Ledger wins posthumous Globe for 'The Dark Knight'

BEVERLY HILLS, California — Heath Ledger won the supporting-actor Golden Globe on Sunday nearly a year after his death, earning the prize for his diabolical turn as the Joker in the Batman blockbuster "The Dark Knight."

The award was accepted by "Dark Knight" director Christopher Nolan, who said he and his collaborators were buoyed by the enormous acclaim and acceptance the film and Ledger's performance have gained worldwide.

"All of us who worked with Heath on 'The Dark Knight' accept with an awful mixture of sadness but incredible pride," Nolan said. "After Heath passed, you saw a hole ripped in the future of cinema."

The Globe win boosts Ledger's prospects for the supporting-actor honor at the Academy Awards, whose nominations come out Jan. 22, the one-year anniversary of the actor's death from an accidental overdose of prescription drugs.

Only one actor has ever won a posthumous Oscar, best-actor recipient Peter Finch for 1976's "Network."

The robot romance "WALL*E" won the Golden Globe for best animated film, Sally Hawkins earned the best-actress prize in a musical or comedy as an eternal optimist in "Happy-Go-Lucky," and Kate Winslet took supporting actress for "The Reader," in which she plays a former Nazi concentration camp guard in a romantic fling with a teenager.

Hawkins, a relatively unknown British actress and newcomer to Hollywood's awards scenes, was visibly nervous accepting her prize.

"I'll try and get through as much as my voice and nerves and knees will let me," said Hawkins, thanking family, cast mates and collaborators on the film, including director Mike Leigh.

"WALL*E" director Andrew Stanton thanked producer Pixar Animation and distributor Walt Disney, saying the unusual love story between two robots who communicate in beeps and squeaks "couldn't have been made anywhere else."

Winslet, who also was up for best dramatic actress at the Globes with the domestic drama "Revolutionary Road," is a five-time Oscar nominee but has never won.

"You have to forgive me because I have a habit of not winning things," Winslet said as she opened what she acknowledged was a long acceptance speech.

"Sorry this is going on a bit, but I'm going to make the most of it," she said amid thanking everyone from her children to the film's makeup artists.