Moving drama "Babel" won the best picture award at the 64th Golden Globes ceremony here Monday night, with its strongest contender "Dreamgirls" winning three major awards.

Veteran director Martin Scorsese picked the best director for his crime thriller "The Departed."

"Babel," directed by Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, led all nominees into the ceremony. It won only one, which was also the biggest prize.

"It took us more than one year doing this film, shooting it on three continents and in five languages, and it seems no matter how many languages you shoot a film ... the power of cinema is universal," said Inarritu when receiving the trophy from California governor and former action star Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The movie described immigration problems among four families between the United States and Mexico after the "9.11" terrorism attack.

"Dreamgirls," an upbeat musical about the rise of a 1960s soul trio loosely based on The Supremes, gained three important awards, including the best musical picture, the best supporting actor and actress awards for Eddie Murphy and Jennifer Hudson. It now seems a certainty to earn an Oscar nod when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science unveils its best picture nominations on January 23.

Legendary Martin Scorsese picked up the best director award for his criminal film "The Departed," after his victory for "Gangs of New York" four years ago.

British actress Helen Mirren also had a big night, taking home two best actress Golden Globes -- one for her role as the queen of England in the HBO miniseries "Elizabeth I" and the other for her dramatic film role as Queen Elizabeth II in "The Queen."

Meanwhile, Forest Whitaker was named best actor for his portrayal of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in "The Last King of Scotland."

Meryl Streep won her sixth Golden Globe, winning the prize for best actress in the category of musical or comedy motion picture in the film "The Devil Wears Prada," while Sacha Baron Cohen won the best actor in the same category for his black humor film "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan."

Leonardo Di Caprio and Clint Eastwood went into the ceremony as the first actor and director, respectively, with two nominations in the same category. But both were passed over.

DiCaprio was nominated for best actor for "Blood Diamond" and "The Departed," but lost to Whitaker, while Eastwood had nominations for directing "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters from Iwo Jima," but Martin Scorsese won the directing prize for "The Departed."

Eastwood did not come away empty-handed as his "Letters from Iwo Jima" -- a film about the famed World War II battle from the Japanese perspective -- won the Golden Globe for best foreign-language film, beating out Mel Gibson's "Apocalypto," "The Lives of Others" from Germany, "Pan's Labyrinth" from Mexico and "Volver" from Spain.

"Cars" took home the first Golden Globe awarded to an animated film, beating out "Monster House" and the recent box office blockbuster "Happy Feet."

Hollywood veteran Warren Beatty was presented with the Cecil B.De Mille Award for lifetime achievement during the ceremony. The award put the 69-year-old Beatty in the company of former recipients such as Anthony Hopkins, Al Pacino and Jack Nicholson.

Since the 1963 adoption of the current format of separate best picture winners for drama and musicals or comedy, 70 percent of the films that ended up with best picture Academy Awards, the Oscar, had first received a Golden Globe.

Last year, acting Oscar winners Reese Witherspoon, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rachel Weisz and George Clooney all won Golden Globes before stepping into the Oscar Awards history.

However, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which gives the awards, has drawn criticism for its small size of 85 members, which theoretically makes it more susceptible to influence by studios and publicists, the absence of members from internationally renowned publications, and the practice of some members of posing for photographs with stars, which would be an ethics breach at most U.S. publications.