BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) – “Babel” won best drama and “Dreamgirls” was named best musical or comedy Golden Globes on Monday, establishing them as potential front-runners for a showdown at the Academy Awards

Eddie Murphy and former “American Idol” finalist Jennifer Hudson won Golden Globes on Monday for supporting roles in the musical “Dreamgirls,” giving a lift to their Academy Award prospects.

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.

“Wow. I’ll be damned,” said Murphy, who plays a slick soul singer struggling to change with the times and find new relevance as the Motown music scene evolves through the 1960s and ’70s.

“People don’t come to me with supporting roles,” Murphy said backstage. “The reason I responded to this was that it was a great role. I’ve always been open to it; it just never came to me.”

Hudson rose to fame barely two years ago on “American Idol” on the strength of her powerhouse voice, which she uses to great effect in “Dreamgirls,” a film that also shows her remarkable acting range, from brassy comedy to heartbreaking pathos as a soaring vocalist in a Supremes-like singing group.

“I had always dreamed but I never ever dreamed this big. This goes far beyond anything I could have ever imagined,” said Hudson, who dedicated her award to the late Florence Ballard, one of the singers from the Supremes on whom her “Dreamgirls” character was based.

The wins gave an early lead to “Dreamgirls,” director Bill Condon’s rousing adaptation of the stage hit that came into the evening with five Globe nominations, including best musical or comedy.

After a decades-long drought in which musicals were virtually absent from Hollywood’s lineup, “Dreamgirls” is the third song-and-dance flick to click with audiences in the last five years. “Moulin Rouge” scored a best-picture Oscar nomination for 2001, while “Chicago” won best-picture for 2003, a feat “Dreamgirls” aims to emulate.

Meryl Streep won her sixth Golden Globe as best actress in a musical or comedy for “The Devil Wears Prada,” in which she plays the boss from hell at a top fashion magazine.

“I think I’ve worked with everybody in the room,” joked Streep, one of Hollywood’s winningest actresses during awards season. “It makes you want to cry with gratitude. Until next year.”

The talking-auto comedy “Cars” took the first-ever Golden Globe for animated film, a category added because of the rush of cartoon flicks Hollywood now churns out.

“Animation is awesome everybody. It’s my life. I’ve lived in it. It’s so exciting to have our own category,” said “Cars” director John Lasseter, the innovative director of the “Toy Story” movies who pioneered the current computer-animation craze.

Helen Mirren, the best-actress Oscar favorite for playing British monarch Elizabeth II in “The Queen,” won a Globe for best actress in a TV movie or miniseries as the ruler’s namesake of centuries past in “Elizabeth I.” The miniseries also won for best TV movie or miniseries and supporting actor for Jeremy Irons.

“Elizabeth I would have an amazing speech at this moment, wouldn’t she? Thank you!” Mirren said. “And then she would get very humble, and then she’d be teary, and then she’d be powerful. I have nothing to say but thank you very much. I had an incredible role.”

“The Queen” won the movie screenplay honor for Peter Morgan.

Other TV winners included Kyra Sedgwick for best dramatic actress in “The Closer” and Hugh Laurie for dramatic actor in “House.”

The 64th annual Globes presented a truly international lineup of films and performers, with “Babel,” “The Queen,” “The Last King of Scotland” and “Borat” up for honors in the run-up to the Oscars.

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s “Babel,” a saga of families on three continents linked by tragic events in the African desert, led with seven nominations, including best drama.

Martin Scorsese’s mob movie “The Departed” was next with six nominations, including best drama and best actor for Leonardo DiCaprio, who had a second lead-actor nomination for the African adventure “Blood Diamond.”

There was no clear front-runner for the best-drama prize. Other nominees were the Robert Kennedy tale “Bobby,” the suburban comic drama “Little Children” and the British-royalty story “The Queen.”

“Dreamgirls” looked like a favorite to win the best musical or comedy Globe, though Sacha Baron Cohen’s raucous satire “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” also was a strong contender.

The other musical or comedy nominees were the fashion-business comedy “The Devil Wears Prada,” the road-trip romp “Little Miss Sunshine” and the tobacco-industry satire “Thank You for Smoking.”

Forest Whitaker was heavily favored for dramatic actor as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in “The Last King of Scotland,” though Peter O’Toole had strong prospects as a lecherous old actor in “Venus.”

Warren Beatty was to receive the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was to present the best drama award, the last of the evening, despite being under doctor’s orders to limit appearances while he recovers from a broken leg. The actor-turned-politician won a “new star” Golden Globe in 1977 for “Stay Hungry” and was nominated in 1995 for “Junior.”

As Hollywood’s second-biggest film honors, the Globes are something of a dress rehearsal for the Oscars, whose nominations come out Jan. 23. The Oscar ceremony will be on Feb. 25.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association that presents the Globes has roughly 85 members, while about 5,800 film professionals are eligible to vote for the Oscars.

Yet the group has a strong history of forecasting eventual Academy Awards winners and providing momentum for certain movies and stars as Oscar voters begin to cast their ballots.

Such Globe best-picture winners as “Shakespeare in Love,” “American Beauty,” “Gladiator” and “Chicago” went on to win the same prize at the Oscars. Globe voters were off target the past two years, anointing 2004’s “The Aviator” as best drama, a prize that went to “Million Dollar Baby” at the Oscars, and 2005’s “Brokeback Mountain,” which lost to “Crash” come Oscar night.

But all four of 2005’s acting recipients at the Oscars – Philip Seymour Hoffman, Reese Witherspoon, George Clooney and Rachel Weisz – also won Golden Globes.

Nominations for the Oscars closed Saturday, so the outcome of the Globes cannot affect who gets nominated.