The Los Angeles Film Critics Association gave its best picture award to “WALL-E.” The Pixar film was chosen ahead of “The Dark Knight” by the body, which gave its best actor prize to Sean Penn for Milk. Moreover “WALL-E” is the first ever animated feature to be awarded Best Film by the LA Film Critics Association.

WALL-E, a garbage collecting robot that is also mesmerized with trinkets of Earth's history and show tunes is alone on Earth except for a sprightly pet cockroach. One day, Eve, a sleek and dangerous reconnaissance robot, is sent to earth to find proof that life is once again sustainable. WALL-E falls in love with Eve. And so their sweet story begins.

Winning Best Picture is “Milk” as well as sweeping the actor bids with Sean Penn winning for Best Actor and Josh Brolin for Best Supporting Actor. “Happy-Go-Lucky” takes Best Actress for Sally Hawkins’ performance and also Best Director kudos for Mike Leigh. Penelope Cruz takes the final top-line prize winning for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Woody Allen’s “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.”

Danny Boyle won best director for the sleeper hit "Slumdog Millionaire," his drama about a young man who grew up orphaned on the streets of Mumbai.

As far as the behind-the-screen awards are concerned, Yu Lik Wai won best cinematographer for "Still Life," Mark Friedberg won for his production design on "Synecdoche, New York," and the music/score award went to A.R. Rahman for "Slumdog Millionaire."

This year’s awards are quite surprising, indeed, especially in WALL-E’s case. Nevertheless the L.A. critics have leaned toward specialty fare in recent years, such as "There Will Be Blood," "American Splendor" and "About Schmidt," they’ve honored mainstream crowd-pleasers before: "Star Wars" won best picture in 1977, "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial" in 1982.