'Boyhood' wins top honors at Golden Globes

Brian Truitt, USA TODAY 

Richard Linklater's long journey to complete Boyhood is beginning to look pretty worthwhile.

The movie cemented its status as an Oscar frontrunner Sunday at the 72nd Golden Globe Awards. Boyhood was named best drama, Linklater won for best director and his star Patricia Arquette won for supporting actress for her portrayal of an underappreciated single mother.

"This is a very personal film for me, it couldn't be more personal, and it became very personal to everyone who worked on it," said Linklater, who filmed the coming-of-age movie once a year for 12 years.

"We're all flawed in this world, no one's perfect," he added, dedicating the director award to his parents and parents "who are evolving everywhere and families who are just passing through this world and doing their best."

Andrea Mandell and Bryan Alexander interview celebrities on the Golden Globes red carpet.  

Arquette thanked her "visionary" director "for allowing me to be part of something so human, so simple and groundbreaking and significant in the history of cinema" and "for shining a light on this woman and the many women like her and for allowing me to honor my own mother with this incredible character." 

Michael Keaton won for best actor in a musical or comedy and was one of two awards for Birdman, which also garnered best screenplay. It didn't win for best movie in its category, however — that honor went to Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Playing a former superhero-movie actor looking for a career comeback, Keaton said he was thankful for being in director Alejandro González Iñárritu's "unbelievably gutsy, polished look at human nature" and got choked up when talking about his friends, family and son.

"I'm so grateful from the bottom of my heart. You don't know what this means to me," he said.

Michael Keaton accepts a best actor honor for "Birdman" at the Golden Globes.(Photo: Paul Drinkwater/NBC)

Julianne Moore made herself the woman to beat at the Oscars by taking best actress in a drama for Still Alice, in which she plays a woman with early onset Alzheimer's. She said the filmmakers "wanted to celebrate who we are and what we value and who we love."

And The Theory of Everything star Eddie Redmayne, who plays theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking in the biopic, won an important victory in a tough dramatic actor field.

"This was a huge privilege. The Hawking family allowed us into their lives and entrusted us with their story," Redmayne said. "Getting to spend time with Stephen Hawking — who, despite all the obstacles put in his way, has lived passionately and fully and with great humor — was one of the great honors of my life."