Jackson Crowned Oscar King

The Lord of the Rings went out in a blaze of Oscar glory as the final part of Peter Jackson's Tolkien trilogy swept the board at the 76th Academy Awards. Return of the King won a total of 11 awards, equalling the record haul of Titanic and Ben Hur.

"This closes the book on The Lord of the Rings," said Jackson, who will now move on to a remake of the 1933 classic King Kong.

Unlike Ben Hur and Titanic, Return of the King achieved the added distinction of triumphing in every category for which it was nominated. It is also the first fantasy film to win the best picture Oscar, to which it added best director and best adapted screenplay, as well as scooping a raft of technical awards.

At times Jackson's film threatened to turn the other nominees into impotent bystanders. "We are so pleased that Lord of the Rings was not nominated in this category," joked the producer of The Barbarian Invasions, which won the Oscar for best foreign language film.

Elsewhere, Charlize Theron was named best actress for her role as serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster, while Sean Penn won the best actor Oscar for his work in Clint Eastwood's Mystic River. Renée Zellweger scooped best supporting actress for her turn in Cold Mountain, and Tim Robbins took the best supporting actor Oscar for his contribution to Mystic River.

Errol Morris won the best documentary award for The Fog of War, his pungent autopsy of the war in Vietnam. Sofia Coppola won the best original screenplay for her Lost in Translation.

In contrast to last year's nervous, muted ceremony, which coincided with the opening salvos of the war in Iraq, the 76th Academy Awards was a smooth-running and glitzy affair, marked by a return to the traditional fashion parades on the red carpet outside the Kodak Theatre. But the gushing and the glamour could not hide a palpable air of inevitability as all the favourites triumphed and Jackson's film marched inexorably towards the best picture Oscar. In the end it was not so much an awards ceremony as it was a coronation.