Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu was one of the few winners to remark passionately on diversity in his speech while accepting the Oscar for best director, arguing to make "the color of our skin as irrelevant as the length of our hair."
González Iñárritu is a back-to-back Oscar winner for best director for "The Revenant," which also allowed actor Leonardo DiCaprio to finally nail his much-desired best actor award.
The 19th-century survival story has DiCaprio portraying fur trapper Hugh Glass, which involved the actor plunging into icy waters and eating raw bison to better present his character's efforts to survive in the wilderness after a bear attack.
The actor been nominated five times for the Oscar, dating back to 1993's "What's Eating Gilbert Grape." Acting's highest honor has eluded him despite years of strong performances in films such as "The Aviator," and "The Wolf of Wall Street."
González Iñárritu won three Oscars at last year's ceremony, including for best picture and writing "Birdman." He was nominated in 2007 as best director for "Babel." "The Revenant" was this year's top-nominated film.
"The Revenant," which came in with a leading 12 nods and the favorite for best picture, notched an early, unsurprising win for its maverick cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezki.
Renowned for his use of natural light in lengthy, balletic shots, "El Chivo" Lubezki became the first cinematographer to win three times in a row (following wins for "Gravity" and "Birdman"), and only the seventh to three-peat in Oscar history.
