DiCaprio’s Best Actor Win Is Most-Tweeted Oscar Minute Ever; Eclipses DeGeneres’ Starry Selfie

It took Leonardo DiCaprio five tries and 23 years to win an acting Oscar — and when he took the Best Actor Academy Award last night, the Twittersphere breathed a collectively massive sigh of relief, sending out huzzahs fast as it could from around the globe. DiCaprio’s win for The Revenant generated more than 440K tweets per minute, the social media site said this morning. That makes it the most-tweeted minute of an Oscars telecast ever, beating the previous record of 255K per minute, set when @TheEllenShow blasted Ellen DeGeneres’ star-studded selfie from Oscar 2014 (the photo maintains the record for retweets of a single Oscar post at over 3.3M).

DeGeneres was one of those chiming in last night:

He did it! He really did it! @LeoDiCaprio, I love you #Oscars

— Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) February 29, 2016

DiCaprio is still trending at No. 2 on Twitter in the U.S. this morning amid social media cries of “Finally!” and photoshopped snaps of him embracing an Oscar. Kate Winslet features prominently in photos of one embrace that was caught between the former co-stars on stage:

Oscar Moments: best actor winner #LeonardoDiCaprio embraces #KateWinslet backstage at #TheOscars. @RevenantMovie pic.twitter.com/XatvsgAX9c

— AP Entertainment (@APEntertainment) February 29, 2016

DiCaprio received a standing ovation at the Dolby last night and footnoted his thank yous with an impassioned plea for the planet in the face of climate change. That has also gone down well with the Twitter crowd. DiCaprio’s own account pushed these out last night:

Thank you to the Academy and the incredible cast & crew of #TheRevenant. #Oscars

— Leonardo DiCaprio (@LeoDiCaprio) February 29, 2016

#ClimateChange action starts w/ electing leaders who’ll make brave & vital changes needed to save our planet. Visit https://t.co/PWFl863hdq

— Leonardo DiCaprio (@LeoDiCaprio) February 29, 2016

Even London’s Odeon Leicester Square got in on the action. The theater that regularly holds red carpet world premieres, really, really wanted DiCaprio to win last night, having changed its marquee to read “LEODEON” earlier this week. Last night it screened back-to-back DiCaprio classics and sent a special message on its jumbotron:

Special message of congratulations to #LeonardoDiCaprio – from Leicester Sq, London @GMB pic.twitter.com/hJ84V7X6qP

— Nick Dixon (@NickDixonITV) February 29, 2016

Beyond DiCaprio’s win, the most buzzed about moments measured by tweets and according to Twitter were Spotlight‘s Best Picture win and Mad Max: Fury Road scooping its 6th Oscar of the night, for Sound Mixing.