British film The King’s Speech has won the top honour at the 2011 Oscars, beating a competitive field to be crowned Best Picture at Sunday night’s awards ceremony in Hollywood.
The film – about how King George VI of England overcame his stammer – won four awards in total from 12 nominations.
Tom Hooper won the award for Best Director for the film, Colin Firth for Best Actor and David Seidler, a childhood stutterer himself, for best original screenplay.
After accepting his award on stage, Firth, who had been the firm favourite to win the Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of King George VI, joked: “I have a feeling my career’s just peaked.”
During Hooper’s acceptance speech, he told the audience how his mother Meredith had found the script for the film after she was invited to see what was then an unpublished play.
“The moral of the story is listen to your mother,” he said.
He then added: “Thank you to my wonderful actors, the triangle of man-love which is Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush and me. I’m only here because of you guys.”
Natalie Portman, who was also a favourite to win at the Oscars for her portrayal of a tortured ballet dancer in Black Swan, was awarded the Best Actress Oscar.
“This is insane, and I truly, sincerely wish that the prize tonight was to get to work with my fellow nominees – I’m so in awe of you,” Portman, who is engaged and pregnant to the film’s choreographer Benjamin Millepied, said during her acceptance speech.
Christian Bale and Melissa Leo were awarded the Best Actor in a Supporting Role and Best Actress in a Supporting Role awards respectively for their roles in The Fighter.
“Really, really, really truly wow. I know there have been a lot of people saying some real, real nice things to me for several months now, but I am just shaking in my boots here,” Leo said during her acceptance speech.
Leo got carried away with the excitement and later had to have her speech bleeped by broadcasters after she swore. She later apologised, saying it had been “very inappropriate”.
During his acceptance speech, Bale joked of his co-star: “I’m not going to drop the F-bomb like she did.”
Sci-fi flick Inception was another big winner at the Oscars 2011, picking up four awards for cinematography, visual effects, sound mixing and sound editing.
James Franco, star of Oscar-nominated film 127 Hours, and Anne Hathaway hosted the 83rd Academy Awards, in what was organisers’ attempts to appeal to “a younger demographic”.
Check out the full list of Oscars 2011 winners and nominees here.
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