The King's Speech and Inception tie with 4 Oscars

Oscar bowed four times for

The King's Speech

at the 83d Academy Awards in Hollywood on Sunday night. The film about the stuttering sovereign was named best picture and won honors for actor Colin Firth as its title character, England's George VI; director Tom Hooper, who thanked his mother for telling him about the original property; and David Seidler, a onetime stutterer who wrote for original screenplay.

Incredibly, given the academy's Anglophilia, it is the first film about the British royals to take best picture. In number of awards won, it tied Inception, which received a quartet of technical honors.

Oscar friended The Social Network, the one about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. The movie took three awards: for Aaron Sorkin's adapted screenplay and its supersonic dialogue, for Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' electronica score, and for its lightning-paced editing.

Natalie Portman, 29, accepted best-actress honors for the physically and psychically demanding role of Nina, the unstable ballerina of Black Swan. She thanked her numerous colleagues, including dancer-choreographer Benjamin Millepied, with whom she is expecting a baby.

Firth, 50, who played the monarch eloquently struggling to speak, took the podium by saying, "I have a feeling my career just peaked."

The Fighter, about boxer brothers, took both prizes in the supporting categories. Melissa Leo won for her role as Alice Ward, pugnacious mother of Micky Ward and Dicky Eklund, and Christian Bale for his part as crack-addicted Dicky. Accepting her prize, Leo, 50, dropped the F-bomb in her thanks, reportedly the first time it was uttered in Academy history; Bale, 37, exclaimed: "Bloody hell!"

Toy Story 3, the most popular movie of 2010 and part of one of the most successful franchises of all time, was named the best animated feature, suggesting that like its hero Buzz Lightyear, it might go to infinity and beyond. It took a second prize for best song, Randy Newman's "We Belong Together," the composer's second win in 20 nominations.

Inception, Chris Nolan's high-tech thriller about dream invaders, had eight nominations and won for cinematography, sound mixing, sound editing, and its dazzling special effects. Tim Burton's phantasmagoric Alice in Wonderland took two statuettes, for art direction and costume.

The evening was a pageant of youth. Nine of the 20 acting nominees are 40 or younger. The hosts were James Franco, 32, and Anne Hathaway, 28, of the matching wide-screen smiles, and Hathaway had the distinction of being the youngest emcee ever.

She reinforced the theme, teasing her cohost, "You look very appealing to a younger demographic."

The broadcast began with a bang, a montage of the 10 best-picture nominees set to the music of Edvard Grieg's In the Hall of the Mountain King, which created excitement and suspense. This was followed by a comic montage of the emcees digitized into scenes from the best-picture nominees.

The attractive cohosts, Franco doing double duty as a nominee and emcee, charmed each other and the guests in the Kodak Theatre. As the night wore on, Hathaway sparkled while Franco grew dull and duller. Both acknowledged relatives in the audience: Hathaway's mother instructed her to stand up straight; Franco's grandmother announced she was excited to see Marky Mark (Mark Wahlberg, star of the nominated film The Fighter.) The evening was something of a mamathon, with winners and presenters honoring their mothers.

Smart money was on 24 statuettes getting distributed among the six top contenders, with almost everyone at the party going home with a goody bag.

Oddsmakers favored The King's Speech, with 12 nominations, to take the awards for best picture, actor, and original screenplay. With eight nominations, The Social Network was the front-runner for best director, adapted screenplay, and original score.

The Fighter had seven nominations and Toy Story 3 five.

Inside Job, Charles Ferguson's hard-hitting look at the origins and fallout of the financial crisis of 2007, took best documentary honors. Accepting his statuette, Ferguson said none of the bankers instrumental in the meltdown had, as yet, been indicted.

"Our goal was to bring a fair and thoughtful presentation of the actions that led to the financial collapse and show how it has negatively impacted millions of lives across the globe," said Jeffrey and Christina Lurie, owners of the Philadelphia Eagles and the film's executive producers.

Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier took the foreign-film award for her drama In a Better World.