THE best picture Oscar was won by Moonlight after La La Land was mistakenly announced as the winner.

The producers of the musical were concluding their speeches when it was announced that Moonlight was in fact the winner of the top prize of the night. Bonnie and Clyde stars Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway announced La La Land had taken the best picture prize until the film’s producer Fred Berger said: “This is not a joke. Moonlight is best picture,” and showed the camera the card that revealed the winner.

Beatty returned to the microphone to say: “I want to tell you what happened I opened the envelope and it said Emma Stone, La La Land and that is why I took such a long look at Faye and at you. I wasn’t trying to be funny. This is Moonlight for best picture.”

The film’s director Barry Jenkins said: “Very clearly even in my dreams this cant be true. But to hell with it because this is true. It’s true, its not fake.”

Paying tribute to the team behind La La Land, he said: “We have been on the road with these guys and it was so gracious and so generous of them.”

Producer Dede Gardner added: “I’m still not sure this is real. It’s very humbling to be up here and I hope it’s inspiring to little black boys and brown girls who feel marginalised. I hope they take some inspiration from seeing his beautiful group of artists.”

The ceremony kicked off with host Jimmy Kimmel thanking President Donald Trump for making the Oscars appear less racist. The talk show host said he knew the country was divided and he had been encouraged to say something that would unite people.

He said the ceremony was being watched around the world by “countries that now hate us” adding: “The country is divided right now, I’ve been been getting advice that I need to say something to unite us. Let me say something. I can’t do that. There is only one Braveheart in this room and he’s not going to do that either.”

He added: “I want to say thank you to President Trump. Remember last year when it seemed like the Oscars were racist? It’s gone!” Referring to nominated films Hidden Figures and La La Land, he added: “Black people saved Nasa and white people saved jazz, that’s what you call progress.”

During a break in awards, Kimmel said he was worried about President Trump because he had not yet tweeted anything about the ceremony.

The Salesman, directed by Iranian film-maker Asghar Farhadi, who is boycotting the ceremony because of Donald Trump’s travel ban, won the foreign language film Oscar.

In a statement read on his behalf, Farhadi, whose film A Separation won the same prize in 2012, said it was a “great honour” to receive the prize for a second time.

He added: “I’m sorry I’m not with you tonight, my absence is out of respect for the people of my country and the other six nations who have been banned. Dividing the world into the us and the enemy categories creates fear, justification for war.”

Gael Garcia Bernal and Hailee Steinfeld presented the award for best animated feature film to Disney’s Zootopia, which was released in the UK as Zootropolis. Before announcing the winner, the Mexican actor said: “As a Mexican, as a Latin American, as a migrant worker, as a human being, I’m against any form of wall that wants to separate us.”