A night of surprises at Bafta

As predicted, Daniel Day-Lewis (above) won best actor for his role in There Will be Blood, and Javier Bardem won best supporting actor for his stoney-faced killer in No Country for Old Men. Otherwise, it was surprises all the way at the Bafta awards in London last night.

Julie Christie, much fancied for her part as an Alzheimer's victim in Away from Her, did not win best actress; neither did Keira Knightley for Atonement. The award went instead to the French actress Marion Cotillard (above), ravishing in a glittery Chanel dress, for her performance as Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose.

Atonement, which began the night with 14 nominations, won only two awards - the all-important best film, and another for production design - while the French film La Vie en Rose won a total of four, with awards for music, costume design and make-up on top of Cotillard's gong.

Best director went to Joel and Ethan Coen for No Country. Writers honoured were the newcomer Diablo Cody, who won best original screenplay for Juno, and the veteran playwright and screenwriter Ronald Harwood who won best adapted screenplay for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Best foreign language film was The Lives of Others.

Most genuinely surprised star of the evening was an orange-haired Tilda Swinton dressed in a show-stopping Dior dress in canary yellow covered in black feathers. She told the audience at the Royal Opera House that she could prove how astonished she was to win best supporting actress for her role opposite George Clooney in the thriller Michael Clayton: she would never have worn the outfit if she'd been expecting to win.

Swinton then endeared herself to a million cynics by saying how incredibly easy her job as a screen actress was - a theme picked up later by Anthony Hopkins when he was handed a Bafta fellowship. To the horror of Daniel Day-Lewis and other method actors in the audience, Hopkins said more than once that acting in the movies beat working for a living.