Slumdog is BAFTA's best movie

It has murder, maiming and child torture but is still cheering up cinema audiences across the world. Slumdog Millionaire, the British movie filmed in Mumbai, last night (FEB8) emerged as the biggest winner at the Baftas (the British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards)winning seven categories including best film and best director.

The Film4 movie had been nominated 11 times and hopes are high for Oscar success in a fortnight.

In a night awash with British talent, Kate Winslet won her second best actress Bafta for her portrayal in The Reader of an illiterate SS guard who beds a 15-year-old boy. She beat herself - in Revolutionary Road - and Meryl Streep, Kristin Scott Thomas and Angelina Jolie.

The awards, at London's Royal Opera House, also saw wins for British films Hunger, In Bruges, Man on Wire and The Duchess. The biggest Hollywood success was The Curious Case of Benjamin Button which picked up three awards, although none in the main categories.

Just over a year after his death at 28, Heath Ledger was given a posthumous best supporting actor Bafta for his terrifying turn as the Joker in the Batman movie The Dark Knight.

The biggest acting surprise of last year - Mickey Rourke's portrayal of a washed up piece of meat in The Wrestler - won him best actor, beating strong competition in the form of Frank Langella, Sean Penn, Brad Pitt and the British newcomer Dev Patel.

Penelope Cruz won best supporting actress award for her role in Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona. But it was Slumdog Millionaire, made for a relatively small GBP10m, that was the talk of the evening with Mick Jagger presenting the night's main award of best film.

It tells the tale of a Mumbai chaiwallah who gets on to Who Wants To Be a Millionaire and, remarkably, is asked questions which relate to events in his life.

It's a love story, a morality tale and even though director Danny Boyle has disputed the label feelgood, it is putting smiles on the faces of cinema-goers. It was his second Bafta, 15 years after Shallow Grave.

The film, which also won for best music, cinematography and editing & sound, has not been without its critics. Some have accused it of glamorising squalor - poverty porn, it's been said - and there were some protests in India against the movie.

But then most of the films nominated this year have had vocal detractors. Benjamin Button, in which Brad Pitt is born a 70-year-old and lives his life backwards is either dreary and pointless or magical and profound, depending on your point of view. It was certainly strange seeing Pitt and Cate Blanchett so old and it appropriately won awards for make up and hair, visual effects and production design.

Some also felt queasy watching The Reader with the London-based Guardian newspaper's Peter Bradshaw accusing it of invoking the Holocaust to lend depth to a "tale of titillation and sentimentality".

One movie definitely not feelgood and probably off most people's Valentine date options is Hunger, the gruelling recreation of the Maze dirty protests. Last night it won its director, the Turner Prize-winning artist Steve McQueen, a Carl Foreman first film award.It was also a strong night for artists who have been heavily involved in British theatre. Boyle is a former artistic director of the Royal Court and playwright Martin McDonagh won best original screenplay for In Bruges, his first film.

There would have been some glad-ragged guests contemplating giving the aftershow party a miss. Those involved with Frost/Nixon for example. It won nothing.

Similarly there was nothing for Gus Van Sant's Harvey Milk biopic Milk.

In the animated film category Wall-E won against stiff competition from Waltzing With Bashir and Persepolis.

The Bafta fellowship was given to ex-Python Terry Gilliam, described as by Finola Dwyer, chair of Bafta's film committee, as "one of the most original, imaginative, and innovative directors working in the industry today". Gilliam, director of movies including Time Bandits and The Brothers Grimm, recently said he was going to make a second attempt at adapting Don Quixote for the big screen.

Bafta's outstanding British contribution to cinema this year went to the UK's two leading film studios, Pinewood and Shepperton, where some 1,500 films have been made over the last 75 years.

The only audience award was given to Doctor Who actor Noel Clarke. He was given the rising star award after a year in which his film, Adulthood, did well at the British box office.

The Baftas seem to grow bigger every year and there was no shortage of A-list celebrities enduring the baying as they walked down the Royal Opera House red carpet. Brad and Angelina were the main attraction for some and they sat through the ceremony without winning a thing.