Brad Pitt passes a slice of pizza to Meryl Streep after host Ellen DeGeneres took orders from the crowd on Sunday, March 2. 
Director Steve McQueen, left, celebrates with the cast and crew of "12 Years a Slave" as they accept the Academy Award for best picture. 
Leonardo DiCaprio, left, congratulates Matthew McConaughey for winning the best actor Oscar for "Dallas Buyers Club." DiCaprio, who starred in "The Wolf of Wall Street," was also up for the award. 
Cate Blanchett reacts after winning best actress for her role in "Blue Jasmine." 
Angelina Jolie and Sidney Poitier present Alfonso Cuaron with the best director Oscar for "Gravity." 
Pink sings "Over the Rainbow" while scenes from "The Wizard of Oz" are projected in the background. The performance was a tribute to the film's 75th anniversary. 
DeGeneres channels Glinda the Good Witch from "The Wizard of Oz." 
Glenn Close presents the annual "In Memoriam" tribute. 
Bette Midler sings "Wind Beneath My Wings" during the "In Memoriam" segment. 
Lupita Nyong'o hugs McQueen after winning best supporting actress for her role in "12 Years a Slave." 
Amy Adams greets Bill Murray on stage. While reading the names of those nominated for best achievement in cinematography, Murray also mentioned director Harold Ramis, his "Ghostbusters" co-star who died last month at the age of 69. 
DeGeneres takes a moment during the show to orchestrate a selfie with a group of stars. Bradley Cooper, seen in the foreground, was holding the phone at the time. "If only Bradley's arm was longer," DeGeneres tweeted. "Best photo ever." It reportedly became the most retweeted post of all time. 
U2 performs its Oscar-nominated song "Ordinary Love" from the movie "Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom." 
Darlene Love sings while accepting the award for best documentary feature ("20 Feet from Stardom"). 
Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend perform a duet of "The Moon Song." 
DeGeneres gives Cooper scratch-off lottery tickets -- a "consolation prize" because he didn't win the Oscar for best supporting actor. 
Nyong'o dances with Pharrell Williams during his performance of "Happy." 
Jared Leto shakes hands with an audience member after winning the best supporting actor Oscar for his role in "Dallas Buyers Club." 
Anne Hathaway presents the award for best supporting actor. 
DeGeneres takes a selfie on stage near the start of the show. 
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- The 86th Academy Awards reached a 10-year ratings high
- Award shows have enjoyed a ratings resurgence thanks to social TV
- Ellen DeGeneres' celebrity selfie set a Twitter record
(CNN) -- The Academy Awards continued its upward climb in the ratings on Sunday, reaching a 10-year high with an average audience of 43 million viewers in the United States.
The awards telecast, typically the year's No. 2 television event behind the Super Bowl, has grown its total audience for each of the past three years, despite perennial complaints about its length (this year the show clocked in at 212 minutes). Last year, the Oscars averaged 40.4 million viewers.
Award shows in general have been enjoying a ratings resurgence, partly because of the popularity of so-called "social TV," the tendency for viewers to chat along with live TV on Facebook and Twitter. The Golden Globes scored its biggest audience in a decade in January, and the Grammys set what was essentially a modern-day ratings record in February.
The producers of Sunday's Oscars telecast and the host, Ellen DeGeneres, stoked the "social TV" phenomenon with a much-tweeted celebrity selfie. Twitter said it registered upwards of 14.7 million messages about the telecast on Sunday night.
ABC said the 43 million viewer total for the Oscars was the awards show's best since 2004, when "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" won best picture. In a key advertising demographic for the network, adults 18 to 49, the show had a 12.9 rating, down one-tenth of a point from last year.
The network also said that its special after-the-Oscars edition of "Jimmy Kimmel Live" grew its audience for the third year in a row, just like the awards telecast. The talk show averaged 6.99 million viewers.
If it was up to CNN's readers, Sunday's Academy Awards would've gone quite a bit differently. Over 86,000 readers voted in our Oscars ballot ahead of the big night -- here's who you thought should have won the gold: 
Sex, drugs and Leonardo DiCaprio. What's not to like? For CNN's readers, DiCaprio's performance in "The Wolf of Wall Street" was strong enough to finally win the often-snubbed actor an Oscar. 
Matthew McConaughey lost roughly 40 pounds in order to portray Ron Woodroof in "Dallas Buyers Club," and the Academy rewarded his commitment with the Oscar. 
Amy Adams was a revelation in "American Hustle," and 31% of you wanted to see her win the Oscar. And if not her, your second choice was Sandra Bullock for "Gravity." 
Adams and Bullock gave strong performances, for sure, but Cate Blanchett's work in "Blue Jasmine" won over several critics -- and, clearly, the Academy. 
Jared Leto put in work in order to fully become Rayon, a transsexual diagnosed with AIDS in "Dallas Buyers Club." CNN readers thought he should be the one to take home Oscar. 
Was this prize ever anyone else's but Leto's? Bradley Cooper, Jonah Hill, Barkhad Abdi and Michael Fassbender should all be acknowledged for their craft, but we don't think anyone thought they were going to win. 
If it was left up to readers, Jennifer Lawrence would've won her second Oscar on Sunday for her work in "American Hustle." The 23-year-old actress had an overwhelming 50% of the ballot votes. 
But it was Lupita Nyong'o's debut feature film role, as a viciously abused slave named Patsey in "12 Years a Slave," that won the award. 
Despite not getting a lot of love in the acting categories, Alfonso Cuaron's "Gravity" is an undeniable masterpiece of filmmaking, and 30% of CNN readers who voted in our ballot wanted to see Cuaron win best director. But 26% picked "12 Years a Slave" director Steve McQueen. 
CNN readers voted "12 Years A Slave" to win best picture of the year, with "American Hustle" being the second-most popular choice. 
Sure enough, McQueen's harrowing adaptation of Solomon Northup's narrative was the best picture of the year. 
