• The Revenant scores best picture, director and actor for Leonardo DiCaprio • Mad Max: Fury Road surprises with four wins • Carol – which led the nominations – goes home empty-handed

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Baftas 2016 live: watch the ceremony with us – as it happens Read more

Leonardo DiCaprio’s emotionally and physically gruelling performance as a vengeful frontiersman finally won him a best actor Bafta as his movie The Revenant dominated the marquee awards at the 2016 British film ceremony.

DiCaprio had been here three times previously, losing for The Aviator, The Departed and The Wolf of Wall Street.

This year the prize was his and he remains hot favourite to win at the Oscars. Accepting the award DiCaprio said he had been hugely influenced by British actors including Tom Courtenay, Gary Oldman, Peter O’Toole and Daniel Day Lewis.

The actor thanked many people but touchingly, he reserved his biggest thanks to the person who most helped him go from growing up in a rough neighbourhood, to being a superstar – his mother.

The Revenant won five awards in total including the most prestigious: best film.

Its director Alejandro González Iñárritu, who also won best director, said its Bafta success was “overwhelming”.

The 19th-century set film has generally and not cheerfully been described as a “living hell” by people who worked on it with the shoot intensified by Iñárritu’s determination to only film using natural light.

DiCaprio himself has described some of the scenes as the hardest he has ever had to do, not least the unforgettable bear-mauling scene in which the animal keeps on going back for more. His other experiences include sleeping naked in a horse carcass, gorging on raw bison liver and going in and out of a freezing Canadian river.

After The Revenant, honours were spread widely with success for Mad Max: Fury Road in the craft categories and prizes to Room, Steve Jobs, Bridge of Spies and Brooklyn. There was nothing, though, for much-admired and widely tipped Carol.

It was an evening over which the Oscars diversity debate loomed large with a small protest staged outside the ceremony. The #baftablackout protesters carried a banner which read: “The TV and film industry are male, pale and stale. In fear of diversity, opportunity and inclusion.”

Sacha Baron Cohen joked he was presenting the “leading white actress award”. To cheers it went to Brie Larson, who was absent filming King Kong in Australia, for her astonishing performance as an imprisoned mother in Room. She won from a list that also had Alicia Vikander, Cate Blanchett, Maggie Smith and Saoirse Ronan.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Job done … Kate Winslet won best supporting actress for her role in Steve Jobs. Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

Kate Winslet won her third Bafta – after Sense and Sensibility and The Reader – for her role as Apple marketing executive Joanna Hoffman in Steve Jobs. Winslet said she was “overwhelmed” to win in what had been an “extraordinary year for women”.

Kate Winslet: I was told to 'settle for the fat girl parts' Read more

Later she revealed the extraordinary “advice” given to her at school. “When I was younger, when I was 14, I was told by a drama teacher that I might do ok if I was happy to settle for the fat girl parts.

“So what I always feel in these moments is that any young woman who has ever been put down by a teacher, by a friend, by even a parent, just don’t listen to any of it, because that’s what I did – I kept on going and I overcame my fears and got over my insecurities.”

Mark Rylance, meanwhile, won his first film Bafta, best supporting actor for his performance as a Russian spy in Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies, triumphing from a strikingly strong list of Idris Elba, Benicio del Toro, Christian Bale and Mark Ruffalo.

Spotlight won one award, best original screenplay, with co-writer and director Tom McCarthy dedicating the award to the reporters on the Boston Globe, who broke the story of the Catholic church paedophile priest cover-up, and the survivors of the abuse.

The Big Short also came away with one award, best adapted screenplay for Adam McKay and Charles Randolph.

Unusually, no British film was up for overall best film but there was still the outstanding British film category, won by Brooklyn – Nick Hornby’s adaptation of Colm Tóibín’s award-winning novel.

Mad Max almost cleaned up in the craft categories. It won four Baftas for hair and make up, editing, costume design and production design.

The documentary award was won by the hotly tipped Amy, about the life and death of Amy Winehouse. Its director Asif Kapadia said it was a difficult film to make.

“In the end it was all about Amy, we really fell in love with her. The aim was to tell the truth, to show how witty, intelligent, beautiful she was before it all went out of control and things got crazy.”

Ennio Morricone, now 87, won the best music award for Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight – his sixth Bafta, although his last one was some time ago, Cinema Paradiso in 1991.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Star award … John Boyega with his EE rising star award. Photograph: Richard Kendal / Barcroft Media

Baftas 2016: full list of winners Read more

Star Wars triumphed in the special visual effects category while one of its stars, Peckham’s John Boyega, won the only award decided by the public – the EE rising star. Boyega thanked God, Bafta and the public.

Afterwards Boyega, who begins work on the second Star Wars from 6am on Monday, addressed the diversity debate. “I think it is important that the conversation around diversity carries on,” he said. “Keep talking and keep doing and that’s something that we should definitely fixate on and I believe things will eventually change because I’m trying to work and nobody’s going to stop me.”

A less serious spin on it came from comedian and actor Rebel Wilson, presenting best supporting actor.

She joked she had been “practising my transgender face” in the hope of securing an award in coming years.

“I’ve never been invited to the Oscars,” she continued deadpan “because as we know they are racists.” She went on to praise Bafta’s drive to increase its mix of voters. “We all like to see diverse members.” As if that were not enough, Wilson spoke of how she hoped Idris Elba might win. “I’m programmed to want chocolate on Valentine’s Day.

In the other awards, Inside Out won best animated film; the outstanding debut award went to Naji Abu Nowar and Rupert Lloyd for Theeb; Wild Tales won best film not in the English language; Edmond won best British short animation; and Operator won best British short film, which led to possibly the first ever Bafta thank you for the Fire Brigade’s Union.

The top mishap of the starry evening was Julie Walters losing an expensive loaned earring “probably worth the same price as my house”.

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And there were numerous excruciating moments including host Stephen Fry inelegantly joking that Mad Max costume designer Jenny Beavan had come “dressed as a bag lady”. Carrie Fisher’s scripted joke about needing subtitles for the Irish accent. And worst of all a Valentine’s Day “kiss-cam”, which honed in on various random pairs of celebrities including Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander who, grimly smiling, refused to go anywhere near each other.

This year’s Bafta fellowship was given to Sir Sidney Poitier, who turns 89 on Friday; and a special award for outstanding British contribution to cinema, went to Angels Costumes, a family-run theatrical costumiers, this year celebrating its 175th anniversary.