Winners I Jon Stewart's best gags I Chris Ayres in LA I Red carpet video I James Christopher's verdict

The Coen brothers’ No Country for Old Men won four Oscars at the 80th Academy Awards in Hollywood last night on a triumphant evening for British talent, which scooped six gongs.

Daniel Day-Lewis won Best Actor for his role as an ruthless oil prospector in There Will Be Blood and Tilda Swinton was named Best Supporting Actress for playing a hard-nosed lawyer in Michael Clayton, as Joel and Ethan Coen’s terrifying chase movie won awards for Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay and Supporting Actor.

But there was disappontment for Julie Christie who was again pipped to the Best Actress award by the French star Marion Cotillard. Despite nominations for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, Cate Blanchett left empty handed.

Bare shoulders and lots of red

Red frocks dominated the Oscars red carpet, with actresses demonstrating old-fashioned glamour in feathers and jewels

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In a brisk and scandal-less night, hosted successfully by the comedian Jon Stewart, the organisers also remembered Heath Ledger, who died last month, in a montage of those in the film industry who have died in recent months.

Day-Lewis collected the Best Actor award – his second – from Dame Helen Mirren, and joked about her performance as the Queen, kneeling at her feet on stage, saying: "This is the closest I'll ever come to getting a knighthood, so thank you." The red-hot favourite award beat George Clooney, Johnny Depp, Tommy Lee Jones and Viggo Mortensen.

Cotillard, 32, pipped Christie to the Best Actress Oscar as she did at the Baftas, for her role as singer Edith Piaf in the film La Vie En Rose. Bursting into tears on stage after receiving her award, she said: "Thank you so much. I'm speechless. It is true there are some angels in this city."

Cotillard became the first French woman to win the best actress Oscar in almost 50 years. It is thought to be only the second time in Oscars' history that the award had gone to a performance in a non-English speaking role, the other winner being Sophia Loren.

Christie, who was up for her role as an Alzheimer's sufferer in Away From Her, had been considered a shoo-in until her Bafta disappointment.

One of the night's big surprises was Swinton's Oscar, ahead of the hotly-tipped Cate Blanchett and the 13-year-old Irish star Saoirse Ronan.

Swinton, who played a slick, greedy corporate lawyer in Michael Clayton, a George Clooney-directed film, thanked her American agent, "who is the spitting image of this [Oscar statue]."

The Spanish star Javier Bardem won the Best Supporting Actor title for his chilling role as a ruthless hitman in No Country For Old Men.

Speaking in his native language, Bardem dedicated his win to his mother, adding in English: "Thank you to the Coens for being crazy enough to think I could do this, to put one of the most horrible haircuts on my head."

Whether it was the rain, the prospect of looming recession or the hangover from the writers’ strike, resolved only weeks ago, the entire evening was more muted than usual.

Stars spent less time on the red carpet, dresses seemed less outlandish, and the televised ceremony was notably shorter than in previous years – with little controversy and few surprises.

The US writer Diablo Cody, a former stripper and lapdancer, won Best Original Screenplay for Juno, about a teenage girl who gets pregnant. She thanked the "superhuman" star of the film, Ellen Page, and "my family for loving me exactly the way I am".

The nominations for Best Documentary Short Subject were announced by soldiers serving in Iraq and the award was won by Freeheld, about a US lesbian couple fighting for their rights.

Taxi To The Dark Side, about the alleged acts of torture of the US in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, won Best Documentary Feature, beating Michael Moore’s Sicko.

Its US director and writer Alex Gibney said: "My wife Anne was hoping I'd make a romantic comedy, but honestly, after Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, extraordinary rendition that simply wasn't possible.”

Stewart, the Daily Show presenter who hosted the ceremony, ribbed Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, among others. He said that Julie Christie's film Away From Her, about a woman suffering from Alzheimer's, was the "moving story of a woman who forgets her own husband" - "Hillary Clinton called it the feelgood movie of the year".

He also joked that the Democrats choosing a man called Barack Hussein Obama as their presidential nominee would be like them choosing someone called Gaydolf Titler in 1944. Referring to the dark films nominated for Best Picture (No Country, There Will Be Blood) he asked: "Does this town need a hug?"

Earlier in the evening there were Oscars for Britons Alexandra Byrne (Elizabeth, Costume Design), Jan Archibald (La Vie en Rose, Make-Up) and Ben Morris and Trevor Wood (The Golden Compass, Visual Effects) and Suzie Templeton and Hugh Welchman (Peter & the Wolf, Best Animated Short).

Adding to Bafta disappointment, Atonement won only one Oscar, from seven nominations, for original score. At the Baftas, the Keira Knightley starring film had picked up only two awards from 14 nominations.

Ratatouille, the smash-hit movie about a rodent who dreams of becoming a chef, was named Best Animated Feature Film.

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