SLUMDOG Millionaire swept the board at the Oscars today, winning eight awards, including best film and best director.
Kate Winslet finally won her first Academy Award as she was named best actress for her performance in The Reader.
The 33-year-old has endured five unsuccessful nominations in the past, and said she had been rehearsing her acceptance since she was eight years old.
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click here to view a slideshow of a fashions worn on Oscars night"
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click here to view a slideshow of Award winners on Oscar night"
Sean Penn upset the odds to win the best actor award, beating favourite Mickey Rourke.
There was a best supporting actor award for Heath Ledger – only the second time an acting Oscar had been given posthumously.
There was no repeat of the gushing speech Winslet gave on winning two Golden Globes earlier this year.
Winslet wowed the Academy with her performance as an illiterate Second World War concentration camp guard, and as she stood on stage at Hollywood's Kodak Theatre clutching her Oscar, she said she had been rehearsing the moment for many years.
"I'd be lying if I (said I) hadn't made a version of this before I was eight years old and staring into the bathroom mirror and this (Oscar) would be a shampoo bottle, only it's not a shampoo bottle now," she said.
"I feel very fortunate to have all the way from there to here."
Winslet kept her composure throughout her speech, her emotions only threatening to get the better of her when she paid tribute to the late Anthony Minghella and Sidney Pollack.
"I want to acknowledge my fellow nominees, these goddesses," she said.
"I think we all can't believe we are in the same category as Meryl Streep at all."
Danny Boyle jumped up and down with delight as he took the best director award, then explained his energetic celebration: "My kids are too young to remember this, but I swore that if this miracle ever happened, I would receive it in the spirit of Tigger from Winnie the Pooh, so that's what that was about."
He thanked the Academy for being "so generous to us tonight".
There was plenty of excitement and enthusiasm but no overwrought Hollywood emotion from the 52-year-old in his acceptance speech.
Instead he thanked the cast and crew and his family.
"Just to say to Mumbai – unending, unseparable, unborn – all of you who helped us make the film and all of you who didn't, thank you so much. You dwarf even this guy," he said.
The rags-to-riches story of an orphan from the Mumbai slums who wins the Indian version of Who Wants to Be A Millionaire? has swept all before it at awards ceremonies this year – and the trend continued at the 81st Academy Awards ceremony.
Slumdog's total of eight Oscars – for best film, director, song, musical score, adapted screenplay, cinematography, film editing and sound mixing – is the best by a British film since the Second World War romance The English Patient took nine in 1997.
The cast and crew of the film – including the child actors from the Mumbai slums – descended on Hollywood for the awards.
Penelope Cruz took the award for best supporting actress for her part in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and thanked director Woody Allen for "trusting me with this wonderful character".
"Has anybody ever fainted here?" she asked as she collected her Oscar.
"I think I might be the first one."
AND THE WINNERS ARE...Full list of winners at the 81st annual Academy Awards, presented on Sunday night at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles:
Motion Picture: Slumdog Millionaire.
Actor: Sean Penn, Milk.
Actress: Kate Winslet, The Reader.
Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight.
Supporting Actress: Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona.
Director: Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire.
Foreign Film: Departures, Japan.
Adapted Screenplay: Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire.
Original Screenplay: Dustin Lance Black, Milk.
Animated Feature Film: "Wall-E.
Art Direction: The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button.
Cinematography: Slumdog Millionaire.
Sound Mixing: Slumdog Millionaire.
Sound Editing: The Dark Knight.
Original Score: Slumdog Millionaire, AR Rahman.
Original Song: Jai Ho from Slumdog Millionaire, AR Rahman and Gulzar.
Costume: The Duchess.
Documentary Feature: Man on Wire.
Documentary (short subject): Smile Pinki.
Film Editing: Slumdog Millionaire.
Make-up: The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button.
Animated Short Film: La Maison En Petits Cubes.
Live Action Short Film: "Spielzeugland (Toyland).
Visual Effects: The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button.
Academy Award winners previously announced this season:
Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award (Oscar statuette): Jerry Lewis.
Gordon E Sawyer Award (Oscar statuette): Pixar Animation co-founder Ed Catmull.
