And that’s that. No tie for best film like last year, make that January. The Dressmaker takes the audience choice gong but Mad Max: Fury Road wins the all important academy vote. Sounds about right – at least Guardian chief film critic Peter Bradshaw would approve. Compare and contrast his reviews of the two films.

Here at Guardian Australia we’re actually fans of both movies, as well as Peter Allen: Not the Boy Next Door, which took the top TV award tonight, alongside acting nods for its old and young leads.

Tomorrow you’ll be hearing from our own boy next door, Luke Buckmaster, on all the worthy and not so worthy winners. Here’s a clue about his feelings.

We’ll also have news, pics and videos – all the fun stuff. As the media room goon just said: “Famous people! Winning awards! It’s great!” Thanks for reading, film fans.

The big one ... how did we get here already?

So will it be:

• The cars and sand and searing fifth wave feminism of Mad Max: Fury Road; the Clint Eastwood with a sewing machine of The Dressmaker; the roadtrip and middle age romance of Last Cab to Darwin; the schooldays-to-deathbed love story of Holding the Man; or even Paper Planes, the little kids film that could? Click on those links for our reviews.

And the Aacta award for best film presented by Presto goes to Mad Max: Fury Road. It’s only the latest in a long line of accolades for the film that some people say will carry it right through to the Academy Awards next year.

Masterchef beats down strong competition from Real Housewives of Melbourne, The Voice Australia, and its rival in all things culinary, My Kitchen Rules.

Too bad we picked the wrong team to chat to (and photobomb) on the red carpet. But on the upside, we got to talk about OFFAL!

A picture will suffice!

Mad Max: Fury Road’s first big win of the night!

Luke Buckmaster recently chatted to the award-winning George Miller about the intricate plotting behind each Mad Max: Fury Road character.

The nicely satirical shortlist (who said the genre was dead?) is as follows:

• Danger Five
• Sammy J and Randy in Ricketts Lane
• Shaun Micallef’s Mad As Hell
• Utopia

Want to know more about how Danger Five took on Hitler and North Korea. Then read this.

But the gong goes to Shaun Micallef, who talked to Guardian Australia recently about his latest big challenge: how to make Malcolm Turnball funny. Good luck on that, Shaun.

Shaun’s obviously working hard anyway, as he’s not here to pick up his gong. But his colleague talks about why it works so damn well.

Interview guy: “How do you make genuine fun that’s still intelligent?”

Stand-in dude: “You’ve got to allow people to be offended.”

A good lesson for Guardian journalists and commenters too.

... and talk of the devil. Best supporting actor in a film goes to Hugo Weaving for The Dressmaker.

He pays tribute to a whole bunch of women: Rosalie Ham, who wrote the book, producer Sue Maslin, but most of all, the director Jocelyn Moorhouse. “It was a treat to work with you again”.

Weaving’s referencing Moorhouse’s killer of a thriller, Proof, “the first film I ever did that really excited me”, he says. Here’s Luke Buckmaster’s blog on it.

The wonderful Judy Davis also takes best supporting actress for The Dressmaker, well on its way to becoming the biggest winner of the night.

(NB If you haven’t checked out Luke’s “rewatching” series yet, you should. It’s a weekly treat!

... goes to ABC’s new paranormal show Glitch. Which just goes to show you can’t go wrong with the undead, some wit in the media room comments.

Here’s its star Paddy Brammall (whose film Ruben Guthrie is also up in the film categories) talking about playing Sergeant James Hayes, an “unassuming, unambitious” cop in the small country town of Yoorana, who discovers a group of six naked and filthy figures wandering around the local cemetery. To further complicate matters, one of the walking undead is Hayes’ late wife. Uh-oh!

Kate Winslet and Michael Caton take the crowns respectively for The Dressmaker and Last Cab to Darwin. No prizes for guessing who turned up and who phoned in via Skype.

Though credit to Winslet, she’s in jolly form, crediting her Aussie dialect coach (“I think we got away with it”) and bemoaning that she didn’t brush her hair for the camera.

“Comedies never win best actor,” says Caton (still best known for 1997’s The Castle) later in the press room. “It’s always drama.” And what a drama Last Cab to Darwin was - it had at least two Guardian Aus culture writers weeping in the Dendy Newtown anyway.

Oh and The Dressmaker is already racking them up. It’s won the audience choice award for best Australian film too.

Is Max Mad furious yet? We’re spoiling for a fight. But here’s a fact for you ...

And while we blinked, they’ve awarded some other acting awards

• Pamela Rabe takes best lead actress in a TV drama for Wentworth, which is sure to please all the Wentworth fans who’ve been tweeting us madly all day ... (you can get us on @gdnausculture by the way)

• Joel Jackson (nominated twice in this category) takes best lead actor in a TV drama for Peter Allen: Not the Boy Next Door (though he wasn’t bad in Deadline Gallipoli either).

In the media room, he says of his character: “His humility was something that astonished me. You can hear it and see it in his writings.” Here’s a great read on what made Allen such an Aussie legend.

So let’s get this bit out of the way first. It wouldn’t be an Australian red carpet without Cate Blanchett walking it. Or an film awards do without her winning one. Tonight it’s the lifetime achievement / contribution one.

The actor looked her usual serene self earlier posing for the paps. But now she’s super embarrassed in the stalls as her old muckers Richard Roxburgh and Hugo Weaving take to the stage to start the praisefest.

“Cathy Blankett” as the fresh-faced Melburnian used to be known, says Weaving, always gives everything she has. Even her snot, says the Rox, who remembers “exiting most evenings covered in it” when they co-starred in Hamlet back at the start of their careers.

(in fact, he told us the same story on the red carpet earlier)

Cue tribute reel, with directors including Bruce Beresford, Sam Raimi, Ron Howard, Martin Scorsese and Alejandro González Iñárritu queueing up to eulogise La B.

Refreshingly, it’s a woman director, Gillian Armstrong who’s allowed on stage to talk about the fresh-faced NIDA graduate she auditioned for Oscar and Lucinda way back in 1997, before Blanchett arrives to accept her award.

Could she be in Oscar talks again next February? Let’s see.

Time comes round quickly doesn’t it! Particularly when The Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts moves its biggest awards shindig of the year from January back to December. So 11 months after the last time we were here, we’re back at the Star in Sydney to bring you all the gossip, gongs and gowns from another starry night. It’s the Aactas 2015. Again!

If you need to catch up on who is up for what, here’s our story. It’s cars versus clothes with Mad Max: Fury Road and The Dressmaker taking the most nominations.

But who will take the big one: best Australian film of the year? Stay with us to find out.