The year’s sleeper hit Slumdog Millionaire won top honours at the 66th Golden Globe Awards, winning four statuettes including Best Motion Picture – Drama and Best Director.

The heartwarming rags-to-riches tale also picked up awards for Best Screenplay and Best Original Score.

Accepting his award, director Danny Boyle said: "Golden Globes, or the GGs as we very affectionately refer to them - your mad, pulsating affection for our film is much appreciated. Really, deeply appreciated."

Other big winners at the spectacular event held on Sunday evening in Beverly Hills, were British actress Kate Winslet, who picked up two statuettes for her performances in domestic drama Revolutionary Road and Holocaust-themed drama The Reader.

“I'm so sorry," Winslet said to her fellow nominees after accepting her second award of the night for lead actress in Revolutionary. "Is this really happening?"

Woody Allen's Spanish romance Vicky Cristina Barcelona won for best musical or comedy film.

As expected, the late Heath Ledger earned the supporting-actor Globe for his diabolical turn as the Joker in the Batman blockbuster The Dark Knight.

The award was accepted by The Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan, who said he and his collaborators were buoyed by the enormous acclaim and acceptance the film and Ledger's performance have gained worldwide.

"All of us who worked with Heath on The Dark Knight accept with an awful mixture of sadness but incredible pride," Nolan said. "After Heath passed, you saw a hole ripped in the future of cinema."

Other acting winners included Mickey Rourke as dramatic actor for his comeback role in The Wrestler, playing a former star with one last shot at glory in the ring, Sally Hawkins as musical or comedy actress for her role as an eternal optimist in Happy-Go-Lucky and Colin Farrell for musical or comedy actor for In Bruges, in which he plays a hit man laying low in a Belgian tourist town.

The robot romance WALL-E won for best animated feature.

Steven Spielberg was honored with the Globes' Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement, saying he recalled his first trip to the movies at age 6 to see DeMille's The Greatest Show On Earth.

Bruce Springsteen received the best song prize for the title track to The Wrestler.

Among TV categories, 30 Rock won best comedy series, with stars Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin earning the acting Globes in a musical or comedy. Mad Men won best TV drama.