Kate Winslet is the latest in a long line of British women to have walked away with the Best Actress Oscar.

Kate Winslet is the latest in a long line of British women to have walked away with the Best Actress Oscar.

Just two years ago, Dame Helen Mirren reigned over the Academy Awards after taking the prize for playing the monarch in The Queen.

"For 50 years and more, Elizabeth Windsor has maintained her dignity, her sense of duty - and her hairstyle," Dame Helen said in her acceptance speech.

Like Winslet, Dame Helen had been nominated at the Oscars before, without success.

Dame Helen had previously been nominated in Supporting Actress roles twice - for The Madness Of King George and for Gosford Park.

She was the first Briton to scoop a Best Actress Oscar since Emma Thompson for the 1992 film Howards End, in which she played opposite Sir Anthony Hopkins.

Thompson also has a screenplay Oscar for the adaptation of the Jane Austen classic Sense And Sensibility.

Julie Christie won Best Actress for the 1965 film Darling and Dame Maggie Smith won the award for the 1969 movie The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie.

Glenda Jackson has won the prize twice - for Women In Love and A Touch Of Class.