As predicted in The Sofia Echo, Avatar, James Cameron's gargantuan 3-D sci-fi extravaganza, tripped up at the final hurdle. Instead it was Cameron's ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow who won best director and best picture for The Hurt Locker, a film about the war in Iraq that has so far earned only 15 million dollars in receipts.

The Hurt Locker has still not had a general release in Bulgaria but is now sure to reap a rich box office dividend following its success. Avatar, meanwhile, has become the biggest-grossing film in history, taking more than two billion dollars at the box office.

Accepting her award, Bigelow, only the fifth woman to be nominated in Academy Awards history in the best director category, described her victory as "the moment of a lifetime". 

Most of the awards went according to plan, with British hopefuls Colin Firth and long-shot Carey Mulligan, nominated for A Single Man and An Education, walking away empty-handed as Hollywood honoured veteran actor Jeff Bridges for his role in Crazy Heart.

Bridges, playing a hard-living country singer, beat George Clooney, Morgan Freeman, Jeremy Renner and Firth to win on his fifth Academy Award nomination.

As predicted, Sandra Bullock won best actress for The Blind Side. Only the previous day Bullock had won a Razzie for worst performance of 2009 in the movie All About Steve, an "honour" she also collected in person.

Christoph Waltz and Mo'Nique were the winners of the supporting acting awards, categories they were both widely tipped to win. Waltz had cleared all the major awards for his portrait of a sadistic German officer in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. Mo'Nique won for Precious.

Actors Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin hosted the ceremony - the first dual hosts in 23 years