In the end, there were no real surprises.
After last year's landmark Best Picture victory for Moonlight, there was a quiet hope that the Academy - mocked for being 76% men and 94% white as recently as 2014 - was diversifying its membership enough so that films about BAME experiences would continue to stand a real chance in the biggest categories.
And yet for Get Out - easily the most unforgettable, innovative and scorchingly relevant film of the year - only the consolation prize of a richly deserved Best Original Screenplay nod for Jordan Peele.
Should Brit newcomer Daniel Kaluuya have won Best Actor? Probably not. The best actor awards are ostensibly for a single performance, but often really for a body of work. Like Leo in 2016, Gary Oldman's time had come, and you have to hope Kaluuya will get another shot soon after what has been an extraordinary breakout year.
But a Best Picture award for Get Out would have signalled - even more than the success of Moonlight - that real change was underway in Hollywood. This wasn't just a film about the black experience of racism in 2018. It was one that held up a mirror to even the most self-avowed liberals and confronted them with the role they play in the often pernicious nature of discrimination - even when they think they are not. Plenty of great films have reflected the violence of overt racism: few the subtleties of white privilege. With great humour and visual flair, Get Out contained many of the same unsettling but important truths British readers could find in journalist Reni Eddo-Lodge's Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race released last summer, a book that is rapidly finding powerful fans across the Atlantic.
Had the Academy bestowed its highest honour on Get Out, it would have not only helped heal its own #sowhite reputation but, far more importantly, given the loudest and clearest message it could that this film deserves to be seen by as many people as possible.
The actual winner, The Shape Of Water, was a fine feat of immersive filmmaking but one with little to say beyond its own stunning realised world. As such, it was ultimately a safe choice for the Academy. The same can be said Guillermo del Toro's win for Best Director over Jordan Peele (or Greta Gerwig for that matter, although Lady Bird was arguably stronger in its writing and performances).
Of course, even a cursory glance over Oscars history reminds us that 'Best Picture' doesn't usually go to the film history eventually remembers most fondly. There are more obvious examples - Citizen Kane losing to How Green Was My Valley in 1942, Goodfellas making way for Dances With Wolves in 1991 - though for my money, Birdman beating Boyhood in 2015 was the most egregious example, a perfect example of how Hollywood favours films about itself over films about audiences.
The question of whether the Oscars 'matter' is one that comes up every year, and while the glitz and self-congratulation can be grating for ordinary people, it is also true is that the entertainment industry can be a bellwether for the way society wants to change and see itself - just look at the way the MeToo movement originated in Hollywood but is now rippling across less glamorous industries around the world.
But it in the end, Hollywood doesn't get to decide anything. Jordan Peele's film is already one of the highest grossing horrors of all time, and film of any genre in 2017. When the red carpet has been rolled up and the stage dismantled, there is reason to hope Get Out will be remembered for what it deserves to be: the film the people chose, if not the establishment.
