Group photos:

    BEIJING, Jan. 17 -- Controversial gay cowboy movie "Brokeback Mountain" was honoured as the best movie of the year Jan. 16 at the 63rd annual Golden Globe Awards, after taking the Globes for best picture (drama), director (Ang Lee), song (¡°A Love That Will Never Grow Old¡±) and script (by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana).

Director Ang Lee holds up his award for Best Director - Motion Picture for "Brokeback Mountain."

    "Brokeback Mountain," seeming unbeatable at the Oscars, a poetic film that spans a 30-year romance, is based on the short story by Annie Proulx.

    The film, starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal as the lovers, has raised the issue of the acceptance of gay relationships on screen and in wider American society.

    The film has been enthusiastically embraced by critics and within Hollywood, but has met some resistance in the broader public, and even now is playing in only 683 theaters, having taken in $30.8 million.

    Accepting his award, Mr. Lee saluted "the power of movies to change the way we're thinking."

    Winners of Golden Globe Awards, which are given by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, often go on to win Oscars, the U.S. film industry's top awards from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

    The movie's winning gives the gay romance a major boost on the road to the March 5 Oscars.

Movie poster of "Brokeback Mountain"