+++ 87th Academy Awards - live updates +++
February 23, 2015
All updates in Universal Coordinated Time (UTC)
Stay with DW for updates on the 2015 Oscars.
05:05 BEST PICTURE - "Birdman"
"Birdman" takes home the biggest prize of the night. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's dark comedy about an aging actor trying to mount a career comeback by staring in a broadway play also took home awards for best director as well as best cinematography.
Michael Keaton, who portrays the film's lead character said "this has been a tremendous experience," as the cast accepted the award on stage.
04:57 BEST ACTRESS - Julianne Moore, Still Alice
After being previously nominated four times for the Academy Award, American actress Julianne Moore scoops Best Actress.
In a nod to her fellow nominees, Moore says there is "no such thing as best actress."
04:51 BEST ACTOR - Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything
British actor Eddie Redmayne takes home Best Actor award for his portrayal of physicist Stephen Hawking.
"This Oscar belongs to all those people around the world battling ALS," Redmayne said.
04:40 BEST DIRECTOR - Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu wins for "Birdman"
The Mexican-born Inarritu grabs his second oscar of the night, having earlier received the best original screenplay award.
He is the second Mexican in a row to win the top directing prize. Fellow countryman Alfonso Cuaron won last year for space thriller "Gravity."
"I am very, very thankful, grateful, humbly honored by the Academy for this incredible recognition."
"All the work of these incredible fellow filmmakers can't be compared, can't be labeled, can't be defeated, because they exist and our work will be judged, as always, by time," Inarritu said of his fellow nominees.
03:51 BEST DOCUMENTARY - Laura Poitras' Edward Snowden film "Citizenfour" wins for best documentary. The film depicts Poitras' first meeting with Snowden and journalist Glenn Greenwald. Due to the sensitive nature of the material, Poitras filmed the feature under intense secrecy and edited it in Germany.
Greenwald stood beside Poitras during her acceptance speech.
"The most important decisions being made affecting all of us are made in secret. We lose our ability to check the powers that control," Poitras said upon accepting her award.
"Thank you to Edward Snowden for his courage and for the many other whistleblowers, and I share this with other journalists who are exposing truth."
03:25 BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY - Emmanuel Lubezki wins his second Oscar in a row for cinematography, following up his 2014 win for "Gravity" with a second triumph for his work on "Birdman."
03:04 BEST VISUAL EFFECTS - Christopher Nolan's space epic "Interstellar," which was not considered in the major categories, takes home the Oscar for best visual effects.
02:54 BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS - Patricia Arquette wins for her role in the coming-of-age drama "Boyhood," and used the opportunity to make a plea for equal pay for women.
"To every woman who gave birth, to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation, we have fought for everybody's equal rights," Arquette said.
"It is our time to have wage equality once and for all, and equal rights for women in the United States of America."
Meryl Streep and Jennifer Lopez appeared to agree.
02:11 BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM - "Ida," by Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski takes the top prize.
Told in black-and-white images, the film is a poignant coming-up-age story of a Polish orphan who is raised as a nun, but grows up to discover her true identity.
Pawlikowski ran drastically over the 45-second alloted time for his acceptance speech, using the opportunity to thank "my Polish friends who are in front of the TV, the crew who were in the trenches with us and who are totally drunk now, and you were fantastic."
01:43 BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR - JK Simmons wins for his portrayal in "Whiplash" of a music teacher who drives his students to the brink of nervous breakdowns.
bw/mk (AP, AFP, Reuters)