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BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — A Mexican director delivered the globe-spanning best drama Golden Globe winner. A U.S. director crafted the foreign-language champ. Another American won a key acting prize playing an African dictator. And a Brit received an acting honor for playing a Kazakh man.

Monday's 64th annual Globes, presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, certainly lived up to their name with an international flavor among key winners. But the drowsy ceremony failed to live up to its reputation as a spontaneous counterpart to the staid Academy Awards.

"Dreamgirls," adapted from the stage hit about a female singing trio's rise to fame in the 1960s and Õ70s, led winners with three Globes: best musical or comedy and acting honors for supporting players Eddie Murphy and Jennifer Hudson. Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's "Babel," a sprawling ensemble tale centered on loosely linked families on three continents, won best drama.

After a fairly tedious three hours, the show finally ended with a comic highlight as California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger presented the drama prize to "Babel."

Inarritu quipped, "I swear I have my papers in order. Governor, I swear."

Backstage, Inarritu celebrated the growing strength of Mexican cinema, paying tribute to countrymen Alfonso Cuaron, who made the thriller "Children of Men," and Guillermo del Toro, who made Golden Globe foreign-language nominee "Pan's Labyrinth."

"I'm proud of Mexican cinema, making films around the world and talking about universal themes." Inarritu said.

The Globes for best dramatic performances were awarded for renditions of two wildly different heads of state: Helen Mirren won best actress as Britain's priggish monarch Elizabeth II in "The Queen," while Forest Whitaker took best actor as magnetic but savage Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in "The Last King of Scotland."

"He was very charismatic, very funny," Whitaker said of Amin, whom he played as a strangely likable man despite the dictator's brutality.

Whitaker and Mirren were considered heavy Academy Awards favorites going into the evening, and their Globe wins solidified their prospects for Oscars on Feb. 25.

Mirren also won the Globe for best actress in a TV movie or miniseries as the current monarch's namesake of centuries ago in "Elizabeth I."

Murphy, previously a three-time loser in the best-actor category at the Globes, finally won a major Hollywood honor after a 25-year career in which his fast-talking comic persona made him a superstar while critical acceptance eluded him.

In "Dreamgirls," Murphy played a wailing soul singer trying to keep pace with the times. Asked backstage whether the role means he may revive his own recording career, Murphy said, "Oh no, that's pretty much dead. No, that `Party All the Time' tour will not be happening."

Vocal powerhouse Hudson, who rose to fame barely two years ago as a finalist on "American Idol," has shown singing and acting chops that may promise a long career in both music and film.

"Last year this time, I wasn't sure if I was an actress, but now this gives, just gives me the confidence to want to carry on, to continue acting," Hudson said.

The Globes have a strong history of forecasting eventual Oscar winners, but the best-picture race remained murky, with "Dreamgirls" and "Babel" getting a lift from the Globes but "The Departed" and "The Queen" remaining solid contenders.

Clint Eastwood, who had two directing nominations for his World War II films "Letters From Iwo Jima" and "Flags of Our Fathers," lost that honor to Martin Scorsese, who took home the best-director Globe for the mob tale "The Departed."

Eastwood did pull an unusual coup for an American filmmaker as the Japanese-language "Letters" won the foreign-language Globe.

British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen received the Globe for best actor in a movie musical or comedy for his raucous satire "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan," in which he reprised his TV role as a crass, clueless Kazakh journalist.

In the realm of TV, if America Ferrera wasn't already America's sweetheart, the Globes sealed the deal.

The 22-year-old star of "Ugly Betty" won the Golden Globe for best actress in a comedy, and her show was named best comedy. It was part of a sweep for ABC's new Thursday night lineup, with "Grey's Anatomy" winning best drama.

Ferrera portrays Betty Suarez, a clumsy, chunky girl in braces trying to make it at a stuffy fashion magazine. Fighting back tears as she accepted her award, Ferrera said she hears every day from girls whose self-esteem is boosted by seeing her on the show.

"I don't really see Betty as ugly," she said later backstage. "I see her as closer to the real girls I see in life. The title is about how we tend to call ourselves ugly if we don't reach the expectations that are set. There are millions and millions of ugly Bettys in our own lives, and we need to stop using that word, especially to ourselves."

The series is a remake of a popular telenovela, and initially ABC had little faith in the show. It was scheduled for the TV graveyard of Friday nights before the network, sensing a buzz, moved it to Thursday, where it has flourished.

NBC's comedy "30 Rock" doesn't have a big audience, but Alec Baldwin's role as a megalomaniac TV network executive has enthralled critics. The Globes honored him as best actor in a comedy.

"I'm glad this isn't too heavy because I just had hernia surgery," Baldwin said after grabbing his trophy.

Kyra Sedgwick of TNT's "The Closer" was named best actress in a drama, despite being up against two of ABC's most-featured players in top-10 shows - Ellen Pompeo of "Grey's Anatomy" and Evangeline Lilly of "Lost."

Sedgwick's win was a coup for TNT, competing against broadcast networks and HBO, and seemed to leave Sedgwick genuinely moved as she rose from her seat beside her husband, Kevin Bacon.

"This show has been an amazing gift, an unexpected gift - the best kind," she said.