Low-budget big-cast tale Crashes Oscar party

THE ensemble drama Crash pulled off one of the biggest upsets in Academy Awards history, winning best picture over cowboy romance Brokeback Mountain, which had been the front-runner.

Crash, which cost just €3.7 million and featured a huge cast in crisscrossing story lines over a chaotic 36-hour period in Los Angeles stars Matt Dillon, Sandra Bullock and Thandie Newton.

"You have made this year one of the most breathtaking and stunning maverick years in American cinema," said the winning film's producer Cathy Schulman last night.

Crash, whose stars worked for basic pay, by Hollywood standards, also won awards for best original screenplay and best editing.

Lead-acting prizes, meanwhile, went to Philip Seymour Hoffman as author Truman Capote in Capote and to Reese Witherspoon as country singer June Carter Cash in Walk the Line, while corporate thrillers earned supporting-performer Oscars for George Clooney, in Syriana, and Rachel Weisz in The Constant Gardener.

Brokeback Mountain filmmaker Ang Lee won best director prize for his tale of two sheep-herding pals who carry on a love affair they conceal from their families for years.

"Oh, my goodness I never thought I'd be here in my whole life growing up in Tennessee," said Reese Witherspoon, who won a close race over Felicity Huffman, nominated for her gender-bending performance as a transsexual in Transamerica.

Like co-star Joaquin Phoenix, who played Carter's soul mate, country legend Johnny Cash, Witherspoon handled her own singing in Walk the Line.

"Wow, I'm in a category with some great, great, great actors, fantastic actors, and I'm overwhelmed. Really overwhelmed," said Philip Seymour Hoffman, who asked the Oscar audience to congratulate his mother for bringing up four children alone.

Clooney's win capped a remarkable year in which he made Oscar history by becoming the first person to be nominated for acting in one movie and directing another.

Along with performing in Syriana, Clooney directed the Edward R Murrow tale Good Night, and Good Luck, which earned him directing and writing nominations and was among the best-picture contenders.

Clooney effaced his glamour-boy looks in Syriana behind the bearded, heavyset facade of a CIA patriot jaded over US oil policy in the Middle East.

"All right, so I'm not winning director," said the first-time Oscar winner.

The stop-motion family tale Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit won the Oscar for best animated feature film.

South Africa's drama Tsotsi, based on Athol Fugard's novel about a young hoodlum reclaiming his humanity, won best foreign-language film, beating controversial Palestinian terrorism saga Paradise Now.

The Antarctic nature tale March of the Penguins, a surprise smash at the box office, was honoured as best documentary.

King Kong, from Lord of the Rings creator Peter Jackson, won three Oscars, for visual effects, sound mixing and sound editing.

Memoirs of a Geisha also earned three Oscars, for cinematography, costume design and art direction, while the fantasy epic The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was picked for best make-up.