Pizza, politics, and selfies... but epic film steals the Oscars

Perhaps atoning for past sins, Hollywood named the brutal, unshrinking historical drama 12 Years a Slave best picture at the 86th annual Academy Awards.

Steve McQueen’s slavery odyssey, based on Solomon Northup’s 1853 memoir, has been hailed as a landmark corrective to the movie industry’s virtual blindness to slavery, instead creating whiter tales like 1940 best-picture winner Gone With the Wind. 12 Years a Slave is the first best-picture winner directed by a black filmmaker.