One of the most fascinating, and finely balanced, duels in Oscar history has ended with my favourite film face down in the mud. The two main gladiators – No Country for Old Men, and There Will Be Blood – arrived fresh and wild from Texas with eight nominations apiece.

Both of these mythical films had good reason to believe they would share the biggest prizes. But in the end, the fight was shockingly lopsided. The Coen Brothers looted the most prestigious gongs. No Country for Old Men won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Adapted Screenplay.

Daniel Day-Lewis fought back by lifting the Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role with his magnificent performance in Paul Thomas Anderson’s towering yarn about crude oil and God. The only other honour There Will Be Blood could muster was a gong for Robert Elswit’s magnificent cinematography.

Did the American Academy get it right? I don’t think so, and it needs to be discussed. I’m gutted that a picture as immaculately assembled as There Will Be Blood has failed against a cartoon American parable, and a psycho wig played by Javier Bardem.

Bare shoulders and lots of red

Red frocks dominated the Oscars red carpet, with actresses demonstrating old-fashioned glamour in feathers and jewels

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What may have counted against Anderson’s film is the fact that it seems entirely obsessed with documenting a single performance: namely Day-Lewis. There is a truth to that. But I would argue that the film is far more meaty than the Coen Brothers impregnable epic.

Anderson’s film is an old-fashioned Biblical parable about America’s failure to square religion and greed. But most of all, it is a marvellously entertaining soap: a sort Dickens does Dallas, without the sex or swimming pools. No Country For Old Men is the most violent and infuriating film Joel and Ethan Coen have ever made. It’s a clever adaptation of a Cormac McCarthy story about the cruel indifference of the American West. The title is a Biblical warning that old-fashioned values no longer apply. The murder rate is ludicrously high, and the opening scene in the dusty Texas desert is a gory sensation.

But I simply don’t know what the last half hour of this Oscar-winner means. It’s a bloke’s film in the crudest sense of the word. The desert landscapes are framed like paintings, and the plot hardly breaks sweat. But for the life of me I could not picklock a meaning from the last chaotic, whimsical, in truth, desperately-looking-for-an-ending, reel. It creaks with significance, but I left the cinema not entirely convinced that the glittering plaudits it has won are entirely deserved

As regards the rest of the competition, I have to grudgingly concede that the 6,000 Academy members were not too far off the mark. Atonement got what it deserved: very little attention at all. Juno is a spry and clever comedy, and Ellen Page is a fabulous teenage delinquent. Yes it has grossed over $100 million at the box office. But this parochial comedy has as much artistic punch as a daffodil.

The dark horse thriller, Michael Clayton, is too familiar for words. It is a corporate corruption slow-burner like The Insider, and frankly I think we’ve had enough of these. George Clooney gets under the skin of the gambling addict hero quite brilliantly, but clearly not enough to swing an award.

This has been one of the most topsy-turvy Oscar nights I can remember. It is a serious joy to see Tilda Swinton winning - quite rightly - the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her terrific role as a corporate bitch in Michael Clayton. It is quite another matter to overlook Julie Christie for Best Actress in Away From Her. Marion Cotillard has sprung a massive surprise by stealing the Oscar for her performance as Piaf in La Vie En Rose. This is not a role for the fainthearted. Cotillard has to age entire decades as the film rattles unpredictably between the past and her deathbed. The cheeky fresh-faced girl who twists pennies from murky strangers morphs into a tight-faced diva as drugs and delusions of grandeur take a grip of her career. It is a gripping performance. But Elaine Paige did just a good a job on stage. And I think the failure to nominate Helena Bonham-Carter for her dilapidated performance as Mrs Lovett in Tim Burton’s musical, Sweeney Todd, is a ghastly oversight. She is Mrs Macbeth in this gothic, dark wonder.

What worries me – increasingly year on year, and as the Oscars begin to gel with independent cinema - is whether the American Academy should have such an influence on the commercial fate of the most interesting movies of the year. These awards have always been the magnetic north of the season. Once upon a time they were establishment gifts, and utterly out of sorts with what was going on. Now they are far more canny and aware of genuine mainstream quality, and the growing audience which this kind of cinema demands.

The American Academy did itself an enormous favour last year when it finally caught up with Scorsese. And any prize ceremony south of this calendar date will be lucky to pull a column inch. But I wonder if the glitz and glamour is starting to pull the entire year out of shape. This has been an exciting and exceptional three months for quality cinema. It is rare to see so many good movies fighting for space on the High Street. It's what we are left to watch for the rest of the year that concerns me. The Oscars are a supposed to be a glamorous distraction. Not a cause for concern.

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