Oscar organisers began giving out film industry gold last Saturday when they bestowed honours on four movie veterans, including groundbreaking directors Jean-Luc Godard and Francis Ford Coppola.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science gathered a who’s who of Hollywood A-listers — including Clint Eastwood, Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, Oliver Stone and Robert De Niro — for their annual Governors Awards to give honorary Oscars to Godard, actor Eli Wallach and film historian Kevin Brownlow, for their work in the industry. Godfather director Coppola was given the night’s biggest honour, the Irving G. Thalberg Award, for visionary producing.

Star Wars creator George Lucas recounted how Coppola, the writer of Patton and director of Apocalypse Now, had been his filmmaking mentor and said Coppola had blazed trails for many of his contemporaries in the late 1960s and ’70s. “He was our leader. He was our inspiration,” Lucas said before giving Coppola the Thalberg trophy, which is considered the highest honour the Academy can give.

Coppola, seated with family members including his wife of 48 years, Eleanor, his son Roman and daughter Sofia, took the stage and hugged Lucas, likening him to a younger brother. “I have a great love of the original Hollywood tradition,” Coppola said. This marked only the second year the Academy has given away the honourary Oscars and a Thalberg statuette at the Governors Awards at the dinner. Until last year, the group had always handed out the honours on the same night as the Academy Awards.