Hollywood stars come out for the Oscars

Feb 28, 2011, 16:46 GMT

Los Angeles - Hollywood's royalty turned out for the Oscars Sunday evening, where British regal drama The King's Speech is heavily favoured to dominate the most coveted awards in the film world.

From Scarlett Johansson to Nicole Kidman and Warren Beatty, the panoply of movie stars strolled down the red carpet outside the Kodak Theatre prior to the 83rd annual Oscars, hosted by actors Anne Hathaway and James Franco.

Despite forecasts of an unusually cold and wet weekend in Hollywood, the weather behaved as well as the thousands of fans who waited all day in the stands, allowing some of the world's most beautiful women to parade elegantly into the theatre.

The show began with a fast-paced montage of the 10 best picture contenders before Franco and Hathaway starred in a skit in which they were intercut into scenes from the films. Tom Hanks presented the first award of the night for Art Direction, which was won by Alice in Wonderland.

The King's Speech is the hot favourite for Oscar glory with 12 nominations and a great track record in other awards shows.

The film's most prominent challenger, The Social Network, about Facebook founder Marc Zuckerberg, did win the Golden Globe for best drama but was beaten by The King's Speech in the three most important indicators: the awards shows by the directors, actors and producers guilds, whose members are also the people who vote for the Oscar winners.

Also competing for the coveted best picture prize are Black Swan, True Grit, The Fighter, Inception, The Kids Are All Right, Toy Story 3, 127 Hours, and Winter's Bone.

The Oscars traditionally cap the Hollywood awards season. Earlier in the weekend Black Swan dominated the Independent Spirit Awards, while sci-fi fantasy film The Last Airbender dominated the Razzie Awards recognizing the year's worst film.

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