Boyhood won both Best Director and Best Film. Its third award came in the shape of Best Supporting Actress for front runner, Patricia Arquette. Birdman, although much-fancied, had to content itself with a solitary gold mask for Cinematography. Even leading man Michael Keaton lost out in the Best Actor category to Eddie Redmayne as Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything.
The other big loser on the night was The Imitation Game, which was there just to make up the numbers. Conversely, The Grand Budapest Hotel, which topped the nominations list with 11 nods, managed to convert five of those into wins - Costume Design, Make Up/Hair, Original Screenplay, Production Design, and Original Music - making it the big winner on the night. The Theory of Everything completed a hat trick of awards by taking Outstanding British Film and Adapted Screenplay, while Whiplash formed a trio of its own with wins in Sound, Editing, and, inevitably, Best Supporting Actor, which went to J. K. Simmons for his terrifying turn as the music teacher.
Best Actress went to Julianne Moore for Still Alice, a film that isn't released in the UK until next month. The chances of her doing anything but winning come Oscar night are getting increasingly remote. Best Film Not in the English Language went to the beautiful Polish movie, Ida, while Best Documentary went to the Edward Snowden film, Citizenfour.