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Affleck has last laugh as 'Argo' wins best picture

Argo had one more Hollywood ending to pull off this awards season. Mission accomplished. Director Ben Affleck's political thriller lived up to its favorite status and won three honors, including best picture

HOLLYWOOD - Argo had one more Hollywood ending to pull off this awards season. Mission accomplished.

Director Ben Affleck's political thriller lived up to its favorite status and won three honors, including best picture, at the 85th Academy Awards.

"I was here 15 years ago and I had no idea what I was doing," Affleck says, referring to his screenplay win for Good Will Hunting. "I was a kid. I never thought I would be back here and now I am because of so many of you."

Daniel Day-Lewis won his record third best-actor statue for Steven Spielberg's Lincoln - his others came for 2007's There Will Be Blood and 1989's My Left Foot.

"I really don't know how any of this happened. I do know I've had good fortune in my life," he said, making reference to his knack for completely becoming his characters.

"I do know my wife Rebecca (Miller) has lived with very strange men, and she's been the perfect companion to all of them."

Day-Lewis also tapped into his lighter side and joked with presenter Meryl Streep: "Three years ago, before we decided to do a straight swap, I had committed to play Margaret Thatcher (in The Iron Lady). And Meryl was Steven's first choice for Lincoln. I'd like to see that version. Steven didn't have to persuade me, but I had to persuade Steven that Lincoln didn't have to be a musical."

Lincoln entered the night leading the field with the most nominations - 12 - but left with just two Oscars, for best actor and production design. However, Life of Pi exited the ceremony with the most wins - four - including best director for Ang Lee, following up his first victory with 2005's Brokeback Mountain.

"Thank you, movie god. I have to share this with all 3,000 who worked with me on Life of Pi," he said. "You're the golden statue in my heart."

The movie also locked up visual effects, cinematography and original score. Composer Mychael Danna remarked that Lee directed the movie in the same impressive spirit that "people came from around the world to breathe life into this music."

After wowing critics and audiences for her Les Miserables musical role as the tragic Fantine - and her emotional belting of the showtune I Dreamed a Dream - Anne Hathaway picked up her first Academy Award, for best supporting actress.

"It came true," she said with a whisper after receiving her Oscar. "Here's hoping that sometime in the not-so-distant future the misfortunes of Fantine will only be found in stories, and not in real life."

Best-actress nominee Jennifer Lawrence also became a first-time winner for Silver Linings Playbook - although she did have a spill on the way to the stage to receive her award.

"You guys are just standing up because I fell and you feel sorry for me," joked Lawrence, who also made sure to wish her fellow nominee, Amour star Emmanuelle Riva, a happy 86th birthday.

Christoph Waltz won his second Academy Award for his role as bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained. He won the same award for 2009's Inglourious Basterds, also directed by Tarantino, and an emotional Waltz profusely thanked his director.

"We participated in a hero's journey, and the hero being Quentin," said Waltz, winning in a field featuring five actors with 21 Oscar nominations between them. "You scaled the mountain because you're not afraid of it. You slay the dragon because you're not afraid of it."

In turn, Tarantino paid respect to his actors when the Django filmmaker picked up his second Oscar for best original screenplay. (His first was for Pulp Fiction.)

"I have to cast the right people to make those characters come alive and for them to last a long time," he said. "It's such an honor to get it this year. This will be the writer's year."

Argo writer Chris Terrio won his first-ever Oscar for best adapted screenplay, and dedicated it to former CIA officer Tony Mendez - whose work to save six Americans in revolutionary Iran was the basis for the political thriller - and those around the world "who use creativity and intelligence to solve problems non-violently."

In the race for best animated feature, Pixar's Brave - about a young redheaded Scottish lass - conquered the field, and the win marks the animation studio's seventh triumph in 12 years.

"I just happened to be wearing the kilt," Brave director Mark Andrews joked.

Amour, which is also up for best picture, garnered the Academy Award for foreign language film. The movie followed an octogenarian husband and wife, and in his acceptance speech director Michael Haneke doled out his own love to his wife ("You are the center of my life") and his two stars, Riva and Jean-Louis Trintignant ("Without them, I would not be up here").

Adele's hit title tune from the James Bond film Skyfall garnered the Oscar for best original song. The British singer and recent Grammy winner tearily thanked everyone around the project "for believing in me all the time."

Malik Bendjelloul and Simon Chinn's Searching for Sugar Man, about the obscure American singer Sixto Rodriguez, was the winner for best documentary feature.

Rodriguez wasn't at the ceremony "because he didn't want to take any of the credit himself," Chinn said. "That says everything about that man and his story you'd ever want to know."

Anna Karenina's Jacqueline Durran picked up the Oscar for costume design, Les Miserables was honored for sound mixing as well as makeup and hairstyling, and film editing went to Argo. There was also the sixth tie in Oscar history, this time in sound editing, between Zero Dark Thirty and Skyfall.

In the shorts categories, Shawn Christensen's Curfew won for live-action film, documentary went to Inocente by Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine, and Disney's Paperman, by John Kahrs, garnered the animation Oscar.

Here is the complete list of winners from USA Today.

Best picture

Amour

WINNER: Argo

Beasts of the Southern Wild

Django Unchained

Les Miserables

Life of Pi

Lincoln

Silver Linings Playbook

Zero Dark Thirty

Best actor

Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook

WINNER: Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln

Hugh Jackman, Les Misérables

Joaquin Phoenix, The Master

Denzel Washington, Flight

Best actress

Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty

WINNER: Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook

Emmanuelle Riva, Amour

Naomi Watts, The Impossible

Quvenzhané Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild

Best supporting actor

Alan Arkin, Argo

Robert DeNiro, Silver Linings Playbook

Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master

Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln

WINNER: Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained

Best supporting actress

Amy Adams, The Master

Sally Field, Lincoln

WINNER: Anne Hathaway, Les Misérables

Helen Hunt, The Sessions

Jacki Weaver, Silver Linings Playbook

Best director

Michael Haneke, Amour

WINNER: Ang Lee, Life of Pi

David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook

Steven Spielberg, Lincoln

Benh Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild

Best original screenplay

Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola, Moonrise Kingdom

Mark Boal, Zero Dark Thirty

John Gatins, Flight

Michael Haneke, Amour

WINNER: Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained

Best adapted screenplay

Lucy Alibar and Benh Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild

Tony Kushner, Lincoln

David Magee, Life of Pi

David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook

WINNER: Chris Terrio, Argo

Best animated feature film

WINNER: Brave

Frankenweenie

ParaNorman

The Pirates! Band of Misfits

Wreck-It Ralph

Best cinematography

Anna Karenina, Seamus McGarvey

Django Unchained, Robert Richardson

WINNER: Life of Pi, Claudio Miranda

Lincoln, Janusz Kaminski

Skyfall, Roger Deakins

Best costume design

WINNER: Anna Karenina, Jacqueline Durran

Les Misérables, Paco Delgado

Lincoln, Joanna Johnston

Mirror Mirror, Eiko Ishioka

Snow White and the Huntsman, Colleen Atwood

Best documentary feature

5 Broken Cameras

The Gatekeepers

How to Survive a Plague

The Invisible War

WINNER: Searching for Sugar Man

Best documentary short subject

WINNER: Inocente, Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine

Kings Point, Sari Gilman and Jedd Wider

Mondays at Racine, Cynthia Wade and Robin Honan

Open Heart, Kief Davidson and Cori Shepherd Stern

Redemption, Jon Alpert and Matthew O'Neill

Best film editing

WINNER: Argo, William Goldenberg

Life of Pi, Tim Squyres

Lincoln, Michael Kahn

Silver Linings Playbook, Jay Cassidy and Crispin Struthers

Zero Dark Thirty, Dylan Tichenor and William Goldenberg

Best foreign film

WINNER: Amour, Austria

Kon-Tiki, Norway

No, Chile

A Royal Affair, Denmark

War Witch, Canada

Best makeup and hairstyling

Hitchcock, Howard Berger, Peter Montagna and Martin Samuel

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Peter Swords King, Rick Findlater and Tami Lane

WINNER: Les Misérables, Lisa Westcott and Julie Dartnell

Best original score

Anna Karenina, Dario Marianelli

Argo, Alexandre Desplat

WINNER: Life of Pi, Mychael Danna

Lincoln, John Williams

Skyfall, Thomas Newman

Best original song

Before My Time from Chasing Ice, Music and Lyric by J. Ralph

Everybody Needs a Best Friend from Ted, Music by Walter Murphy; lyrics by Seth MacFarlane

Pi's Lullaby from Life of Pi, Music by Mychael Danna; lyrics by Bombay Jayashri

WINNER: Skyfall from Skyfall, Music and lyrics by Adele Adkins and Paul Epworth

Suddenly from Les Misérables, Music by Claude-Michel Schönberg; lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer and Alain Boublil

Best production design

Anna Karenina, Production Design: Sarah Greenwood; Set Decoration: Katie Spencer

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Production Design: Dan Hennah; Set Decoration: Ra Vincent and Simon Bright

Les Misérables, Production Design: Eve Stewart; Set Decoration: Anna Lynch-Robinson

Life of Pi, Production Design: David Gropman; Set Decoration: Anna Pinnock

WINNER: Lincoln, Production Design: Rick Carter; Set Decoration: Jim Erickson

Best animated short film

Adam and Dog, Minkyu Lee

Fresh Guacamole, PES

Head Over Heels, Timothy Reckart and Fodhla Cronin O'Reilly

Maggie Simpson in The Longest Daycare, David Silverman

WINNER: Paperman, John Kahrs

Best live action short film

Asad, Bryan Buckley and Mino Jarjoura

Buzkashi Boys, Sam French and Ariel Nasr

WINNER: Curfew, Shawn Christensen

Death of a Shadow (Dood van een Schaduw), Tom Van Avermaet and Ellen De Waele

Henry, Yan England

Best sound editing

Argo, Erik Aadahl and Ethan Van der Ryn

Django Unchained, Wylie Stateman

Life of Pi, Eugene Gearty and Philip Stockton

WINNER (tie): Skyfall, Per Hallberg and Karen Baker Landers

WINNER (tie):Zero Dark Thirty, Paul N.J. Ottosson

Best sound mixing

Argo, John Reitz, Gregg Rudloff and Jose Antonio Garcia

WINNER: Les Misérables, Andy Nelson, Mark Paterson and Simon Hayes

Life of Pi, Ron Bartlett, D.M. Hemphill and Drew Kunin

Lincoln, Andy Nelson, Gary Rydstrom and Ronald Judkins

Skyfall, Scott Millan, Greg P. Russell and Stuart Wilson

Best visual effects

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon, David Clayton and R. Christopher White

WINNER: Life of Pi, Bill Westenhofer, Guillaume Rocheron, Erik-Jan De Boer and Donald R. Elliott

Marvel's The Avengers, Janek Sirrs, Jeff White, Guy Williams and Dan Sudick

Prometheus, Richard Stammers, Trevor Wood, Charley Henley and Martin Hill

Snow White and the Huntsman, Cedric Nicolas-Troyan, Philip Brennan, Neil Corbould and Michael Dawson

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