Argo, Day-Lewis, Lawrence wins top Oscars
2/25/2013
Ben Affleck accepts the award for best picture for "Argo" during the Oscars at the Dolby Theatre on Sunday in Los Angeles.
LOS ANGELES — If Ben Affleck was snubbed by the Oscars, everyone should be so lucky. His Iran rescue thriller Argo has won best picture from the Academy Awards.
It's the first best picture winner not to be nominated for best director since 1989's Driving Miss Daisy. But despite the omission of Affleck — or perhaps buoyed by it — "Argo" emerged as the Oscar favorite, winning top honors from the directors, producers, screen actors and writers guilds.
Affleck and fellow producers George Clooney and Grant Heslov accepted the award Sunday night.
Among the other eight nominees, Steven Spielberg's Lincoln was perceived as the biggest competition to Argo. The other nominees were Life of Pi, Silver Linings Playbook, 'Zero Dark Thirty, 'Les Miserables, Amour, Beasts of the Southern Wild and Django Unchained.
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Daniel Day-Lewis has joined a select group of Academy Award recipients with his third Oscar, taking the best-actor trophy Sunday for his monumental performance as Abraham Lincoln in the Civil War saga Lincoln.
Hunger Games star Jennifer Lawrence has triumphed in Hollywood's big games, winning the best actress as a damaged soul in Silver Linings Playbook, while Ang Lee pulled off a huge upset as best director for Life of Pi.
Lawrence took a fall on her way to the stage, tripping on the steps.
"You guys are just standing up because you feel bad that I fell," Lawrence joked as the crowd gave her a standing ovation.
Lee won best director for the shipwreck story Life of Pi, taking the prize over Steven Spielberg, who had been favored for Lincoln.
Anne Hathaway went from propping up leaden sidekick James Franco at the Academy Awards to hefting a golden statue of her own with a supporting-actress Oscar win as a doomed mother-turned-prostitute in the musical "Les Miserables."
Christoph Waltz won his second supporting-actor Oscar for a Tarantino film, this time as a genteel bounty hunter in the slave-revenge saga Django Unchained. Tarantino also won his second Oscar, for original screenplay for Django.