Argo takes best-picture Oscar

LOS ANGELES — Ben Affleck’s Argo, a film about a fake movie, has earned a very real prize: best picture at the Academy Awards.

From the White House, first lady Michelle Obama joined Jack Nicholson to help present the final prize.

“There are eight great films that have every right, as much a right to be up here as we do,” Affleck said of the other best picture nominees.

Oscar voters spread Sunday’s honors among a range of films, with Argo winning three trophies but Life of Pi leading with four.

Daniel Day-Lewis joined a select group of recipients with his third Oscar, taking the best-actor trophy for his performance as Abraham Lincoln in the Civil War saga Lincoln. He became the only performer to win three best-actor Oscars, adding to the honors he earned for My Left Foot and There Will Be Blood.

Day-Lewis is only the sixth actor to earn three or more Oscars, tied with Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson, Ingrid Bergman and Walter Brennan with three each, and just behind Katharine Hepburn, who won four.

Hunger Games star Jennifer Lawrence won the award for best actress as a damaged soul in Silver Linings Playbook. At 22, Lawrence is the second youngest woman to win best actress, behind Marlee Matlin, who was 21 when she won for Children of a Lesser God.

Lawrence also is the third youngest best-actress contender ever, earning her first nomination at age 20 two years ago for her breakout role in Winter’s Bone, the film that took her from virtual unknown to one of Hollywood’s most-versatile and sought-after performers.

Anne Hathaway went from propping up leaden co-host James Franco at the Academy Awards two years ago to hefting a golden statue of her own with a supporting-actress win as a doomed mother-turned prostitute in the musical Les Miserables.

Christoph Waltz won his second supporting-actor Oscar for a Quentin Tarantino film, this time as a genteel bounty hunter in the slave-revenge saga Django Unchained.Tarantino also won his second Oscar, for original screenplay for the film.

Ang Lee won best director for the shipwreck story Life of Pi, taking the prize over Steven Spielberg, who had been favored for Lincoln. Life of Pi also won for Mychael Danna’s multicultural musical score that blends Indian and Western instruments and influences, plus cinematography and visual effects.

Oscar host Seth MacFarlane opened with a mildly edgy monologue that offered the usual polite jabs at the academy, the stars and the industry. He took a poke at academy voters over the snub of Affleck, who missed out on a directing nomination for Argo, a thriller about the CIA’s plot to rescue six Americans during the Iranian hostage crisis.

“The story was so top secret that the film’s director is unknown to the academy,” MacFarlane said. “They know they screwed up. Ben, it’s not your fault.”

Argo also claimed the Oscar for adapted screenplay for Chris Terrio, who worked with Affleck to create a liberally embellished story based on an article about the rescue and part of CIA operative Tony Mendez’s memoir.

The foreign-language prize went to Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke’s old-age love story Amour, which had five nominations, including picture, director and original screenplay for Haneke and best actress for Emmanuelle Riva, who turned 86 on Sunday and would have been the oldest acting winner ever.

The Scottish adventure Brave, from Disney’s Pixar Animation unit, was named best animated feature. Pixar films have won seven of the 12 Oscars since the category was added.

There was a rare tie in one category, the sixth in the history of the Academy Awards, with the Osama bin Laden thriller Zero Dark Thirty and the James Bond tale Skyfall each winning for sound editing.

William Shatner made a guest appearance as his Star Trek character Capt. James Kirk, appearing on a giant screen above the stage during MacFarlane’s monologue, saying he came back in time to stop the host from ruining the Oscars.

“Your jokes are tasteless and inappropriate, and everyone ends up hating you,” said Shatner, who revealed a headline supposedly from the next day’s newspaper that read, “Seth MacFarlane worst Oscar host ever.”

MacFarlane did press his luck a bit on an Abraham Lincoln joke, noting that Raymond Massey preceded Lincoln star Day-Lewis as an Oscar nominee for 1940’s Abe Lincoln in Illinois.

“I would argue that the actor who really got inside Lincoln’s head was John Wilkes Booth,” MacFarlane wisecracked, earning some groans from the crowd.

Information for this article was contributed by Christy Lemire, Sandy Cohen, Beth Harris and Anthony McCartney of The Associated Press.

Academy Award winners

A list of the 85th annual Academy Award winners announced Sunday in Los Angeles: Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained.

Animated Short Film: Paperman.

Animated Feature Film: Brave.

Cinematography: Life of Pi.

Visual Effects: Life of Pi.

Costume: Anna Karenina.

Makeup and Hairstyling: Les Miserables.

Live Action Short Film: Curfew.

Documentary (short subject): Inocente.

Documentary Feature: Searching for Sugar Man.

Foreign Language Film: Amour.

Sound Mixing: Les Miserables.

Sound Editing (tie): Skyfall, Zero Dark Thirty.

Supporting Actress: Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables.

Film Editing: Argo.

Production Design: Lincoln.

Original Score: Life of Pi, Mychael Danna.

Original Song: “Skyfall” from Skyfall, Adele Adkins and Paul Epworth.

Adapted Screenplay: Chris Terrio, Argo.

Original Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained.

Directing: Ang Lee, Life of Pi.

Actress: Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook.

Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln.

Picture: Argo.