'The Hours' wins best film drama at Golden Globes

The Hours, a movie that looks at the lives of three women living in different eras, won the Golden Globe award for best film drama today, catapulting it to the top of the list for Oscars contention in March.

The movie also claimed the prize of best actress in a drama for its star, Nicole Kidman who portrays British writer Virginia Woolf as she sits down to pen her novel Mrs. Dalloway.

The downbeat drama also stars Julianne Moore as a suicidal 1950s housewife who is reading Mrs Dalloway, and Meryl Streep portrays a modern-day Mrs Dalloway.

It is Kidman's second consecutive best actress Golden Globe Award, after winning last year for the musical Moulin Rouge.

Kidman beat co-stars Streep and Moore - who, in fact, was nominated for Far From Heaven - as well as Salma Hayek for Frida, and Diane Lane for Unfaithful.

Veteran star Jack Nicholson made Golden Globe history when he was named best actor in a drama for his role in About Schmidt, notching up his sixth Globes win.

"Well, I don't know whether to be happy or ashamed, because I thought we made a comedy," Nicholson said. "But I'm very proud of this."

The awards make both actors front-runners in the race for the Oscars.

Chicago won the award for the best musical or comedy film, notching up a third win for the film for the evening.

The razzle-dazzle movie's stars, Renee Zellweger and Richard Gere, both won Globes for their roles.

Martin Scorsese won the best director Golden Globe award for his epic tale of 19th-century New York, Gangs of New York, a labour of love he spent some 30 years bringing to the screen.

Peter Jackson was a nominee in the category for The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.

Scorsese, whose films such as Taxi Driver and Raging Bull have become classics of modern American cinema, received a standing ovation when he won his Golden Globe.

Streep and Chris Cooper won best supporting actors in a comedy for their roles in the film Adaptation.

The movie, directed by Spike Jonze, tells the story of a neurotic screenwriter who works with author Susan Orlean, played by Streep, in order to adapt her non-fiction novel The Orchid Thief for the screen.

Spanish film-maker Pedro Almodovar's latest offering, Talk to Her, scooped the award for best foreign film.

The prolific and controversial director's movie tells the story of two men who meet in strange circumstances in a hospital.

Jennifer Aniston won best TV comedy actress for NBC's Friends.

Tony Shalhoub received the TV comedy actor's prize for the detective show Monk.

The acerbic sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasm won best TV comedy series.

Michael Chiklis was named best actor in a drama for The Shield. His Golden Globe follows his surprise Emmy victory last year for playing a rogue cop in the series.

The dramatic TV actress award went to Edie Falco for her performance as the unhappy wife of gangster Tony Soprano in The Sopranos.

Gene Hackman was chosen to receive the Cecil B. DeMille Award, which honours the star of films including The Conversation, The French Connection and Mississippi Burning for a career spanning nearly 80 movies.

The winners' words

"I didn't have anything prepared because it's been like [since] the Pleistocene era that I won anything."

- Meryl Streep on breaking her awards drought with best supporting actress prize for Adaptation.

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"You've given millions and millions of stringy-haired and toothless people a lot of hope."

- Chris Cooper, who won the best supporting actor award for Adaptation in which he plays a stringy-haired, toothless poacher.

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"This is a sad day for the Golden Globes, It is however, quite a good day for Larry David. I suspect the wife will be a little forthcoming tonight."

- Larry David, whose Curb Your Enthusiasm won best comedy series.

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"I'm literally totally shocked. I don't win anything and I didn't even want to do this movie."

- Richard Gere, who won best actor (comedy or musical) for Chicago.

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"You have no idea how many men I've had to sleep with to get this award."

- Kim Cattrall, winner of best supporting actress (television series) for Sex and the City.

Full list of winners at the Golden Globe Awards

- NZPA