The King's Speech Takes Top Honors!

And they're off! After an opening montage involving all of the best picture nominees—and, uh, Back to the Future—the Oscars are in full swing. The montage was "enjoyably silly," writes David Edelstein in New York, featuring a trip inside the mind of Alec Baldwin, Inception-style. As for the material for hosts James Franco and Anne Hathaway? Lame—but at least, Edelstein notes, "Lame material is better done by people you want to sleep with."

Best supporting actress goes to Melissa Leo, who swears (and who also looks much more beautiful now than she did in The Fighter, according to presenter Kirk Douglas).

Presenter Justin Timberlake's first words on stage: "I'm Banksy." He and Mila Kunis award best animated feature film to Toy Story 3.

First award of many for The Social Network? It wins for best adapted screenplay.

Or maybe this is the first award of many for The King's Speech; it wins for best original screenplay.

Hathaway sings—pretty well, in fact!—and Franco shows up in drag (and notes, "I just got a text message from Charlie Sheen.")

Reese Witherspoon and her '60s hair present the best supporting actor award to Christian Bale for The Fighter. (Notable: He either forgot his wife's name, or was just too choked up when he tried to say it...)

Lots of, shall we say, less interesting awards. And then: Oprah! The queen of talk, sadly, can't give out Oscars to everyone in the audience, but she does award best documentary to Inside Job.

Gwyneth Paltrow sings her Country Weak (I mean, Strong) song, but no win for her movie: Randy Newman wins best original song for Toy Story 3.

We're getting to the big stuff: Best director goes to Tom Hooper for The King's Speech.

No huge surprise here: Natalie Portman snags the best actress Oscar for Black Swan.

Sandra Bullock gets laughs as she presents the award for best actor, addressing each nominee directly (Javier Bardem gets an "hola"; Jeff Bridges gets called "dude."). The winner? A very unsurprising Colin Firth for The King's Speech.

And yet another not-exactly-surprising moment ends the night: The King's Speech wins best picture.

Click for: the complete list of winners.