This was a good year for gays at the Oscars — at least on screen. Of the 20 characters whose portrayers were nominated for acting Oscars, five — Glenn Close, Janet McTeer, Rooney Mara, Kenneth Branagh (as bisexual Laurence Olivier) and Christopher Plummer — were members of the LGBT community. (I also have my suspicions about Jonah Hill’s character.) In the end, only one — Plummer — ended up in the winners’ circle, but it was a sweet victory nonetheless.

Onstage, Meryl Streep’s makeup artist seemed to be the only gay winner, though you can never tell about those sound mixers.

For those keeping track, I correctly picked seven of the top eight categories (missing only original screenplay), but the raft categories proved to be a crap-shoot: some very puzzling victories (for instance, Hugo for visual effects over the far superior achievements of Rise of the Planet of the Apes) muddled things.

Although both won five Oscars, in head-to-heads between The Artist and Hugo, The Artist came out ahead, beating Hugo for best picture, director, score and costumes. Hugo beat The Artist in direct competition for cinematography and art direction. Remarkably, neither of the frontrunners won for their screenplays, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was the (happy) surprise winner for film editing.

See the list of last night’s winners after the jump:

Picture: The Artist

Director: Michel Hazavanicius, The Artist

Actor: Jean Dujardin, The Artist

Actress: Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady

Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer, Beginners

Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer, The Help

Original Screenplay: Midnight in Paris

Adapted Screenplay: The Descendants

Cinematography: Hugo

Film Editing: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Art Direction: Hugo

Costume Design: The Artist

Score: The Artist

Song: “Man or Muppet,” The Muppets

Sound Mixing: Hugo

Sound Editing: Hugo

Visual Effects: Hugo

Makeup: The Iron Lady

Foreign Language Film: A Separation

Animated Feature Film: Rango

Documentary Feature Film: Undefeated

Live Action Short Subject: The Shore

Animated Short Subject: The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

Documentary Short Subject: Saving Face