Honours even as Baftas are shared among the outsiders and favourites

Nicole Kidman triumphed at the Baftas last night for her portrayal of the Bloomsbury set novelist Virginia Woolf in the The Hours.

Catherine Zeta Jones was chosen as best supporting actress for her role as Velma Kelly in the musical Chicago and Daniel Day-Lewis scooped the best actor award for his part as Bill the Butcher in Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York.

But on a night of surprises at the Odeon Leicester Square in London the predictions that these three films would dominate the awards proved wide of the mark. Instead, the veteran director Roman Polanski's The Pianist, a story of a Polish Holocaust survivor, was named the outstanding film of 2002. Polanski himself was given the David Lean Award for direction. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts chose to honour seven different films with two Baftas each.

Accepting the best actress award, Kidman said: "This is a really big deal for me. I want to thank the British film industry because you've been incredibly good to me over the past few years – you've given me the opportunity to work with your finest directors, writers and actors." She gave special thanks to the writer of the film, David Hare, and the director, Stephen Daldry.

The pregnant Zeta Jones, wearing a long black dress and a shawl and accompanied by her husband, Michael Douglas, looked a lot happier than at her recent appearance at the High Court for a legal wrangle over the publication of pictures of her wedding, and said she was "happy to be here on this joyous occasion". She dedicated her award to her husband and children and to her "mum and dad in Swansea, south Wales, oggi, oggi, oggi, oi, oi, oi! I never thought I would be standing here with this."

Speaking before the ceremony, Douglas, wearing a Welsh lapel badge, said: "There is something special about coming home and thinking about Catherine working down at the Drury Lane all those years doing 42nd Street, thinking you would never be dancing again and singing and coming back like this."

Some stars used the ceremony as a platform for anti-war sentiments. Saul Zaentz, 81, the producer of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, quoted Martin Luther King in a call for peace in his acceptance speech for a special award honouring his outstanding contribution to cinema. Expanding later on his anti-war position, he said: "Every move they make is all geared to the next election. If we go to war how can we change a president?"

Peter Mullan, nominated for his screenplay of The Magdalene Sisters, a bleak story of Irish girls in a Catholic institution, arrived wearing a "Don't Attack Iraq" badge. "I'm looking forward to meeting everyone and handing out these," he said. "Unfortunately we have to take every opportunity we can to stop the war."

The awards had been previewed as a three-way contest between Gangs of New York and Chicago, which each received 12 nominations and The Hours, which had 11.

Instead they were shared around. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, the second part of J R R Tolkien's trilogy, was recognised with awards for costume design and special visual effects.

The Spanish director Pedro Almodovar described as "a dream" his two Baftas for Talk to Her, a story of two women in comas that picked up best original screenplay and best film not in the English language.

The Warrior, influenced by the cinema of India and Japan and starring untrained actors, was named the outstanding British film of the year and its director, Asif Kapadia, was honoured for his work on his first feature film. Sam Mendes' tale of depression-era America, The Road to Perdition, won two awards for production design and cinematography.

The award winners

Best Film: The Pianist, Roman Polanski/Robert Benmussa/Alain Sarde

Outstanding British film: The Warrior, Bertrand Faivre/Asif Kapadia

Debut by a British director, screenwriter or producer: Asif Kapadia (Director/Co-Writer: The Warrior)

Adapted screenplay: Adaptation, Charlie Kaufman/Donald Kaufman

Achievement in direction: The Pianist, Roman Polanski

Original screenplay: Talk To Her (Hable Con Ella), Pedro Almodovar

Best actress: Nicole Kidman, The Hours

Best actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, Gangs Of New York

Best supporting actress: Catherine Zeta Jones, Chicago

Best supporting actor: Christopher Walken, Catch Me If You Can

Achievement in film music: The Hours, Philip Glass

Foreign language film: Talk To Her, Augustìn Almodovar/Pedro Almodovar

Editing: City Of God, Daniel Rezende

Sound: Chicago, Michael Minkler/Dominick Tavella/David Le E/Maurice Schell

Cinematography: Road To Perdition, Conrad L Hall

Production design: Dennis Gassner

Costume design: The Lord Of The Rings, Ngila Dickson/Richard Taylor

Special visual effects: The Lord Of The Rings, Jim Rygiel/Joe Letteri/Randall William Cook/Alex Funke

Make-up and hair: Frida, Judy Chin/Beatrice De Alba/John Jackson/Regina Reyes

Short film: My Wrongs 8245-8249 And 117, Mark Herbert/Chris Morris

Short animation: Fish Never Sleep, Gaîlle Denis

Orange film of the year: The Lord Of The Rings

Academy fellowship: Saul Zaentz

Outstanding British contribution to cinema: D Tomblin/M Stevenson