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Wins Best Picture; Witherspoon, Hoffman Win Top Acting Awards

(CBS/AP) The ensemble drama "Crash" pulled off one of the biggest upsets in Academy Awards history, winning best picture Sunday over the cowboy romance "Brokeback Mountain," which had been the front-runner.

"Crash," featuring a huge cast in crisscrossing story lines over a chaotic 36-hour period in Los Angeles, rode a late surge of praise that lifted it past "Brokeback Mountain," a film that had won most other key Hollywood honors.

"We are humbled by the other nominees in this category. You have made this year one of the most breathtaking and stunning maverick years in American cinema," said "Crash" producer Cathy Schulman.

Lead-acting prizes went to Philip Seymour Hoffman as author Truman Capote in "Capote" and Reese Witherspoon as country singer June Carter in "Walk the Line," while corporate thrillers earned supporting-performer Oscars for George Clooney in "Syriana" and Rachel Weisz in "The Constant Gardener."

More than half the actors nominated for the awards-fest had never been up for an Oscar before. All four acting winners were first-time nominees, and all were expected to win, People Magazine Senior Editor Jess Cagle reports on The Early Show.

"Brokeback Mountain" filmmaker Ang Lee won best director for the tale of two old sheepherding pals who carry on a love affair they conceal from their families.

Lee, whose martial-arts epic "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" won the foreign-language Oscar five years ago, became the first Asian filmmaker to win Hollywood's main filmmaking honor.

"I wish I knew how to quit you," Lee told the audience crowd, reiterating the film's most-quoted line.