Casey Affleck won the Oscar for Best Actor for his subtle yet heartbreaking role in Manchester by the Sea.

Affleck, who played Lee Chandler, accepted the Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role Sunday night, from last year's Best Actress winner Brie Larson. He beat fellow Best Actor nominees Andrew Garfield for Hacksaw Ridge, Ryan Gosling for La La Land, Viggo Mortensen for Captain Fantastic and Denzel Washington for Fences.

Affleck previously won a slew of Best Actor prizes from various award groups, including the Golden Globes, BAFTA, the Critics' Choice Awards, the Independent Spirit Awards, the National Society of Film Critics, the National Board of Review, the New York Film Critics Circle and the Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association.

Many had wondered if Washington could upset the race and win Best Actor, after he defeated Affleck at the Screen Actors Guild Awards. SAG is often a huge precursor for Oscar glory, but it does not always correlate, as seen this year.

Affleck is a previous Oscar nominee, having been nominated in Best Supporting Actor for playing Robert Ford in 2007's The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. He has been acting in films since 1995's To Die For, and is most known for Gone Baby Gone, the Ocean's trilogy, Out of the Furnace and The Killer Inside Me.