The Hurt Locker dominates 2010 Oscars with fantastic six wins

Iraq drama The Hurt Locker has swept the board at the 82nd annual Academy awards, claiming six Oscars from its nine nominations, including the best picture and best director Oscars.

Kathryn Bigelow's film, which tells of bomb disposal squads following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, also took the best original screenplay award and won sound and editing awards.

The Hurt Locker's main rival Avatar, directed by Bigelow's ex-husband James Cameron, claimed only three awards, winning the best visual effects, best cinematography and best art direction Oscars while Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire and Up also won a brace.

American actors Jeff Bridges and Sandra Bullock earlier took the top acting prizes at the 82nd annual Academy awards for Crazy Heart and The Blind Side, respectively.

Big Lebowski star Bridges claimed the Academy award for his performance as Bad Blake ahead of A Single Man's Colin Firth, The Hurt Locker actor Jeremy Renner, George Clooney for Up In The Air and Morgan Freeman, nominated for Invictus.

Bullock, meanwhile, scooped the best actress prize from An Education's Carey Mulligan, Precious star Gabourey Sidibe, multiple Oscar nominee Meryl Streep for Julie and Julia and former winner Dame Helen Mirren for The Last Station.

Inglourious Basterds actor Christoph Waltz had earlier taken the best supporting actor prize while fellow bookies' favourite Mo'Nique won best supporting actress for her dominant performance in Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire.

The Hurt Locker had strolled into the lead at the halfway point, claiming the best sound editing and mixing Oscars to add to Mark Boal's earlier win for best original screenplay.

However, Avatar struck back with the best cinematography Oscar and, predictably, the best visual effects award, with its computer generated and three-dimensional techniques seen as having irrevocably changed cinema.

The best supporting categories threw up no surprises, with bookmakers' favourites Waltz and Mo'Nique claiming the Oscars. Waltz thanked director Quentin Tarantino's "unorthodox methods of navigation" for his Oscar triumph while Mo'Nique was greeted with an affecting standing ovation as she accepted her award.

Other winners included Disney/Pixar's Up in the best animated feature category and Ryan Bingham and T-Bone Burnett's song The Weary Kind from the Crazy Heart soundtrack while there was an emotional tribute to the late John Hughes.

Precious also picked up the best adapted screenplay award while there was a shock in the best foreign language film category as Argentinean effort El Secreto de Sus Ojos claimed the prize ahead of frontrunners The White Ribbon and A Prophet.