Coco

Chris Newbould: Quel surprise. Coco picks up Best Feature Animation. No one saw that one coming. The Coco producers get in a subtle dig at Donald Trump by thanking the people of Mexico. How many Mexican-themed animated musicals can we expect when the wall goes up, eh Don? And at least it makes a change from thanking their parents, who clearly had nothing to do with the film's production whatsoever.

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6.40am Abu Dhabi:

Best Animated Short

WINNER Dear Basketball

Chris Newbould: BB8's on stage. We can go home now. It can only downhill from here. He's joined by Mark Hamill and his La La Land gag to present Best Animated Short to Dear Basketball.

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6.29am Abu Dhabi:

Best Support Actress

WINNER Alison Janney, I Tonya

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6.25am Abu Dhabi:

Best Foreign Language Film

WINNER A Fantastic Woman

Chris Newbould: Disappointment for Zaid Doueri as A Fantastic Woman picks up Best Foreign Language. Bit of a surprise there as I had The Square nailed on for this, with Doueri's The Insult as an outsider for political box ticking purposes.

Comedian Jimmy Kimmel (L) and Israeli actress Gal Gadot interact with movie goers at the Chinese theatre during the 90th Annual Academy Awards show on March 4, 2018 in Hollywood, California. / AFP PHOTO / Mark RALSTON
Comedian Jimmy Kimmel, left, actress Gal Gadot interact with movie goers at the Chinese theatre during the 90th Annual Academy Awards show. Mark Ralston / AFP

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6.12am Abu Dhabi:

Best Production Design

WINNER The Shape Of Water

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6.05am Abu Dhabi:

Best Sound Mixing

WINNER Dunkirk

Chris Newbould: Alex Gibson wins the sound editing award for Dunkirk. Likely the first of a bunch of technical wins for Christopher Nolan's epic, which might make up for the fact its characters are so 2 dimensional it has no nominations in the real categories... Yup, there's a second one sound mixing. Should have made it a radio play, Chris. You'd have cleaned up.

Just noticed there's a lovely fluffy blanket under my seat. Working out the odds of neither the cinema nor the office noticing if I just stay here for the rest of the day with a pile of breakfast burritos...

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6am Abu Dhabi:

Best Sound Design

WINNER Dunkirk

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5.59am Abu Dhabi:

Chris Newbould: A quick belated congratulations to Sam Rockwell, who picked up the Oscar for "looking most like Gary Oldman" for his part in Three Billboards. Can't wait to see if Gary Oldman wins the Oscar for "looking least like Gary Oldman when you're supposed to look like Gary Oldman" for his prosthetic turn in Darkest Hour.

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5.54am Abu Dhabi:

Chris Newbould: I do have a cinema to myself though, so thanks to Vox for that. Tip for the day - don't move house in Oscars week meaning you have no telly at home. Then again, I have the offer of a breakfast burrito here, which totally would not be on the cards at home, so it's swings and roundabouts.

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5.47am Abu Dhabi:

Chris Newbould: Greetings from a bleary eyed Abu Dhabi, where a Churchillian level of diplomacy (that's a Darkest Hour reference) has finally convinced the security guard at the barricaded Yas Mall car park that the cinema really is open at 5am for the Oscars. Add that to a monumental effort finally solved by the projectionist to find a functioning Wi-Fi connection, and things are going well already. On the more positive side, we did just hear one of the Icarus producers thank his parents, so that's one down for Oscars cliche bingo.

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5.45am Abu Dhabi:

Best Documentary

WINNER Icarus

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5.35am Abu Dhabi:

Best Costume Design

WINNER Phantom Thread

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5.32am Abu Dhabi:

Jimmy Kimmel opened the 90th annual Academy Award by telling winners to pause a beat before coming up to the stage.

Kimmel's joke was a reference to last year's best picture fiasco. He also poked fun at accounting firm PwC, which caused the error last year. Kimmel says he turned down a skit on the accountants last year and the mistaken reading of La La Land was a result of the accountants trying to do comedy.

The late-night host also referenced the sexual harassment scandal that has roiled Hollywood, mentioning disgraced film mogul Harvey Weinstein by name and saying he deserved to be expelled from the academy most of all.

Kimmel joked about the statue, "He is literally a statute of limitations.'"

He also gave a shout-out to the #MeToo and Time's Up movements, saying the audience could expect to hear more about them later in the show.

The show opened with a black-and-white newsreel-style montage showing footage from Sunday, poking fun at some of the nominees including Gary Oldman, last year's best actress winner Emma Stone and others.

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5.30am Abu Dhabi:

Best Hair and Make-Up

WINNER Darkest Hour

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5.20am Abu Dhabi:

Best Supporting Actor

WINNER Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards in Ebbing, Missouri

Chris Newbould: Sam Rockwell paid tribute to his fellow nominees plus to his co-star Frances McDormand and director Martin McDonagh, as well as making a fond reference to his late friend Philip Seymour Hoffman.

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5.15am Abu Dhabi:

Rita Moreno says it was time for her gown from the 1962 Oscars to make a comeback, so she decided to wear it for Sunday's Oscars ceremony.

The 86-year-old actress told the story behind the gown she wore 56 years ago and how she never expected to win best supporting actress for her role in West Side Story.

Moreno recounted how she came to the 1962 Oscars "never dreaming I would win" because she was up against Judy Garland.

The Puerto Rican actress and singer flew in from the Philippines where she was "making a really crappy World War II movie, playing yet another native girl" and had a dress maker in Manila make the gown.

She remembers the dressmaker's name: Jose Moreno. No relation.

Moreno says she hopes he was watching and "gets to see this extraordinary dress again."

She told The Associated Press the dress has been hanging in her closet ever since, and needed a bit of adjusting in the back in order to wear on Sunday.

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4.55am Abu Dhabi:

Oscars confronts Hollywood sexual scandal on red carpet

Stars arrived on the Oscars red carpet on Sunday under sunny but breezy skies for an Academy Awards ceremony filled with suspense over which will win the best picture, and whether the Hollywood sexual misconduct scandal will steal the spotlight.

Jane Fonda, I, Tonya nominees Margot Robbie and Allison Janney, veteran Rita Moreno, Get Out star Daniel Kaluuya, Mudbound singer and actress Mary J Blige and Christopher Plummer were among the early arrivals.

Women sported flowing blue, lavender and white gowns, often embellished with sequins and crystals, in contrast to the black worn en masse at award ceremonies earlier this year to show support for victims of sexual harassment.

The best picture Oscar - presented at the end of the 210-minute show - is anyone’s guess this year.

Fox Searchlight fantasy romance The Shape of Water with a leading 13 nominations, Fox Searchlight dark comedy Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and Universal Pictures racial satire Get Out all have a fighting chance.

Three Billboards, the tale of an angry woman seeking justice for her daughter's killer, scooped multiple honours earlier this year, but Get Out, a bold horror movie that became a talking point around modern-day race relations in America, appears to have gained momentum in the last two weeks, awards pundits say .

Get Out director Jordan Peele, who also wrote the screenplay, said the film's message was that "we are never done with the conversation about race."

“I hope it plugged some hole and has helped inspire more conversation that is needed today,” Peele told reporters on the red carpet.

The sexual misconduct scandal that has rocked Hollywood and led to dozens of powerful men being fired or forced to stand down was also a hot topic on Sunday's red carpet.

Actress Salma Hayek, one of more than 70 women who accused film producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual impropriety, is among the Oscar presenters. Weinstein has denied having nonconsensual sex with anyone.

“Here we are to celebrate the fact that women will not have to struggle as hard together,” Hayek said on Sunday. “I know that future generations will have it easier.”

The Time’s Up campaign against sexual harassment in the wider workplace, spearheaded by celebrities including Reese Witherspoon and Ava DuVernay, is expected to be recognised in some form during Sunday's ceremony.

History could be made when the awards, chosen by some 8,000 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are handed out.

Peele could become the first black man in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' 90-year history to win a directing Oscar, while Lady Bird director Greta Gerwig could be only the second female to take home that prize.

Host Jimmy Kimmel is expected to turn into a running joke last year's embarrassing best picture envelope mix-up that saw musical La La Land being declared winner instead of Moonlight.

In the main acting races, Frances McDormand is heavily favoured to win for Three Billboards and British actor Gary Oldman's performance as wartime leader Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour is widely expected to bring his first Oscar.

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4.24am Abu Dhabi:

Early appearances on the red carpet

Looks in neutrals, reds and purples brought the drama Sunday on the Oscars carpet at Hollywood’s biggest fashion show.

Salma Hayek looked like exotic royalty in a heavily jewelled, light purple gown, while Rita Moreno honoured Academy Awards history by donning the same gown with a ball skirt she wore in 1962, when she won an Oscar for West Side Story.

Among early walkers in Los Angeles were a few Olympians, including skier Lindsey Vonn in a fringed black gown and diamond choker with statement red stones. Figure skaters Adam Rippon and Mirai Nagasu walked together. He wore belt-leather straps that crossed his chest and she chose a sheer, long-sleeve gown in soft blue.

Allison Williams of Get Out went for neutral. The film's writer-director, Jordan Peele, opted for a creamy white tuxedo jacket.

Among those in red was Allison Janney of I, Tonya, in long sleeves that fell to the ground. Sofia Carson wore a red cape gown with 26.10 carats of diamonds in her Chopard choker.

Presenter Ashley Judd was among the purple people, in a dark shade by Badgley Mischka, accompanied by diamond strands.

There was an abundance of white, including fitted looks worn by Jane Fonda, Laura Dern and Mary J Blige.

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11.30am Los Angeles time (11.30pm Abu Dhabi)

Associated Press: The (right) envelope, please. The Oscars will hope to live down their most infamous blunder at the 90th Academy Awards, which begin at 8 p.m. EST and will be broadcast live by ABC from the Dolby Theatre. But more than redemption is on the line Sunday for last year's embarrassing best-picture flub — the fiasco known as Envelopegate. The ceremony, to be hosted again by Jimmy Kimmel, will be the crescendo of one of Hollywood's most tumultuous awards seasons ever — one that saw cascading allegations of sexual harassment topple movie moguls, upended Oscar campaigns and new movements launched to improve gender equality throughout the industry.