It split audiences, divided critics and even left its own producers warring. But Crash ultimately unified the one constituency that matters most in Hollywood: Academy Award voters.

In one of the biggest upsets in recent Academy Award history, Crash defeated Brokeback Mountain for the best picture Oscar Sunday, also winning in the categories of best original screenplay and editing.

Though the provocative ensemble drama about race relations in Los Angeles dealt a blow to the heavily favored Brokeback Mountain, the ascension of Crash symbolized not only the rise of independently financed movies but also this award season's emphasis on personal stories about divisive social issues.

"What an amazing night!" said one of Crash's two credited producers, Cathy Schulman, after the film's win was greeted by astonishment and applause inside the Kodak Theatre. Addressing her fellow best picture nominees, she said: "You have made this year one of the most breathtaking and stunning maverick years in American cinema."

Brokeback Mountain, which had cleaned up at awards shows leading up to the 78th annual Oscars and was among the year's best-reviewed films, did win an Oscar for Ang Lee, the first nonwhite director to win the industry's top filmmaking prize. The controversial movie about cowboys in love also won trophies for adapted screenplay and score.

In upsetting Brokeback Mountain for best picture, Crash delivered as big a shock as when Shakespeare in Love toppled Saving Private Ryan seven years ago. In choosing Crash over Brokeback Mountain, the Academy Awards were picking between two small movies dealing with prejudice and intolerance. Crash is not playing in theaters anymore, having been released on DVD in September. Not one of this year's best picture nominees has grossed more than US$80 million (HK$624 million) in theaters; only Brokeback Mountain has come close.

Even though its win was unexpected, Crash represents an Academy Awards trend. For the fourth consecutive year, none of the major Hollywood studios could claim credit for making and releasing a best picture winner - a span stretching back to Universal Pictures' A Beautiful Mind. (Last year's winner, Million Dollar Baby, was distributed by Warner Bros, but financed by independent Lakeshore Entertainment.)

And unlike past independent best film winners, which were fully financed by specialized companies such as Miramax Films, this year's nonstudio films were bankrolled by a patchwork of private investors.

Of the best picture nominees, Capote, whose Philip Seymour Hoffman took the best actor Oscar, was partially financed by a German investment fund and Canadian tax credits; Good Night, and Good Luck attracted deep-pocketed patrons in Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and eBay co-founder Jeff Skoll; Brokeback Mountain was helped to the screen by Bill Pohlad, whose family owns the Minnesota Twins; and Crash was bankrolled by a German media fund, the Blockbuster video chain and a bank loan.

Only Munich was 100 percent underwritten by a studio, but had not Steven Spielberg been at the helm it is unlikely that Universal - or any other studio, for that matter - would have backed the production about the aftermath of the massacre at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

Prominent movie critics were sharply split on Crash's artistic merits, and audiences fell into two polarized camps: those who loved the US$7.5- million film, and those who loathed it. When the film was released in May, it carried the names of six separate producers, but only two - Schulman, and the film's co-writer and director, Paul Haggis - were deemed eligible for the best picture trophy.

Financier Bob Yari, the film's first Hollywood supporter and one of the four delisted producers, has sued Schulman and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as part of the credit dispute, and Schulman has sued Yari. Schulman did, however, thank Yari in her acceptance speech.

Yari was not invited to the show, and watched the ceremony with colleagues at a Burbank burger joint. He said the controversy over the producing credit tainted his ability to enjoy the Oscars, but that the win gave him hope.

"It almost takes away all the hesitation I have to continue," he said.

The ceremony's first award - a best supporting actor win for George Clooney in Syriana - was indicative of the evening's slate of nominees. Released by Warner Bros, the political thriller about oil and terrorism was subsidized by Skoll's Participant Productions; Clooney himself waived his upfront salary to get the outspoken movie made.

"This is not an industry that says OK. It has to be about big business and big budgets," Clooney said backstage after his win. "I think the beauty of the academy is that it finds little moments to say, `Let's talk about these films and let's talk about things that maybe the rest of the mainstream doesn't get a chance to see."'

Neither Syriana nor The Constant Gardener, a drama about pharmaceutical corruption in Africa that won a best supporting actress Oscar for Rachel Weisz, sold nearly as many tickets as the winner for documentary feature, March of the Penguins, which grossed US$77.4 million.

Actor William H Macy, whose wife, Felicity Huffman, was nominated for best actress in Transamerica, said before the ceremony that he was encouraged by the kinds of movies Oscar voters singled out, and that they had performed well relative to their costs.

"The [best picture nominees] this year were not blockbusters but they were movies of depth," Macy said. "These films were successful, too, and that's not getting enough attention."

Some Oscar-winning movies that were conceived as fully financed studio movies were different animals by the time they hit theaters. Memoirs of a Geisha, which won Academy Awards for costume design, art direction and cinematography, was developed at Sony Pictures, but the nervous studio sold a hefty share of the film to Spyglass Entertainment. Even the specialized film companies that distributed four of the five best picture nominees are not immune from the relentless business pressures that make daring filmmaking increasingly difficult.

Focus Features, which released Brokeback Mountain, adheres to a rigid model that balances a film's artistic merit against its foreign sales potential. That formula prevented Focus from making 2004's Sideways, which went on to be a critical triumph, win the adapted screenplay Oscar and turn into an art house smash, grossing more than US$71 million.

The ceremony's honorary Oscar was presented to maverick director Robert Altman, recognizing a filmmaker who often works outside of the big studios.

Those studios could take some solace in the three wins collected by King Kong and the best actress trophy for Reese Witherspoon of Walk the Line.

Britain's Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit won best animated feature film.

The show was hosted by Jon Stewart of the satirical news program The Daily Show, the fourth Oscar host in as many years. Ratings for last year's show, hosted by Chris Rock, were down 3 percent from the previous year, and Oscar organizers worried that television viewership might be down again this year because so few people had seen the five best picture nominees.

But these movies were never intended to be blockbusters. They just had something to say. "No matter how much we want to believe important messages drive Hollywood decisions, the greatest driver is financial potential," financier Yari said. LOS ANGELES TIMES