Historical drama 12 Years a Slave has won best picture at the 86th Academy Awards, while space drama Gravity won the lion's share of awards.
Gravity's Alfonso Cuaron became the first Latino to win the best director award, adding to the film's six Oscars for technical achievement.
Cate Blanchett was named best actress for her portrayal of the heroine in Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine.
Matthew McConaughey won the best actor Oscar for Dallas Buyers Club.
Steve McQueen, the British director of 12 Years a Slave, dedicated the best film Oscar to "all those people who have endured slavery".
"Everyone deserves not just to survive, but to live," he said.
Based on a true story, it follows the life of Solomon Northup, a free black man in New York kidnapped and sold into slavery in Louisiana.
Producer Brad Pitt praised McQueen - an artist turned director whose previous films include Hunger and Shame - for "bringing them altogether" to tell Northup's story.
Cuaron praised the "transformative" power of film and singled out the film's star Sandra Bullock as "the soul, the heart of Gravity".
The film - which took five years to complete, and owes much to the technical prowess of British visual effects specialists - also won Oscars for film editing, sound mixing, sound editing, cinematography, visual effects and score.
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