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Slumdog Millionaire is Top Dog at Oscars

Danny Boyle with Oscar Slumdog Millionaire capped its winning season at this year’s Academy Awards by taking home eight Oscars, including Best Motion Picture and Best Director for Danny Boyle. Other categories it won include Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Original Score, Best Original Song and Best Sound.

The Mumbai-set tale of a young man whose destiny leads him to love and fortune via a TV game show was once considered the underdog of the awards season. The movie was without a distributor before it was picked up by Fox Searchlight and put on the path to the Oscars, where it scooped up honors from the Golden Globes, the SAGs, the BAFTAs before coming to the Academy Awards.

In the lead acting categories, Kate Winslet finally took home an Oscar for Best Actress for Holocaust drama The Reader, after six nominations with no win. Sean Penn picked up his second Oscar award for Best Actor for Milk, managing to beat hotly tipped Mickey Rourke for The Wrestler.

Oscar Winners Penélope Cruz was won Best Supporting Actress for the Woody Allen comedy Vicky Cristina Barcelona. The late Heath Ledger was the expected winner of Best Supporting Actor for The Dark Knight, with the award being accepted on his behalf by his father, mother and sister.

The Harvey Milk biopic won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, Man on Wire won the Best Documentary Feature award and WALL·E the was the recipient of Best Animated Feature.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which going into the Oscar was leading with a total of 13 nominations, had to content itself with three technical awards, for Art Direction, Make-Up, and Visual Effects. The Dark Knight took home Best Sound Editing, while period drama The Duchess won Best Costume Design. In the short film categories, Smile Pinki won Best Documentary Short Subject, La Maison En Petits Cubes took home Best Animated Short Film, and Spielzeugland was named Best Live Action Short Film.

Hosted by Hugh Jackman, who performed an opening song and dance number with assistance from Anne Hathaway, the 81st Annual Academy Awards show clocked in at a little over three hours. The highly-touted revamped broadcast moved the proceedings along glamorously if not as quickly as anticipated. Presenters, who in a break with tradition were not announced before the broadcast, included numerous past Oscar winners, who were enlisted to present the current acting awards. Appearing onstage were such stars as Sophia Loren, Robert De Niro, Ben Kingsley, Eva Marie Saint, Michael Douglas, Halle Berry, Nicole Kidman, and more. Steven Spielberg presented the final award of the evening, Best Picture.