Benicio Del Toro wins Best Supporting Actor

At the Governors' Hall, Los Angeles, venue of the 73rd Annual Academy Awards, astronauts aboard a space ship heralded the host of the evening, Steve Martin.

The famous American chain, Wolfgang Puck, served a meal of caviare and lobsters to the guests. The Los Angeles Governors' Hall, where dinner would be served post the Awards, sported a specially hand-painted ceiling, celebrating the movies.

Catherine Zeta Jones, actress of Traffic, and the first presenter of the evening, gave away the best achievement in art direction to Tim Yip for the breathtakingly picturesque Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Nicholas Cage (The Rock, City Of Angels) gave away the best supporting actress award to Marcia Gay Harden for her intensely fierce performance in Pollock.

Russell Crowe presented the best film editing award to Stephen Mirrione (for the Steven Soderberg-directed Traffic).

Ben Stiller, star of Meet the Parents and There's Something About Mary, gave away the Best Live Action Short Film to Florian Gallenberger for I Want To Be...'s Quiero Ser. Father And Daughter's Michael Dudock De Wit won the Best Animated Short Film.

Singer songwriter Sting performed for the first time at the Oscars, when he rendered My funny friend and me, the track from The Emperor's New Groove for which he is nominated in the Original Song category.

Penelope Cruz, actress of Live Flesh and Woman On Top, announced the Best Costume Design winner, Janty Yates, for her magnificent Roman costumes in Gladiator. Whose team tirelessly worked in Malta

Benicio Del Toro's one-man-cop-against-drugs performance in Traffic won Best Supporting Actor.

Presenter Mike Myers (The Spy Who Shagged Me) sent "shock waves through the industry" when he announced Best Sound winners, Scott Millan-Bob Beemer-Ken Weston for their work in Gladiator.

Jon Johnson won the Best Sound Editing for U-571.

"America's sweetheart" Julia Roberts hailed best cinematographer Peter Pau for his beautiful poetic work in Crouching...

Kate Hudson (actress Goldie Hawn's daughter and star of Almost Famous) announced the Best Make-up winner, Rick Baker and Gail Ryan (and 100-strong unit) for Dr Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas.

Jack Cardiff won his "ultimate honour and a biggie dream" -- a lifetime contribution to cinematography. As The Rainman Dustin Hoffman said, this is the first time an honorary award was given to a cinematographer.

Both the documentary categories awards were won by first-timers: Tracy Seretean's Big Mama won the Short Subject; Mark Jonathan Harris and Deborah Oppenheimer's Into The Arms Of Strangers: Stories Of The KinderTransport) took the Feature award.

The Gladiator team of John Nelson, Neil Corbould, Tim Burke and Rob Harvey won the Best Visual Effects.

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