"Crash," a hard-hitting ensemble drama about race relations in Los Angeles, won this year's best film award at the Oscars on Sunday.(Photo: Xinhua)

    BEIJING, March. 6 -- "Crash," a hard-hitting ensemble drama about race relations in Los Angeles, won this year's best film award at the Oscars on Sunday, overtaking highly favoured gay romance "Brokeback Mountain."

    "Crash" writer/director Paul Haggis said he was "shocked, shocked" with the victory.

    "We're still trying to figure out if we got this," he said, clutching his golden trophy in his hand. "None of us expected it. You hope, but we had a tiny picture ... this was a year when Hollywood rewarded rule breakers."

    Overall, the movie won three awards including film editing and best original screenplay for Haggis and co-writer Bobby Moresco.

    "Brokeback" screenwriter Larry McMurtry told reporters backstage he believed that Crash's setting in Los Angeles helped it because many of the 6,000 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences live in the city.

Ang Lee took the best directing Oscar for his work on "Brokeback," making Academy Award history as the first Asian filmmaker to receive that award.(Photo: Xinhua)

     "Crash" and "Brokeback" faced three rivals for the best film Oscar: George Clooney's "Good Night, and Good Luck," Steven Spielberg's "Munich," and "Capote."

    "Munich" and "Good Night" failed to win any Oscars, but "Good Night" mastermind Clooney, who also directed and co-wrote the film, did win an Oscar for best supporting actor in his turn as a world-weary CIA agent in the oil industry drama "Syriana."

    Shot on a $6.5-million budget, "Crash" became a box-office success, grossing $55 million domestically.

    Ang Lee took the best directing Oscar, for his work on "Brokeback," making Academy Award history as the first Asian filmmaker to receive that award.

    Heading into the Oscars, the critically acclaimed "Brokeback" was widely favoured to win best picture because it had won nearly all of Hollywood's best film honours. The movie "Crash" therefore stunned Hollywood by taking the top prize at the 78th Academy Awards. Enditem

    (Agencies)