Kate Winslet rules the Globes

Kate Winslet was the star and Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire the top film in an extraordinary night of British success at the Golden Globes.

Star of the show: Kate Winslet

Winslet won best actress and best supporting actress awards in only the third time a performer has won two Globes for acting in the same year.

Two for one: Kate with her awards

There were other British wins in the movies In Bruges and Happy-Go-Lucky with stars Colin Farrell and Sally Hawkins.

Happy-go-lucky: Sally Hawkins, top, Colin Farrell and Kate Winslet with two awards

Heath Ledger won the best supporting actor for his last full performance in The Dark Knight.

But it was Danny Boyle's tale of a Mumbai teenager who goes on India's Who Wants To Be A Millionaire that was the biggest winner at the Los Angeles ceremony. It was best film drama and there were honours for its director Danny Boyle, screenwriter Simon Beaufoy - the man also behind The Full Monty - and composer AR Rahman.

Top dogs: best director Danny Boyle, top, and Slumdog's Dev Patel and Freida Pinto

Winslet, 33, and Slumdog Millionaire are now heavily tipped to replicate their Golden Globe success at the Academy Awards next month.

Accepting the best actress award for Revolutionary Road, Winslet said: "Thank you so much, it is absolutely extraordinary." Overcome with emotion, she paid tribute to her co-star Leonardo DiCaprio, with whom she first performed in Titanic, and to her husband, Sam Mendes, who directed the story of an unhappy marriage in Fifties America. She joked to Mendes: "Thank you for killing us," adding: "I have loved you with all my heart. I loved every second working with you."

She was also named best supporting actress for her portrayal of a former concentration camp guard in Stephen Daldry's adaptation of German novel The Reader. Ricky Gervais congratulated Winslet who appeared in an episode of his show Extras playing herself in a Holocaust movie. He said: "I told you, do a Holocaust movie and the awards come, didn't I?"

Danny Boyle, 52, thanked the Hollywood Foreign Press Association which organised the Globes. "Your mad, pulsating affection for our film is much appreciated. The film was made from the heart, really," he said.

The wins for Hawkins and Farrell, both 32, were a triumph for Film4 which backed Slumdog Millionaire, Happy-Go-Lucky and In Bruges. Tom Wilkinson, 60, won a TV award for playing Benjamin Franklin in John Adams.