So, the British didn't quite storm it this year, either, but it's hard to quibble with the 79th Oscar choices. No, The Departed isn't Martin Scorsese's best film - indeed it felt at times like a rehash of several of his superior works - but it was an exciting, vigorous addition to his canon, and it would take a heart of stone to deny him his long-overdue statuettes for Best Film and Best Director. Yes, Eddie Murphy turned in a remarkable, vulnerable performance in Dreamgirls but I can't argue with 72-year-old Alan Arkin's Best Supporting Actor nod for his scene-stealing turn in the utterly charming Little Miss Sunshine. Judi Dench and Penelope Cruz were worthy Best Actress nominees (Meryl Streep less so), but Helen Mirren's win must be the least surprising of this year's awards after the annointing of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth as Best Documentary. I'm sorry for Peter O'Toole's eighth rebuff, and surprisingly sorry too for Leonardo DiCaprio - whose defiantly unsympathetic performance in Blood Diamond is, to my eyes, his first as a mature actor - but Forest Whitaker's Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland was nothing short of uncanny, reincarnating the tyrant in all his erratic, murderous dementia. Clint didn't win but Letters From Iwo Jima got a token nod for Sound Editing.

For this was the year the Academy looked beyond national borders rather than simply indulging in LA backslapping. With multiple awards going to Pan's Labyrinth, the terrific German film Das Leben Des Anderen winning Best Foreign Language film, and composer Ennio Morricone winning the Lifetime Achievement Award (his gracious, three-minute Italian acceptance speech diligently translated by Eastwood)... well, one can't complain too much that Borat, Notes on a Scandal, or the contributions of writer Peter Morgan and director Stephen Frears to The Queen were overlooked. Perhaps it is a slight shame that one of Scorsese's Oscars didn't go to Paul Greengrass for United 93, a film I thought would be impossible to make but which he handled with faultless sensitivity...

The Awards themselves aside, it was a genteel evening. I was actually rather glad to see Jennifer Hudson overcome with emotion, as there seemed little chance of anyone else "doing a Gwyneth", and when I met Hudson I found her calm acceptance of the honours heaped on her movie debut in Dreamgirls rather unnerving. Ellen DeGeneres was an able, unchallenging host, and you can tell it's a sober Oscars when former VP Al Gore gets the lion's share of the jokes. For quirky moments, you have to dig deep: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, director of the deeply serious Stasi drama Leben des Anderen, citing Arnold Schwarzeneggar as an inspirational figure; Torill Kove, winner of the Best Animated Short Film award, saying "I'm Norwegian, so I have to say that I don't deserve this"; and lesbian singer Melissa Etheridge insisting backstage that Oscar would be the only naked man ever to grace her bedroom.

It's over for another year. Phew.