If George Miller’s bat-out-of-hell explode-a-palooza Mad Max: Fury Road hadn’t smoked the competition at Wednesday night’s Aacta awards there ought to have been riots on the streets.

In a ceremony at which most of the interest lay in the film categories – the audience was reminded several times that 2015 has been the highest local box office since 2001 – Miller’s fuel-guzzling phenomenon took both best film and best direction.

Mad Max won six additional prizes last week (including gongs for editing and cinematography) during the so-called industry Aactas. “Industry” being code for “not as many celebrities so the winners don’t need to be on the telecast”.

The original Road Warrior himself, Mel Gibson, announced Miller as best director (“oh hey, it’s George”) but the academy decided against assigning Miller the Baz Luhrmann treatment dished out in its 2013 ceremony, when a huge music and montage segment recapped all the director’s films (capped off with a standing ovation led by Luhrmann himself).

But why? Miller is an infinitely superior film-maker, with the possible caveat that he is less experienced in the acquisition and distribution of industrial-sized quantities of glitter. Imagine the weird kinky fun we could have been had with dancers frocked up in Mad Max’s BDSM outfits.

In that segment’s place was a more distinguished tribute to Cate Blanchett (receiving the Longford Lyell award for contribution to culture) which featured congratulatory messages from the likes of Martin Scorsese, Ridley Scott and Ron Howard. Ever distinguished and sensible, Blanchett used her acceptance speech to make the pertinent point that while healthy box office is great for business it is not the only measure of cinematic success.

The 2015 ceremony was a strange, flashy and at times tacky couple of hours that felt like as though it was directed, particularly the dancing boy band at the start, by a sober and thus artistically struggling Ruben Guthrie type (a film that left empty-handed). But proceedings were kicked off by Guthrie himself: the charismatic and funny actor Patrick Brammall, who’d make a perfect choice for MC.

The event included (like Ruben Guthrie) advertisements inside the show itself. Presenters talked up Presto’s “major new Home and Away event”, the conspicuous product placement the offspring of an unusual network ménage à trois. The ceremony was broadcast on Channel Seven, presented by Presto and sponsored by Foxtel Movies.

Kate Winslet deservedly took best lead actress for The Dressmaker; few foreigners have mastered the Australian accent as well as her. Her co-star Judy Davis made an equally deserving choice for best supporting actress. As the protagonist’s mother – an acid-tongued cat lady-like old bag – the two-time Oscar-nominated veteran stole the show.

So did Michael Caton in Last Cab to Darwin (for which he won best lead actor). Director Jeremy Sims’ cancer-infused road movie may not be a great film but Caton, who looked irresistibly droopy and weather-worn through-out, gave a great performance.

This year Aacta introduced a new category: the people’s choice award, which also went to The Dressmaker. This was presumably a way of eliminating the chance of any 2014-style controversies – when the low-budget, critically acclaimed horror pic The Babadook tied for best film with The Water Diviner. It was later revealed that The Babadook had won the initial count but the numbers had been run again using a different methodology, returning a win for Russell Crowe’s globetrotting multiplex hit.

Every year since its inception in 2011 (before which the ceremony was known as the more dignified-sounding AFI awards), the highest performing title at the box office has never failed to secure best film. According to Aacta, Red Dog is a superior work of art to Snowtown, and The Great Gatsby (now certified rotten on Rotten Tomatoes), with its record-equalling haul of 13 awards, is one of the finest feature films made in Australia.

But this year you couldn’t fault the winner of the main prize. The International Federation of Film Critics, after all, was so certain Miller’s dystopian action blockbuster was the best film of 2015 that it handed out its award in September – well before members could even view all the competition.