Director Martin Scorsese has finally been recognised by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences after he was named best director and his Irish-American gangster movie The Departedwas awarded four Oscars.
Martin Scorcese
Scorsese, who received his first directing nomination - for Raging Bull- in 1981 was awarded the directing prize that had eluded him throughout his illustrious career.
"Could you double-check the envelope?" said Scorsese, who had been the greatest living American filmmaker without an Oscar. He also had never delivered a best-picture winner before, despite crafting such modern masterpieces as Raging Bulland Goodfellas.
"So many people over the years have been wishing this for me," Scorsese said. The director received his Oscar from three friends, Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas.
The Departedled the evening with four Oscars, also winning for adapted screenplay and editing.
Best actress Helen Mirren with her Oscar for the role of Elizabeth II in The Queen
But in an evening when no one film dominated, three of the four acting front-runners won: best actress Helen Mirren as British monarch Elizabeth II in The Queen; best actor Forest Whitaker as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland; and supporting actress Jennifer Hudson as a soul singer in Dreamgirls.
"For 50 years and more, Elizabeth Windsor has maintained her dignity, her sense of duty and her hairstyle," said Mirren, who has won all major film and television prizes for playing both of Britain's Queen Elizabeths.
"She's had her feet planted firmly on the ground, her hat on her head, her handbag on her arm and she's weathered many many storms. . . . If it wasn't for her, I most certainly wouldn't be here. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the queen," Mirren said, holding her Oscar aloft.
Eddie Murphy of Dreamgirlslost to Alan Arkin for Little Miss Sunshinefor best supporting actor.
Arkin played a foul-mouthed grandpa with a taste for heroin in Little Miss Sunshine, a low-budget film that came out of the independent world to become a commercial hit and major awards player.
Little Miss Sunshinealso won the original screenplay Oscar for first-time screenwriter Michael Arndt.
Martin Scorses proudly displays his Oscar for best director
Hudson won an Oscar for her first movie, playing a powerhouse vocalist who falls on hard times after she is booted from a 1960s girl group. The role came barely two years after she was an American Idol finalist.
The nonfiction hit An Inconvenient Truth, a chronicle of Al Gore's campaign to warn the world about global warming, was picked as best documentary. "People all over the world, we need to solve the climate crisis. It's not a political issue. It's a moral issue," Gore said, joining the film's director, Davis Guggenheim, on stage.
An Inconvenient Truthalso won original song for Melissa Etheridge's " I Need to Wake Up."
Composer Gustavo Santaolalla won his second straight Oscar for original score for Babel. He won the same prize a year ago for Brokeback Mountain.
The dancing-penguin musical Happy Feetwon the Oscar for feature-length animation, denying computer-animation pioneer John Lasseter (Toy Story) the prize for Cars, which had been the big winner of earlier key animation honors.
The savage fairy tale Pan's Labyrinthtook three Oscars. The Spanish-language film won for art direction, makeup and cinematography.
Germany's The Lives of Others, about a playwright and his actress-girlfriend who come under police surveillance in 1980s East Berlin, won the foreign-language Oscar.
Letters From Iwo Jimawon the sound-editing Oscar for Alan Robert Murray and Bub Asman.
Sound engineer Kevin O'Connell extended his losing streak to 19 Oscar nominations without a win.
This time, O'Connell and two colleagues were nominated for sound mixing on Mel Gibson's Apocalyptobut lost out to Dreamgirls.