For the third time in four years, 2015's Best Picture Oscar winner is a film about filmmaking or acting – raising questions about how a self-centered Hollywood chooses its top honorees.



Its best picture triumph follows that of 2012's black-and-white "The Artist," coincidentally also about a washed-up actor, in that case a silent movie star struggling to transition to the talkies.



The big controversy at this year's Oscars was the lack of racial diversity – every single one of the 20 acting nominees was white, and there were notably snubs for the main actor and director of Martin Luther King Jr. film "Selma".



Of the two front-runners going into Sunday's show, "Birdman" was written, produced and directed by Mexican Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu for some $18 million, while "Boyhood" cost only $4 million to make – over 12 years.

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