Oscar loves Marty

"The Departed," the gritty, blood-spattered gangster flick that transposed Hong Kong action to the mean streets of Boston, won best picture at the 79th Academy Awards last night.

An Americanized version of the 2002 Asian film "Infernal Affairs," "Departed" is the first Boston movie to ever win best picture. The film also won a long-overdue best directing prize for Martin Scorsese, as well as awards for editing and best adapted screenplay for local son William Monahan.

As expected, actors playing real-life historical figures took the major acting awards at the ceremony, held at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles. Helen Mirren won best actress for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in "The Queen," calling her Oscar "the best gold star in the business" and saluting the "courage and consistency" of her inspiration, Elizabeth Windsor. And Forest Whitaker took home the best actor award for playing Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in "The Last King of Scotland."

"Little Miss Sunshine," the dysfunctional-family road comedy, won best supporting actor and best original screenplay, while Jennifer Hudson capped her triumphant ascension from the ashes of "American Idol" by winning best supporting actress for her role as a cast-aside singer in "Dreamgirls."

The prayers of Scorsese supporters were finally answered with the legendary filmmaker's first directing win after five nominations. The Oscar was awarded by a trio of his '70s-era peers, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg.

"Could you double-check the envelope?" Scorsese joked before going on to thank the "many people over the years that have been wishing this for me."

Monahan's best adapted screenplay win was the evening's first Oscar for "The Departed". "Valium does work," joked the famously publicity-shy Monahan before thanking the cast and crew.

Backstage afterward , he described the importance of shooting the film in Boston. "Well, I'm from there and you know we have never really been well represented," Monahan said. "I remember when I was kid watching television, you'd see people supposed to be from Boston and they would be out there talking like [they were] the Kennedys and the Pepperidge Farm man. . . . We are another little civilization and very northern, very dark, sometimes very self-denying and . . . that's kind of what I wanted to get into, having spent so much time trying to get out of it."

"The Departed" also won Thelma Schoonmaker her third Academy Award for editing. She called working with Scorsese "the best film school in the world."

In the most international year in Oscar history, with nominees from countries and filmmaking communities around the planet, world filmmakers staked a claim for creativity and class.

"Pan's Labyrinth," Guillermo del Toro's Spanish Civil War-era fantasy drama, scored big, winning best cinematography, art direction, and make up. "Happy Feet," the computer-animated penguin drama from Australian filmmaker George Miller, was awarded best animated feature in a surprise win over the favored nominee, Pixar's "Cars."

By contrast, "Babel," a multinational drama from director Alejandro González Iñárritu, was nominated for seven Oscars and won only one, for Gustavo Santaolalla's score

An honorary Oscar was given to Ennio Morricone following film clips highlighting the wit, romanticism, eclecticism, and sheer creativity of the Italian film composer's career. Morricone thanked the crowd in Italian, which was translated by the award's presenter, one-time spaghetti-western star Clint Eastwood.

While "Pan's Labyrinth" dominated some smaller categories, Germany's "The Lives of Others" topped it for the best foreign language film Oscar.

Striking a blow for the Americans, the 72-year-old Alan Arkin won best supporting actor for his role as a porn-obsessed, heroin-snorting grandpa in "Little Miss Sunshine." It was the much-loved actor's first Oscar after four decades of roles and two previous nominations, and it counted as the evening's first upset.

"More than anything, I'm deeply moved by the open-hearted appreciation our small film has received, which in these fragmented times speaks so openly of the possibility of innocence, growth and connection," Arkin said.

Eddie Murphy was the favorite to win in the category, for his role as a troubled R&B singer in "Dreamgirls," but the musical, which was nominated for eight Oscars, ultimately won only best supporting actress and a best sound mixing award.

Even though "Dreamgirls" had three songs nominated in the best song category, the Oscar went to Melissa Etheridge for her song "I Need to Wake Up" from the Al Gore documentary "An Inconvenient Truth."

That film also won best documentary feature, and the former Vice President joined the director Davis Guggenheim on stage, exhorting the audience to find a nonpartisan solution to global climate change.

"Little Miss Sunshine" provided a further surprise in the best original screenplay category, which Peter Morgan was expected to win for "The Queen." Accepting the award, "Sunshine" scripter Michael Arndt admitted the idea for the film came from a 600-mile road trip he took with his family in a mini-bus with a broken clutch.

The evening's chief mystery was whether Academy best picture voters would opt for the seriousness of a message-movie like "Babel" (as they did last year, when "Crash" won best picture), honor one of two aging maverick directors (Martin Scorsese and Clint Eastwood), go for the proper British class of "The Queen," or honor "Sunshine," a comedy that mostly just made people feel good.

That "The Departed" ended up taking the prize is a testament to the Hollywood community's deep love and respect for Scorsese. Considered one of the preeminent living directors of his generation, he had seen now classic films "Taxi Driver," "Raging Bull," and "GoodFellas" passed over for top prizes in earlier years.

(Correction: Because of a reporting error, "The Departed" was mistakenly referred to as the first remake to win an Academy Award for best picture in yesterday's Oscar coverage in the Living/Arts section. "Ben-Hur," the 1959 remake of a 1925 silent epic, was the first.)