Alexandre Desplat Academy Award win for The Shape of Water

An away win for France at the weekend, with composer Alexandre Desplat winning an Academy Award for the soundtrack to the movie The Shape of Water.

It's the second time Desplat has won an Oscar, having picked one up in 2015 for his work on The Grand Budapest Hotel. That year saw him nominated for two different films, the one that eventually won as well as The Imitation Game.

As well as his two wins, he's previously been nominated another seven times for an Academy Award, for films as varied as The Queen, Fantastic Mr Fox, The King's Speech, Argo and Philomena.

He's also previously won two Grammy Awards and three Baftas, as well as three Césars, for the soundtracks for The Beat that my Heart Skipped, The Ghost Writer and Rust and Bone.

The Shape of Water was nominated for 13 Oscars, and picked up four, most significantly the award for Best Picture and Best Director.

Desplat's soundtrack may not have been the critic's favourite for an award this year, that would probably be Jonny Greenwood's work for Phantom Thread. However, The Shape of Water also features a cover of Gainsbourg's La Javanaise by Madeleine Peyroux, hopefully introducing his work to another new audience.

There may have been no French films in the Best Foreign Language category this year, and while Agnes Varda was one of the four recipients of an honourary awards this year, there was no victories on the scale of Jean Dujardin or Marion Cotillard.

But an Oscar for a French musician? Very welcome indeed.