Los Angeles - The Mumbai-based drama Slumdog Millionaire emerged as the favourite for the Oscars Sunday night when it won four prizes at the Golden Globe Awards including best drama, best director, best score and best adapted screenplay.

   The riveting yet sensitive movie tells the story of an orphan who makes it to the final of an Indian game show. It has been hailed as a perceptive commentary on globalization, as a beacon on the plight of the poor in third world cities and as a touching romance.

   Director Danny Boyle was ecstatic at the movie's accolades. "Your mad, pulsating affection for our film is very much appreciated," said Boyle.

   The success of Slumdog, which has received numerous critical awards, was all the more potent since it had originally struggled to find a distributor in the US. "We really weren't expecting to be here in America at all at one time, so it's just amazing to be here," said screenwriter Simon Beaufoy.

    Elsewhere on the glittering awards night that gathered Hollywood's royalty for one of the premier occasions of the year, the Israeli film Waltz With Bashir, about that country's invasion of Lebanon in 1982 was named best foreign movie and Australian Heath Ledger earned a posthumous award as best supporting actor.

   The best comedy was the Spain-based Vicky Cristina Barcelona, by the quintessential New York director Woody Allen.

   Kate Winslet won both the best actress and best supporting actress awards in the drama sections for her roles in Revolutionary Road and The Reader. Veteran Mickey Rourke capped a remarkable comeback with the best dramatic actor prize for his parallel to real life role as a washed-up fighter in The Wrestler.

   Ledger's prize for his role as The Joker in the Batman drama The Dark Knight came almost a year after he died from an accidental drug overdose in New York last January.

   The award for Ledger had been widely expected and cements his status as the hot favourite to win the equivalent prize at the Oscars on February 22. He would become only the second ever person to win a posthumous Oscar.

   "All of us who worked with Heath on The Dark Knight accept with an awful mixture of sadness but incredible pride," said the film's director Chris Nolan. "After Heath passed, you saw a hole ripped in the future of cinema."

   The acclaimed animated romance WALL-E was named best animated film, while little-known Sally Hawkins won the prize for best-actress in a musical or comedy for her role as a perky teacher in Happy-Go-Lucky. Colin Farrell was named as best actor in a comedy for his role in In Bruges.

   In the TV category, 30 Rock was named best comedy, while its stars Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin were named best comedy actors. The best drama was Mad Men. The best drama actor was Gabriel Byrne for In Treatment, with Anna Paquin notching the drama actress prize for True Blood.

   The Golden Globes, sometimes called Hollywood's biggest party, marked a stark contrast to last year's drab affair when a picket threat from the striking screenwriters union reduced the usually lavish affair to a functional press announcement.

   From lifetime achievement award winner Steven Spielberg to Jennifer Lopez who opened the show in a shimmering gold dress, the Beverley Hills Hilton was filled with a roster of the biggest names in the movie and television world. Also on show were Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes and numerous other stars.

   But it was a night of disappointment for all the leading film nominees. Brad Pitt's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, and Doubt all led the nominations field with five nods apiece but ending up with no prizes.

   Presenters included the Jonas Brothers, Hayden Panettiere, Martin Scorsese, Drew Barrymore, Sacha Baron Cohen, Salma Hayek, Jessica Lange, Amy Poehler and Seth Rogen, as well as Ricky Gervais, Johnny Depp, David Duchovny, Megan Fox, Eva Longoria, Sting, Sean Combs and Mark Wahlberg.