The Facebook tale The Social Network won top honours at the Golden Globes with four prizes, including best drama and director, solidifying its prospects as an Academy Awards favourite.
Winning the dramatic lead-acting prizes were Colin Firth for the British monarchy saga The King's Speech and Natalie Portman for the psychosexual thriller Black Swan.
Lead-acting honours for the Globes' musical or comedy categories went to Annette Bening for the lesbian-family story The Kids Are All Right and Paul Giamatti for the curmudgeon tale Barney's Version. The boxing drama The Fighter earned both supporting acting Globes, for Christian Bale and Melissa Leo.
David Fincher, directing winner for The Social Network, said he thought it was strange when The Social Network script came to him, since he usually makes dark character studies about misanthropes or films about serial killers. His films include the murder tales Seven and Zodiac.
"I'm personally loath to acknowledge the kind of wonderful response this film has received for fear of becoming addicted to it, so suffice it to say, it's been really nice," said Fincher, whose film also won the Globes for screenplay for Aaron Sorkin and musical score for Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.
While The Social Network dominated, it was a night with something for almost everybody, as most key films came away with prizes.
The main snub was for the sci-fi blockbuster Inception, a best-drama contender that had four nominations, but lost them all. Johnny Depp, who had two nominations for best musical or comedy actor, also left empty-handed.
The win by Portman as a ballerina coming unhinged amid a production of Swan Lake sets her up for a two-woman showdown for best actress at the February 27 Oscars with Bening, who won for her role as a stern lesbian mom in The Kids Are All Right, which also was named best musical or comedy film.
Barney's Version follows the many loves in his life: his three wives, played by Rachelle Lefevre, Minnie Driver and Rosamund Pike, whom Giamatti described as "a trifecta of hotties".
"I got to smoke and drink and get laid in this movie and I got paid for it. An amazing, amazing thing," Giamatti said.
Bening won the musical or comedy actress prize in a field that included The Kids Are All Right co-star Julianne Moore. The film stars Bening and Moore as a couple whose family falls into turmoil after their teen children seek out the sperm donor who fathered them.
The buzz around town on Globes weekend was not only about likely winners, but also about a lawsuit filed on Thursday by a former longtime publicist for the Globes claiming the organisation that runs the show, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, engages in "payola" schemes for nominations and awards.
The allegations have been denied by the HFPA, a group of about 90 reporters covering show business for overseas outlets.
Ricky Gervais returned as Globes host for the second-straight year. Gervais joked that Globe nominees weren't picked just so that Globe voters could hang out with stars such as Depp.
"They also accepted bribes," Gervais said, referring to the publicist lawsuit. Bale, who won for his role as a former boxer whose career unravelled amid drugs and crime, thanked his collaborators on The Fighter, among them director David O.
Russell and star and producer Mark Wahlberg, who plays boxer Micky Ward to Bale's Dicky Eklund, Ward's older half-brother. Bale seems to be on the same awards track as his Batman co-star, the late Heath Ledger, was two years ago, when he won supporting actor at the Globes for The Dark Knight on the way to earning a posthumous Oscar.
Toy Story 3, the top-grossing film released last year and the second sequel to 1995's digital animation pioneer Toy Story, won the Globe for animated films, making Disney's Pixar Animation unit five-for-five in the category since it was added in 2006. Past Pixar winners are Up, WALL-E, Ratatouille and Cars.
Robert De Niro received the Cecil B. DeMille Award for career achievement.
The usually taciturn De Niro gave an uncharacteristically interesting acceptance speech, making jokes about members of the HFPA being deported (along with most of the waiters working the event) and suggesting that most people in the room hadn't seen a lot of the films he was proud of, including Stone, Marvin's Room, and Stanley and Iris.
Among TV winners, Glee won three prizes, best comedy and supporting-acting prizes for Jane Lynch and Chris Colfer.
Boardwalk Empire won two prizes, for best drama and dramatic actor for Steve Buscemi.
