Chris Rock, Steve Martin take dig at Oscars during opening monologue

Actors Chris Rock and Steve Martin on Sunday (local time) took a dig at Oscars for snubbing female directors and artists of colour.

As soon as the duo made their way to the stage, they started taking digs at nominated movies in the Best Film category - 'Joker', 'Ford v Ferrari' and the 'Irishman', reported The Hollywood Reporter.

Rock went on to label the length of 'Irishman' (three and a half hours) as a first season of a show.

Martin and Rock also called out Brad Pitt, Mahershala Ali, Martin Scorsese and Jeff Bezos.

Ali has won two Oscars, but according to Rock, the awards will mean nothing if the former gets pulled over by the police.

Martin took a dig at Bezos, calling him a 'great actor'.

Rock, also made cheeky remarks at the Amazon CEO, saying, "When Bezos writes a cheque, the bank bounces. He got divorced and he is still the richest man in the world. He saw 'Marriage Story' and thought it was a comedy."

Earlier in the ceremony, Janelle Monae had taken the stage first, to perform an uptempo number, backed by dancers wearing costumes from nominated and snubbed films like Little Women, Joker, Midsommar and Us.

She was then briefly joined by Billy Porter, who sang a few bars of best song nominee Elton John's "I'm Still Standing".

Monae later returned to the audience to appreciate the women who directed films this year.

"I am so proud to stand here as a black queer woman celebrating telling stories. Happy black history month," Monae said.

At the end of her performance, she shouted, "Welcome to the 2020 Oscars".