ANG Lee’s gay cowboy drama Brokeback Mountain has been named best film at the Golden Globe Awards.

The hotly-tipped Oscar favourite also won best director (for Lee), best screenplay and best original song at the Los Angeles ceremony, although Heath Ledger lost out in the best dramatic actor category to Capote’s Philip Seymour Hoffman.

In the other three main acting categories, Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon won for their performances in Johnny Cash biopic, Walk the Line, while Felicity Huffman, best known for her role in Desperate Housewives, won best dramatic film actress for Transamerica.

George Clooney, was was nominated in a number of categories including best director, did not leave empty-handed – being named best supporting actor for his role in Syriana, for which he put on weight and grew a beard.

And British actress Rachel Weisz won best supporting actress for The Constant Gardener.

Walk the Line, which received the blessing of Johnny Cash before his death, won the best musical or comedy motion picture award, beating The Producers, Pride and Prejudice and Mrs Henderson Presents.

And Palestinian film Paradise Now, which examines the motives of suicide bombers, was named best foreign language film.

Winners’ delight

Commenting on Brokeback Mountain’s triumph in four categories and its subject matter (that of a gay love story between two cowboys), the film’s director Ang Lee said: “”You can never categorise or stereotype a region or a place. People fall in love, period. This is a universal story … I just wanted to make a love story.”

Brokeback beat a number of strong contenders to this year’s best drama accolade, including George Clooney’s Goodnight, and Good Luck, A History of Violence and The Constant Gardener.

The win puts the film in pole position for the Oscars on March 5, 2006.

Likewise, the night’s Best dramatic actor, Philip Seymour Hoffman, who has already won plenty of critical acclaim for his depiction of the late author, Truman Capote.

Upon accepting his Golden Globe, Hoffman said: “I was given the best part of my life, basically, and I know that.”

Best dramatic actress, Felicity Huffman, who plays a transsexual struggling to build a relationship with the son he/she never knew they had in the film TransAmerica, paid trubute to “the men and women who brave ostracism, alienation and a life lived on the margins to become who they really are”.

This year’s nominations were widely viewed as a triumph for smaller-budgeted films over big studio productions, as all the best drama nominees were independent movies made for under $30m (£16.9m).

TV awards

Hit Channel 4 drama Lost (from ABC) was named best TV drama, beating Rome, Prison Break, Grey’s Anatomy and Commander and Chief.

While Desperate Housewives won best comedy for the second year running.

However, all four Desperate Housewives lost out in the TV comedy actress category in favour of Mary Louise Parker for Weeds.

Futher British success came in the best dramatic actor category as Hugh Laurie deservedly won for medical series House, an accolade he missed out on last year.

Geena Davis, meanwhile, was named best actress in a TV drama for Commander in Chief, in which she plays the first female president of the US.

Steve Carrell won best actor in a comedy for the US version of The Office, following in the footsteps of Ricky Gervais, who won the same award in 2004 for the original UK series which he co-created.

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