The award for Ledger, who died of an accidental drug overdose last year, was accepted by "Dark Knight" director Christopher Nolan who said the loss of Ledger was like "a hole ripped in modern cinema."

"All of us who worked with Heath accept this with an awful mixture of sadness but incredible pride," Nolan said onstage, "He will be eternally missed, but he will never be forgotten."

Briton Kate Winslet, fighting back tears, took the Golden Globe for best supporting actress for her portrayal of a German woman with a hidden past in "The Reader," and Sally Hawkins choked up when collecting best actress in a film comedy as the optimistic teacher in director Mike Leigh's "Happy Go Lucky."

Winslet said she was "shocked" at her victory and added, "I have a habit of not winning things."

Backstage she told reporters: "I feel like the kid who came first in the running race at school, which I also never won," she joked backstage with reporters.

In other major film honors, "Wall-E," a huge summer movie hit with $523 million at global box offices, took home the Golden Globe for best animated film, and Israel's "Waltz with Bashir," was named best foreign language film.

The Golden Globe Awards are given out by some 90 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and annually are one of Hollywood's top honors.

They are closely watched for clues as to which films might vie for Oscars, the world's top move awards given out in February by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

EARLY TV WINNERS

But unlike the film academy, the HFPA also gives honors for television, and some of the night's key winners in that arena were Gabriel Byrne, who won best actor in a TV drama for his role as a psychiatrist in "In Treatment." Anna Paquin was named best actress in a TV drama for "True Blood."

Best mini-series or made-for-TV movie went to Revolutionary War tale "John Adams," which also earned Tom Wilkinson the award for best supporting actor in a mini-series.

Laura Dern took home the Golden Globe award for best actress in a TV mini-series or movie, and Alec Baldwin won for best actor in a TV comedy in "30 Rock."

But because of their impact on Oscars, the film races are more closely followed than TV, and in that arena tension couldn't be higher, industry pundits say, because many are simply too close to call.

In the race for best film drama, pundits give "Slumdog Millionaire," about a young Indian man competing for love and money on a TV game show, the best shot at beating "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," an epic love story starring Pitt as a man who ages backward.

But the experts caution to not ignore "Frost/Nixon," which recounts interviews of disgraced former President Richard Nixon by British TV host David Frost.

Among dramatic actress nominees, Anne Hathaway as a recovering drug addict in "Rachel Getting Married" will see competition from Meryl Streep playing a nun who suspects child sex abuse in her Catholic school in "Doubt."

The dramatic actor race pits veteran Frank Langella playing the former president in "Frost/Nixon" against Sean Penn as slain gay activist Harvey Milk in "Milk," Pitt in "Benjamin Button," comeback kid Mickey Rourke for "The Wrestler" and DiCaprio as a frustrated husband in "Revolutionary Road."

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