Fake Oscar Fiasco: Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway WRONGLY name La La Land best picture as directors are forced to stop their speech and hand statue BACK to rightful winner Moonlight in extraordinary scenes

There was disaster at the Oscars on Sunday night as Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway wrongly announced La La Land as the winner of Best Picture, rather than the triumphant Moonlight.

In a heart-stopping moment the stars and producers of La La Land were stopped midway through their acceptance speeches, before being forced to hand their trophies to the stars of Moonlight.

The terrible end to an otherwise triumphant show left the audience gasping in horror, stunned by the mishap - which appeared to have been caused by Beatty opening the wrong envelope.

In an attempt to explain what happened, Beatty returned to the stage and described how he opened the Best picture envelope to see Emma Stone's name and the words La La Land.

The unbelievable mishap came at the end of an otherwise flawless evening, which saw Casey Affleck and Emma Stone take home their first Oscar.

Casey won Best Actor for Manchester By The Sea, while Emma Stone was crowned Best Actress for her work in La La Land.

Just before that Damien Chazelle won Best Director for La La Land. The musical had already won four other gongs at the event held at the Dolby Theater.

It is already tied for most-nominations of all time and swept the original music categories as well as Best Production Design and Cinematography.

Before that Viola Davis took home her first ever Oscar was crowned Best Supporting Actress for her role in Fences.

The 51-year-old actress gave an impassioned speech about being an actress at the event held at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood on Sunday night.

Viola had tears in her eyes as she said: 'I became an artist, and thank God I did, because we are the only profession that celebrates what it means to live a life.'

It was also a crowning achievement as she became the first black actor to ever receive an Oscar, Emmy, and a Tony.

Earlier in the night, Mahershala Ali took home the gong for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Moonlight .

The 43-year-old Oakland, California-native made sure to button up his tuxedo as he said his grandmother would tell him to do so.

Ali had a very poignant moment during his speech as he talked about being an actor by explaining: 'It's not about you, it's about these characters, you are a servant.' 

The directors of Zootopia proudly accepted the Best Animated Feature Film gong.

One even got political during the acceptance speech as they talked about the theme of the movie as they said: 'Zootopia is a story of tolerance being more powerful than fear of the other.'

It was kicked off by an entertaining performance by Justin Timberlake as he did his Trolls hit Can't Stop The Feeling.

Then came out host Jimmy Kimmel and starts immediately joking about the state of the US before poking fun at Mel Gibson and saying he's going to bury the hatchet with Matt Damon.

The women of Hidden Figures - Taraji P. Henson, Janelle Monae, and Octavia Spencer - presented Best Documentary Feature as director Ezra Edelman dedicated the win to Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman.

Best Foreign Language Film was won by The Salesman but director Asghar Farhadi chose not to come due to the 'travel ban' but had a statement delivered on his behalf. 

Suicide Squad was a winner in the Best Make-Up And Hairstyling as Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them won Costume Design.

Sci-fi thriller Arrival was given Best Sound Editing and Hacksaw Ridge was awarded in the Sound Mixing category.

The annual awards ceremony hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognizes excellence in cinematic achievements in the film industry as assessed by the Academy's voting membership.

Romantic showbiz musical La La Land topped the Oscars nominations list with a whopping 14 nods.

The number ties the record set by Titanic and All About Eve and has a chance to beat the record 11 Oscars that have been won by Ben-Hur, Titanic and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

Its 10 other nominations came in nine categories.

After last year's #OscarsSoWhite controversy, seven of the 20 actors nominated for awards are non-white.

Industry pundits had predicted that a number of black actors and filmmakers would be recognized this year, after calls for a boycott erupted last year when no black actors were among the 20 nominees in the main acting categories.

In a bid to address the issue, the Academy subsequently named nearly 700 new members, almost half of them women and nearly as many people of color. 

The Academy's board of governors has vowed to double the number of female and ethnic minority members by 2020.

Nighttime talk show funnyman Jimmy Kimmel hosts Hollywood's glitziest ceremony this year.

Ahead of the awards Kimmel told USA Today that he's promising humor and respect.

'I think I have a pretty good sense this is not the Comedy Central Roast,' he joked.

'That’s not to say I won’t be making fun of people and things. I will but I do recognize for a lot of people this is the biggest night of their professional lives and the last thing I want to do is ruin it for someone.

The 49-year-old admitted that he was feeling the pressure to do well.

'It’s one thing to bomb on a Wednesday night in front of three million people,' he said. 'But it’s another thing entirely to bomb at the Oscars. It stays with you your whole life.'