English director Danny Boyle’s heart-warming, rags-to-riches tale Slumdog Millionaire took four awards in total, an achievement made all the more remarkable by the fact that the film’s star Dev Patel had never acted in a movie before.

The Golden Globes are widely seen as indicators of possible Academy Award success, and Patel is now hoping the film will be nominated for an Oscar.

Speaking to the BBC, he said that an Oscar nomination "would be so exciting".

"Just to be part of the buzz is so cool. It's such a nice feeling to be part of the buzz," he added.

Awards ceremonies are always emotional occasions, and English actress Kate Winslet didn’t disappoint, bursting into tears as she received awards for best actress in the film Revolutionary Road and best supporting actress for her role in The Reader.

Winslet paid tribute to her Revolutionary Road co-star Leonardo DiCaprio, with whom she appeared in the film Titanic, describing him as "spectacular" and telling him she loved him with all her heart.

British director Christopher Nolan, who directed the Batman film The Dark Knight, accepted a posthumous supporting actor award on behalf of the late Heath Ledger, who starred as the Joker in the film but died of an accidental prescription drug overdose before it was released.

Nolan told the audience that Ledger would be "eternally missed but never forgotten", adding that everyone who accepted the award in Ledger’s name did so with "an awful mixture of sadness but incredible pride".