Race relations drama Crashpulled off a stunning upset at the Oscars ceremony overnight by winning the best film honour over the heavily favoured Brokeback Mountain.
Brokeback Mountain, a film about two cowboys who fall into a love, won three awards overall, including Ang Lee as best director, Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry for best adapted screenplay, and Gustavo Santaolalla for best original score.
Reese Witherspoon gives her acceptance speech after winning the best actress award for her role in Walk the Line. Photo: Reuters
Coming into the evening, the film led its rivals with eight nominations, two more than Crashand George Clooney's moral tale Good Night, and Good Luck.
Crash's success was an upset because Brokebackwon most all of Hollywood's best film honours heading into last night's Oscars. The film's producer Cathy Schulman thanked Oscar voters for honouring a film "about love, about tolerance, about truth".
Crashalso won the Oscar for best original screenplay for writers Paul Haggis, who also directed the movie, and for writing partner Bobby Moresco.
The Irish playwright-turned-film-maker, Martin McDonagh, won the award for the short film Six Shooter. McDonagh's film is a black comedy starring Brendan Gleeson as a man who takes a train journey on the day his wife dies and encounters an oddball fellow passenger.
Philip Seymour Hoffman was named best actor playing homosexual writer Truman Capote in Capote, and Reese Witherspoon's performance as country singer June Carter in the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Lineearned her the Oscar for best actress.
Good Night, and Good Luckfailed to win any Oscars, but its George Clooney, who directed and co-wrote the film, won best supporting actor for his turn as a world-weary CIA agent in oil drama Syriana.
British actress Rachel Weisz was given the best supporting actress award for playing a social activist in the John Le Carre thriller The Constant Gardener.
Among the other winners, African film Tsotsi, pulled off a surprise by winning best foreign language film ahead of heavily fancied Paradise Now. Japanese saga Memoirs of a Geishawon three Oscars - for costume design, art direction and cinematography.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobewon best makeup. Djay featuring Shug's It's Hard Out Here for a Pimpfrom Hustle & Flowwas named best original song.
The host for the Oscar show, satirist, Jon Stewart, gave the ceremony a political tone, poking fun at politicians such as US Vice President Dick Cheney and Hollywood stars.
In an allusion to Hollywood's traditional place as a bastion of liberal-leaning causes, he touted the Oscar ceremony as one of the few places "where you can watch all your favourite stars without having to donate any money to the Democratic Party".
In a pointed barb at another of his favourite usual targets, the news media, Stewart saluted both Goodnight, and Good Luckand Capoteas important films about journalism's "relentless pursuit of the truth," adding: "Needless to say, both are period pieces."