The 79th Academy Awards ended with a bang; the whimpers came from Oscar-pool players watching a number of favorites get taken down during the long ceremony — Alan Arkin standing in the Sunshine instead of Eddie Murphy; the penguins of Happy Feet kicking the tires off Pixar's Cars; Melissa Etheridge's ''I Need to Wake Up'' putting three nominated songs from Dreamgirls to sleep. Smart-money favorites came through at the end with wins for Helen Mirren (The Queen), Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland), and — finally! — Martin Scorsese (The Departed). Then, the unpredictability returned with a mild surprise in a Best Picture race that had no clear-cut front-runner, as the Academy pulled the trigger once again for Scorsese's violent Boston gangster/cop tale, which led the night with four total awards. Other multiple winners included Pan's Labyrinth with three, and Little Miss Sunshine, Dreamgirls, and An Inconvenient Truth, each with two.

Best Picture
The Departed

Best Director
Martin Scorsese, The Departed

Best Actor
Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland

Best Actress
Helen Mirren, The Queen

Best Supporting Actor
Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine

Best Supporting Actress
Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls

Best Original Screenplay
Little Miss Sunshine

Best Adapted Screenplay
The Departed

Best Animated Film
Happy Feet

Best Foreign Language Film
The Lives of Others, Germany

Best Documentary Feature
An Inconvenient Truth

Best Original Song
''I Need to Wake Up,'' from An Inconvenient Truth

Best Original Score
Babel

Best Cinematography
Pan's Labyrinth

Best Film Editing
The Departed

Best Art Direction
Pan's Labyrinth

Best Makeup
Pan's Labyrinth

Best Costume Design
Marie Antoinette

Best Sound Editing
Letters From Iwo Jima

Best Sound Mixing
Dreamgirls

Best Visual Effects
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Best Short, Animated
The Danish Poet

Best Short, Live Action
West Bank Story

Best Documentary Short
The Blood of Yingzhou District