The Oscars suffered one of its worst blunders in history early today.

The best picture Oscar was won by Moonlight - butonly after La La Land was mistakenly announced as the winner.

The producers of the musical were concluding their speeches when it was announced that Moonlight was in fact the winner of the top prize of the night.

Bonnie and Clyde stars Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway announced La La Land had taken the best picture prize until the film's producer Fred Berger said: "This is not a joke. Moonlight is best picture," and showed the camera the card that revealed the winner.

Beatty returned to the microphone to say: "I want to tell you what happened I opened the envelope and it said Emma Stone, La La Land and that is why I took such a long look at Faye and at you.

"I wasn't trying to be funny. This is Moonlight for best picture."

The film's director Barry Jenkins said: "V ery clearly even in my dreams this cant be true. But to hell with it because this is true. I t's true, its not fake."

Paying tribute to the team behind La La Land, he said: "We have been on the road with these guys and it was so gracious and so generous of them."

Producer Dede Gardner added: "I'm still not sure this is real. It's very humbling to be up here and I hope it's inspiring to little black boys and brown girls who feel marginalised. I hope they take some inspiration from seeing his beautiful group of artists."

Chaos and confusion took over the stage as the casts of both films handed Oscars back and forth.

Two La La Land producers had already given their acceptance speeches before the mistake was revealed.

Host Jimmy Kimmel joked that he knew he would he would mess up compering the ceremony.

He added: "Personally I blame Steve Harvey for this," referring to Harvey's mistake in announcing the Miss Universe winner in 2015.

La La Land, which had scored a record-tying 14 nominations, ended up with just six wins, including best actress for Emma Stone and best director for Damien Chazelle, who is the youngest winner of the prize at 32.

Moonlight, which follows the life of a young black boy dealing with his sexuality, scooped three prizes in total, landing best picture, best adapted screenplay and best supporting actor for Mahershala Ali.

Casey Affleck won the best actor in a leading role Oscar for his role in Manchester By The Sea, beating fellow actors Ryan Gosling, Denzel Washington, Andrew Garfield and Viggo Mortensen.