Malaysian Michelle Yeoh became the first Asian woman to win best actress for her part in the science-fiction movie "Everything Everywhere All at Once". The film took seven gongs in total, with best picture, best director, best actress, best original screenplay, best editing, and both the best supporting actor and actress prizes.
"Everything Everywhere All at Once" dominated the Oscars on Sunday, winning seven golden statuettes including best picture, Hollywood's most coveted prize.
Michelle Yeoh, who is Malaysian, becomes the first Asian woman to win best actress, for her portrayal of an exhausted Chinese laundromat owner embroiled in battle with an inter-dimensional supervillain.
"Thank you to the Academy, this is history in the making!" she said.
"Ladies, don't let anybody tell you you are ever past your prime," added the 60-year-old, whose career began decades ago with martial arts films in Hong Kong.
"Everything Everywhere," comfortably the night's biggest winner, is a word-of-mouth smash hit that has grossed $100 million at the global box office.
In a plot that is not easily summarised, Yeoh's heroine Evelyn must harness the power of her alter egos living in parallel universes, which feature hot dogs as human fingers, talking rocks and giant dildos used as weapons.
The film was directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert.
Kwan thanked his "immigrant parents," while his counterpart thanked his mother for never "squashing my creativity," including when he had dressed in drag as a child.
"Which is a threat to nobody," he added, to enormous cheers.
Vietnam-born Ke Huy Quan, now 51 years old, who was a child star in the 1980s with "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" and "The Goonies," completed a stunning comeback from decades in the Hollywood wilderness by winning best supporting actor.
A night of career comebacks
Brendan Fraser won best actor for playing a morbidly obese teacher in "The Whale," capping a remarkable career comeback.
Fraser was a major action star in the late 1990s with films like "The Mummy," before largely disappearing from the public view.
"I started in this business 30 years ago, and things -- they didn't come easily to me," he said.
He thanked director Darren Aronofsky for "throwing me a creative lifeline and hauling me aboard the good ship 'The Whale.'"
"All Quiet on the Western Front," Netflix's German-language World War I movie, finished the night in second place with four awards.
It won best international feature and best cinematography early in Sunday's ceremony.
It also gathered Oscars for best original score and best production design.
In the night's other prizes, "Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio" won best animated film, and "Avatar: The Way of Water" won best visual effects.
"Navalny," about the imprisoned Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, was named best documentary.
