LOS ANGELES: First-time Oscars host Neil Patrick Harris opened Hollywood's biggest night of the year on Sunday with a fleeting but pointed jibe at the homogeneous field of Academy Award nominees, before launching into a spirited musical salute to the magic of movies.

“Tonight we honor Hollywood's best and whitest, sorry, brightest,” Harris enthusiastically dead-panned to hearty laughter that seemed to break the usual pre-show jitters among the movie royalty packing the auditorium of the Dolby Theatre.

The opening joke was a reference to the criticism Oscar voters faced this year for failing to nominate a single performer of color in any of the acting categories for the first time in many years.

Without wasting another moment, Harris, 41, segued into an opening song-and-dance tribute to the movies, showing off his chops as a live comedy-musical performer, and a conscious effort of Oscar producers to connect with tech-savvy younger television viewers.

“Check out the glamor, and glitter/ people tweeting on the twitter, and no one's drunk and bitter yet/ because no one has lost,” he sang.

Winners so far at the 87th Academy Awards

Here are the winners announced so far at the 87th Academy Awards on Sunday:

• Best Film: Birdman

• Best Actress: Julianne Moore for Still Alice

• Best Actor: Eddie Redmayne for The Theory of Everything

• Best Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu for Birdman

• Best Original Screenplay: Birdman

• Best Adapted Screenplay: The Imitation Game

• Best supporting actor: J.K. Simmons, Whiplash

• Best supporting actress: Patricia Arquette, Boyhood

• Best foreign language film: Ida (Poland)

• Best animated film: Big Hero 6

• Best cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki, Birdman

• Best costume design: The Grand Budapest Hotel

• Best make-up / hairstyling: The Grand Budapest Hotel

• Best production design: The Grand Budapest Hotel

• Best documentary short subject: Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1

• Best live action short film: The Phone Call

• Best animated short film: Feast

• Best sound mixing: Whiplash

• Best sound editing: American Sniper

• Best visual effects: Interstellar

• Best Original Song; 'Glory' from Selma

'Citizenfour' wins Oscar for best documentary

The Edward Snowden documentary Citizenfour has won the Oscar for best documentary. Laura Poitras' film documents her initial meeting in Hong Kong with Snowden, as well as journalist Glenn Greenwald.

It's an uncommonly intimate view of what became a historic and much debated act: Snowden leaking National Security Agency documents that revealed the previously undisclosed collection of Americans' phone and email records.

Snowden was charged under the federal Espionage Act and is currently living in asylum in Russia.

Because of the sensitive nature of the footage, Poitras made “Citizenfour” under intense secrecy and edited it in Germany.

The other nominees Sunday were: Virunga, Last Days of Vietnam, The Salt of the Earth and Finding Vivian Maier.

Patricia Arquette calls for equality at Oscars acceptance

Patricia Arquette won the Oscar for best supporting actress Sunday for her role in coming-of-age drama Boyhood, and embraced the moment to make an impassioned plea for gender equality.

It was Arquette's first Academy Award and she used her precious few seconds on the Oscar stage to demand equality for American women, a gesture which saw the Dolby Theatre roar in approval.

“To every woman who gave birth, to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation, we have fought for everybody's equal rights,” she boomed, reading off a piece of crumpled paper.

“It is our time to have wage equality once and for all, and equal rights for women in the United States of America,” she added to robust applause.

Arquette beat Laura Dern (Wild), Keira Knightley (The Imitation Game), Emma Stone (Birdman) and Meryl Streep (Into the Woods) to take Oscars glory.

Streep, a three-time Oscar winner, stood up and pointed to Arquette, applauding her equality message and shouting, “Yes!” Next to her was Jennifer Lopez, cheering.

Twitter lit up with supportive messages for what many predicted would be the most memorable moment of Sunday's gala awards ceremony.

The 87th Academy Awards are airing live with Neil Patrick Harris as host.