In his opening monologue to the 98th Academy Awards, host Conan O’Brien issued a note of caution to easily offended viewers.

“I warn you, tonight could get political,” O’Brien said. “If that makes you uncomfortable, there’s an alternative Oscars being hosted by Kid Rock at a Dave & Buster’s down the street.”

I found myself rolling my eyes a little at the suggestion that Hollywood’s biggest night was ready to face up to the the bleak realities of the world. But this year’s Oscars turned out to be unusually polemical for a night of glamour and glitz, even if there was plenty of the latter too.

You could put that down the dominance of films that deal with social issues in the nominations field, including Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, which won six awards including best picture, and Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, which went home with four trophies. Or perhaps you could attribute it to the increasing pressure for celebrities to speak out. But maybe it is simply that the mounting global horrors are harder than ever to ignore.

While presenting the award for best international feature film, Javier Bardem spoke with unapologetic directness, saying: “No to war, and free Palestine.” Los Angeles’s Dolby Theatre immediately burst into applause.

As the biggest winner of the evening with six trophies, One Battle After Another took home best picture, director, adapted screenplay, supporting actor (Sean Penn), editing, and the Academy’s new best casting award. The epic, decade-spanning film focuses on a rebel group fighting a cruel authoritarian government faction who round up immigrants in detention centers in an effort to make America great once again.

In his acceptance speech for best adapted screenplay, Paul Thomas Anderson seemed to acknowledge the parallels between his film and the current political climate. “I wrote this movie for my kids, to say sorry for the housekeeping mess that we left in this world we’re handing off to them,” he said. “But also with the encouragement that they will hopefully be the generation that brings us some common sense and decency.”

Meanwhile, Sentimental Value director Joachim Trier seemed to criticize short-sighted global leaders (or perhaps just one global leader) while accepting the best international feature film award for Norway. “All adults are responsible for all children,” he said. “Let’s not vote for politicians that don’t take this seriously into account.”

Last year, the Academy of Motion Pictures expanded its membership by 40% in a move to increase diversity. Approximately 45% of new invitees were people of color, while 41% were women. Winners’ speeches throughout the evening focused on inclusion and the importance of trailblazers.

“I stand here because of the people that came before me,” said Michael B Jordan while accepting his best actor award for Sinners. He listed icons Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, Halle Berry, Jamie Foxx, Forest Whitaker and Will Smith as among the Black actors who had paved the way.

In a tearful acceptance speech for best animated feature film, KPop Demon Hunters co-director Maggie Kang said: “I’m so sorry that it took us so long to see us in a movie like this. But it is here. And that means that the next generations don’t have to go longing. This is for Korea and for Koreans everywhere.”

In a press conference before the Oscars on Wednesday, O’Brien said that balancing politics and humor was a “very, very thin line”.

On Sunday night, O’Brien effectively threaded that needle. After the evening’s first commercial break, the host poked fun at Donald Trump naming American institutions after himself. “We’re coming live from the ‘has a small penis theater’,” O Brien joked. “Let’s see him put his name in front of that.”

One of the evening’s most powerful speeches came from the team behind Netflix’s documentary short All the Empty Rooms, which spotlights the empty bedrooms of children killed in school shootings. “My daughter Jackie was nine years old when she was killed,” said Gloria Cazares, a subject of the film, while accepting the award for best documentary short alongside the film-makers.

“Since that day, her bedroom has been frozen in time,” Cazares continued. “Gun violence is now the number one cause of death in kids and teens. We believe that if the world could see their empty bedrooms, it would be a different America.”

The team behind best documentary feature winner Mr Nobody Against Putin seemed to address ICE killings in the US in their acceptance speech. “We act complicit when a government murders people on the streets of our major cities,” said co-director David Borenstein. “When we don’t say anything when oligarchs take over the media and control how we produce it and consume it. We all face a moral choice, but even a nobody is more powerful than we think.”

In a rare tie, the Oscar for best live action short film went to both The Singers and Two People Exchanging Saliva. In an acceptance speech for the latter, co-director Natalie Musteata thanked the academy “for supporting a film that is weird and queer and made by a majority of women”.

The Academy Awards has track record of keeping politics at arm’s length, but this year signaled that this ethos may be shifting. Last year, Adrien Brody, Daryl Hannah and the No Other Land film-makers were among the few that addressed political issues. Best actor winner Brody spoke of the importance of learning from the past to “not let hate go unchecked”, while presenter Hannah went off script to declare “Slava Ukraini!” (“Glory to Ukraine”). Meanwhile, No Other Land co-director Yuval Abraham called for an end to the Gaza conflict and the release of Israeli hostages.

On the Oscars’ red carpet tonight, film-makers from the Middle East spoke pointedly about current conflicts in the region. The team behind best international feature nominee The Voice of Hind Rajab wore pins designed in collaboration with artist Shepard Fairey in a demand for a “permanent ceasefire” to the Israel-Gaza war. The film’s Palestinian lead actor Motaz Malhees was unable to attend the Oscars due to the US travel ban. “You can block a passport,” Malhees wrote. “You cannot block a voice.”

The Iranian directors of best documentary feature film nominee Cutting Through Rocks expressed their solidarity with the people of Iran. “Change is possible from within, not the other way around,” said co-director Sara Khaki. “We are here to stand by the rights of our people.”

Meanwhile, lighthearted bits at the Dolby Theatre took aim at AI, reflecting a widespread Hollywood concern over the technology that threatens many film industry jobs. While presenting the awards for best animated feature film and short film, actor and comedian Will Arnett said: “Tonight, we celebrate people, not AI,” as the audience clapped. “Animation is more than a simple command: it’s an art form that deserves to be protected.”

Early in the evening, the show aired a fake commercial for AI Ventura Crossroads, a fictional company who preserves classic films for the iPhone generation by making them “very skinny” and “very tall”; the ad showed clips of classic films such as North By Northwest and When Harry Met Sally that had been butchered after being cropped to fit a vertical video formats.

Towards the end of his opening monologue, O’Brien took on a serious tone while discussing the pressures of the current political climate. “Everyone watching right now, around the world, is all too aware that these are very chaotic, frightening times,” he said.

“It’s at moments like these that I believe that the Oscars are particularly resonant: 31 countries across six continents are represented this evening, and every film we salute is the product of thousands of people speaking different languages, working hard to make something of beauty.”

On Sunday night, you could hear many of those voices more loudly than ever.