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An estimated 41.3 million people saw “The Hurt Locker” top the popular “Avatar” for best picture in the most-watched Academy Awards telecast since 2005.

Oscar viewership was up 14 percent over last year, the Nielsen Co. said Monday, keeping with a trend of bigger audiences for major events on broadcast television a month after the Super Bowl set the mark for most-watched telecast ever.

In true film fashion, the Oscars built to a big climax when the Iraqi war thriller “The Hurt Locker” and its director, Kathryn Bigelow, topped “Avatar,” directed by her ex-husband James Cameron. Bigelow was the first woman to win the Oscar for best director.

The audience was up from the 36.3 million who saw “Slumdog Millionaire” win best picture last year and 32 million — Oscar’s smallest audience on record — in 2008, Nielsen said. The Oscars had just over 42 million watch in 2005, when “Million Dollar Baby” was the big winner.

The Oscar ratings fall in line with bigger audiences for awards shows in recent months. The Golden Globes were up 14 percent over the year before, and the performance-heavy Grammys up 36 percent, Nielsen said. The Emmys, the Tonys and the Miss America pageant all saw higher ratings.

Analysts say fewer chances for Americans to gather in front of the television set for communal events may help make these events more popular. With a poor economy, more people are staying home, too. The Internet may also help draw viewers; experts say many people are online while the shows are on, and they comment about them to friends.

Ratings for the New York market appeared unaffected by a business dispute between Cablevision and ABC’s parent, Walt Disney Co.

ABC had been dropped by Cablevision for its 3.1 million subscribers in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut on Sunday, and the network was not restored until 13 minutes after the Academy Awards telecast began.

Still, New York ranked No. 13 among among the 56 biggest media markets in the country, Nielsen said. New York’s overnight rating was 11 percent above the average for all of the big markets.

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After saying goodbye on concert stages and online video streams, Lil Wayne had nothing to add as he was sentenced Monday to a year in jail for having a loaded gun on his tour bus.

The Grammy Award-winning rapper delivered only a brief bow to fans and supporters as he was led out of a courtroom in handcuffs to start serving his sentence.

With that, Lil Wayne headed off to face his punishment in a case that had shadowed him as he became one of music’s most prolific and profitable figures in recent years. Arrested in July 2007, he pleaded guilty in October to attempted criminal possession of a weapon. He admitted he had the loaded .40-caliber semiautomatic gun on his bus.

His lawyer, Stacey Richman, said the rapper was resolute as he was taken away.

“He knew what he had to do, and he’s doing it,” she said.

Lil Wayne arrived later Tuesday at the Rikers Island jail complex, where he was being held apart from the general population of inmates because of his fame. He has a cell to himself but the option of spending time in a TV room with 17 other inmates who also have been separated from the general population because of notoriety or other reasons, according to the city Correction Department.

It wasn’t immediately clear what work assignment he might have, if any. The 27-year-old rap star could be released in about eight months with good behavior.

Lil Wayne, born Dwayne Carter, is going behind bars with his career in full throttle. His “Tha Carter III” was the best-selling album of 2008 and won a Grammy for best rap album. His latest album, “Rebirth,” was released last month.

He made a point of leaving fans with fanfare, from a “farewell tour” in recent months to a series of videos on the Web site Ustream on Sunday.

“Law is mind without reason … I’ll return,” he wrote on his Twitter account Monday morning.

Dozens of fans jockeyed with photographers waiting on the courthouse steps Monday afternoon, cheering as Lil Wayne, fellow rapper Birdman and others arrived. Shouts of “Oh, man” and “Keep your head up, Weezy!” — a nickname he often uses — erupted in the courtroom as he was sentenced.

Although Lil Wayne had agreed to go to jail, a number of roadblocks kept him from starting his sentence in recent weeks.

First, his sentencing was postponed in February so he could undergo surgery on his bejeweled teeth. Then, a fire shut down Manhattan’s main criminal courthouse while he was on his way there last week.

He told Rolling Stone for a story last month that he planned to keep working while behind bars.

“I’ll be still rapping in there, have a gang of raps ready when I come back home,” he said.

As for listening to music, inmates are allowed to buy AM/FM radios at the jail commissary.

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Johnny Depp and Tim Burton found a pile of money on the other side of the looking glass.

“Alice in Wonderland,” their update on Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking Glass,” had a mammoth opening weekend of $116.1 million.

The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by Hollywood.com are:

1. “Alice in Wonderland,” Disney, $116,101,023, 3,728 locations, $31,143 average, $116,101,023, one week.

2. “Brooklyn’s Finest,” Overture, $13,350,299, 1,936 locations, $6,896 average, $13,350,299, one week.

3. “Shutter Island,” Paramount, $13,225,411, 3,178 locations, $4,162 average, $95,750,005, three weeks.

4. “Cop Out,” Warner Bros., $9,289,311, 3,150 locations, $2,949 average, $32,504,610, two weeks.

5. “Avatar,” Fox, $8,118,102, 2,163 locations, $3,753 average, $720,607,444, 12 weeks.

6. “The Crazies,” Overture, $7,078,851, 2,479 locations, $2,856 average, $27,472,164, two weeks.

7. “Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief,” Fox, $5,124,623, 2,994 locations, $1,712 average, $78,057,749, four weeks.

8. “Valentine’s Day,” Warner Bros., $4,154,110, 3,040 locations, $1,366 average, $106,303,870, four weeks.

9. “Crazy Heart,” Fox Searchlight, $3,312,591, 1,274 locations, $2,600 average, $29,532,002, 12 weeks.

10. “Dear John,” Sony Screen Gems, $2,782,079, 2,496 locations, $1,115 average, $76,626,086, five weeks.

11. “The Tooth Fairy,” Fox, $1,684,408, 1,734 locations, $971 average, $56,240,052, seven weeks.

12. “The Wolfman,” Universal, $1,636,835, 1,829 locations, $895 average, $60,446,320, four weeks.

13. “The Ghost Writer,” Summit, $1,287,646, 147 locations, $8,759 average, $2,600,505, three weeks.

14. “The Blind Side,” Warner Bros., $1,257,186, 822 locations, $1,529 average, $250,467,047, 16 weeks.

15. “The Last Station,” Sony Pictures Classics, $717,675, 354 locations, $2,027 average, $4,527,796, eight weeks.

16. “Up in the Air,” Paramount, $607,465, 403 locations, $1,507 average, $83,011,223, 14 weeks.

17. “When in Rome,” Disney, $575,254, 504 locations, $1,141 average, $31,720,305, six weeks.

18. “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel,” Fox, $544,451, 562 locations, $969 average, $217,367,092, 11 weeks.

19. “The Book of Eli,” Warner Bros., $533,156, 555 locations, $961 average, $93,412,890, eight weeks.

20. “The Hurt Locker,” Summit, $439,000, 274 locations, $1,602 average, $14,700,000, one week.

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Chinese film fans were mostly disappointed by the unexpected shutout of Avatar in the major categories at the 82nd Academy Awards. Most bet on the $2 billion juggernaut for the Best Picture award, and when my fellow guest at Sina.com’s Oscar show openly rallied for The Hurt Locker, he instantly received text messages denouncing him.

It is understandable why Chinese filmgoers prefer Avatar. It is a runaway hit, and is still packing them in at all 3D venues. People can read all kinds of messages into it and many regard a trip to Pandora as their best movie experience.

The Hurt Locker, on the other hand, is harder to decipher. Most here tend to misinterpret its message. Even the normally liberal Beijing News reckoned it was Pentagon propaganda. It’s a war movie, but it does not offer much fun or gratuitous violence. The impact of war on the protagonist and the morbid nature of his fascination with danger, simply eludes those not familiar with the culture, or not interested in anything except the explosions.

This gap between Oscar voters and movie viewers in China is a clear testament to the power of movies as escapist or fantasy fare to audiences here. People do not want to go to the theater to watch a sharper replica of reality, but to forget about it.

But the Academy, by doling out the highest accolades to The Hurt Locker, has taken a big step by embracing small movies that make us face the ugliness of our world and human nature.

Chinese audiences also love big stars. If we could vote, we would no doubt have made George Clooney the Best Actor and Meryl Streep the Best Actress. Sandra Bullock is less appreciated here for her role in The Blind Side because we are not familiar with southern women with their sharp personality and unique twang. I often remind movie fans here that the role of an American southern femme is more or less like a northeastern woman in China. If a Hong Kong star was so convincing in such a role, she would surely be recognized by her peers as a good actress.

Quentin Tarantino has a loyal following in China. They rallied for his Inglourious Basterds, which nabbed only one award, for Best Supporting Actor. Tarantino has won a lot of goodwill in China partly because he is a big advocate of Hong Kong movies and he shot his Kill Bill in Beijing. The way he manipulated violence as a dramatic element also appealed to a young male demographic.

To my surprise, The Cove, which won Best Documentary Feature, has been available to a lot of people and elicited strong reactions. There has been an avalanche of condemnation against the Japanese practice of killing dolphins. Some swore that they would never eat shark’s fin again. Although it is almost impossible for documentaries to be screened in theaters, the underground distribution of this and the other nominated works, to a certain extent, will serve to awaken some people to the need for a healthier and nature-friendly lifestyle.

With all three submissions from Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan for the Best Foreign Language Film shut out from the final round of Oscar competition, this year’s Oscar season had little for domestic fans to jump up and down about. They prayed for James Cameron – Titanic was also huge in China – but failing that, they will keep queuing up for tickets to the floating mountain that some have claimed was based on a peak in Hunan province’s Zhangjiajie.

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Sandra Bullock dressed the part at Sunday’s Academy Awards: She wore a gleaming, metallic, slim-fitting gown that seemed fashioned after the Oscar statuette itself.

The dress was a winner, making Bullock, the Best Actress winner, one of many who stepped up their style on what is considered Hollywood’s most important runway.

Top actresses made bold color choices, donned stiffer shapes and used sparkle strategically to get them noticed.

“This red carpet was whimsical, thank god. It was the most interesting red carpet in a long time,” says Suze Yalof Schwartz, Glamour magazine’s executive fashion editor at large. “You want to see a dress that makes you say ‘Wow!’ and I saw at least six of those.”

There had been a trend in recent years to make safe choices at the Oscars, with celebrities knowing that the photos taken there would follow them for the rest of their lives. But there was a refreshing sense of fun – and some directional fashion – this year.

“We’re moving into architectural shapes and away from all the drapery. There were not a lot of ‘goddesses’ this year,” observes Sharon Graubard, senior vice president of trend analysis at forecasting firm Stylesight. “This was about glamour, very tasteful, grown-up glamour.”

Gold was a huge trend, with Kate Winslet looking like an old-school movie star in her sleek, strapless gold gown by Yves Saint Laurent and Deco-inspired US$2.5 million yellow-diamond necklace from Tiffany & Co. Cameron Diaz, with bold red lips, was another screen siren in a gold strapless gown with metallic ribbons and pailettes (small pieces of foil) by Oscar de la Renta; Miley Cyrus wore a bustier-style strapless gold number by Jenny Packham; and Sarah Jessica Parker chose a custom yellow Chanel with silver flowers around the bustline.

“I loved Sarah Jessica Parker in Chanel. It was interesting, romantic and she’s a fashion risk-taker,” says Mary Alice Stephenson, stylist and fashion commentator.

She says the same for Diane Kruger in her white Chanel dress with black bands around the neck, waist and near the knees.

Flowers were another dominant theme at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles. Bullock’s Marchesa gown had a delicate floral embroidery and Mo’Nique complemented her electric blue Tadashi Shoji asymmetrical dress with gardenias in her hair. She says she did it in the spirit of the late Hattie McDaniel, who had done the same in 1940.

Gabourey Sidibe’s blue dress was decorated with silver beads in a floral pattern, and fashion designer-turned-director Tom Ford stuck a gardenia in his lapel.

A few looks seemed sure to generate chatter because they weren’t standard-issue, red-carpet styles.

Jennifer Lopez’s sculpted, strapless pale-pink Armani Prive had a dramatic slit on one side and an exaggerated modern train that jutted out from her hip. Armani said the dress was inspired by the romance and mystery of the moon.

Charlize Theron also had a futuristic vibe in her amethyst gown by John Galliano for Dior with two folded rosettes not on the bustline but on the bust itself.

“Charlize’s dress was really dramatic,” says Stephenson. “Love it or hate it, you want to talk about it.”

Carey Mulligan’s full-skirted black Prada was adorned in unusual embroidery: tiny forks, knives and scissors. She said she didn’t choose it to make a statement.

“I just thought it was really cool,” she says. “It’s not a dress where I have to wear Spanx or anything, so I’m good.”

Her earrings were 19th century cascading diamond pendants by Fred Leighton.

Another fashion-forward look was Zoe Saldana’s Givenchy gown with a sparkly light pink bodice and a lilac skirt that descended into tight ruffles in all shades of purple.

Queen Latifah’s one-shoulder Badgley Mischka was a lovely shade of pink and the mermaid shape “is the right way to dress a curvy woman,” says Yalof Schwartz.

Vera Farmiga says her magenta fan-pleat strapless gown by Marchesa “reminds me of a flower in bloom.” Her “Up in the Air” costar Anna Kendrick’s blush-colored Elie Saab wasn’t her first choice, but it was the right one, she says. “It’s so young and pretty and it fits me so well.”

Meryl Streep did an unexpected turn in bright white gown with a deep V-neckline. Yalof Schwartz loved it. “With Meryl Streep, you used to not look at what she wore, but she’s embracing fashion now.”

Tina Fey, who scored a few fashion “don’ts” earlier this year, was much improved in her black, one-shouldered, leopard-lace Michael Kors.

Maggie Gyllenhaal wore something rarely seen on the awards circuit – a print. The blue-black-and-white gown by Dries van Noten had a tropical vibe.

“I love his clothes. They’re sexy and unusual. He designed my wedding dress,” she says.

Her husband, Peter Sarsgaard, wore the tuxedo he bought for their wedding – designed by Tom Ford.

Rachel McAdams went the print route, too. Hers was a draped strapless in dusty shades of blue and gray. Nicole Richie’s multicolored sequin gown by Reem Acra kept to the vintage vibe she favors, but was quite covered up compared to the rest of young Hollywood.

Not surprisingly, Kristen Stewart wore a midnight blue gown by Monique Lhuillier with a sculpted bodice and draped trumpet skirt.

Mariah Carey seemed a little tame in her navy dress, but she promised that the slit on her Valentino would blow wide open if the wind kicked up.

But in fashion, it was Bullock going for the gold, says designer Patricia Field, who called it “simple, classy – it looked good on her.”

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For Hollywood pundits, industry folk and Oscar fans still paying attention on Monday, a major question remained: How did David slay Goliath?

For as much as “The Hurt Locker” was the critics’ darling, it had three major strikes against it in its battle against the mighty James Cameron’s “Avatar.”

First, the box office was paltry — it’s taken in just $14.7 million domestically, compared to an amazing $720.6 million for “Avatar.” That makes “The Hurt Locker” the lowest-grossing best picture winner since accurate records have been kept.

Second, it had no big acting names, usually an important factor in Oscar victory.

And third, it was about the Iraq war, a subject moviegoers traditionally just don’t want to deal with. “Iraq is usually the kiss of death at the Oscars,” says Tom O’Neil, blogger for the Los Angeles Times’ Envelope, an awards site.

But even with 10 nominees in the running for this year’s best picture Oscar, the two films — whose directors were once married — were quickly pitted against each other in the race for Hollywood’s highest honor.

How did “The Hurt Locker” win out? Theories abound:

FINALLY A NON-POLITICAL FILM ABOUT IRAQ:

Many films about the Iraq war have fallen into a trap of appearing preachy or at least having a strong point of view. Viewers may or may not agree with that view — that still doesn’t mean they want to get it at the movies.

But “The Hurt Locker,” a story of three technicians on a bomb-defusing team in Baghdad, is at heart an action movie — a documentary-style close-up of the men, their relationships, their missteps and the almost unbearable tension inherent in their exhausting, terrifying, tedious work.

“This isn’t that kind of muckraking film aiming to show torture or violation of rules of war,” says Robert Sklar, film professor at New York University. “This is a film about men trying to save lives rather than take them. It’s also a buddy story. It has classic war-movie themes.”

OSCAR LIKES FILMS WITH AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE:

Often the Academy honors big, sweeping films, which “The Hurt Locker” is certainly not. But it also looks for films with a substantial message. “Oscar likes films of importance, with a capital I,” says film historian Leonard Maltin. “Often they’re big films, but this is a small film that dealt with a really important subject.”

OSCAR VOTERS DON’T CARE ABOUT BOX OFFICE:

Who says Oscar cares about box office? “The Oscars don’t pay attention to that at all, and nor should they,” Maltin says. In fact, he adds, they’ve often been accused of being too elitist, favoring independent movies over big films favored by the broader public.

YES, THEY DO!:

Nonsense, says O’Neil, of The Envelope: “The Academy wants their movies to do well. Then they anoint them.” Even last year’s “Slumdog Millionaire,” which originally almost went straight to DVD, had made $40 million before the nominations, then rode to $70 million by the time of the awards, he says.

IT’S ABOUT THE CAMPAIGNING:

All of “Hurt Locker’s” technical merit aside, “it would be naive to think Oscar campaigning had nothing to do with it,” says O’Neil.

He credits Cynthia Swartz, whose public relations firm was given the Oscar campaigning job by Summit, the film’s distributor, which was looking for industry respect and had plenty of money to fund the campaign, having already cashed in with the “Twilight” vampire movies.

“It was a very savvy campaign,” says O’Neil. “Full force, and highly aggressive.”

THE WOMAN FACTOR:

As compelling as her movie was, director Kathryn Bigelow had a compelling story of her own. This director who specializes not in female-oriented films but in big action thrillers had a real shot at becoming the first woman in Oscar history to win the best director prize, with her film winning best picture, too.

Yet Bigelow tried to downplay that element of her story, saying in interviews that she just wanted to be seen as a filmmaker, not a female one.

“Bigelow refused to capitalize on the woman factor, and to her credit,” says Maltin. Everyone else wanted to make it a story but her. Still, you can’t deny it had some impact.”

THE EX FACTOR:

Nor did Bigelow have any desire to capitalize on the “Ex Factor” — in case you’re way behind on your Oscar gossip, she was married to Cameron from 1989-91. Were there some voters who were secretly rooting for her to leave him in the dust? No way of knowing, and the two seemed amicable through the awards season, with him standing and cheering as she won her Oscar. Still, there’s no doubt that the “battle of the exes” (ok, we’re done with the puns) added to the hype.

THE VOTING SYSTEM:

Then there was the new system for choosing best picture, with 10 nominees this year instead of the usual five. In previous years, a voter would simply make one choice for best picture. But this year’s ballots had a preferential system, meaning voters ranked their choices. The lowest choices were then eliminated. That meant it was a system that favored consensus choices, some hypothesized.

“‘Avatar’ is polarizing,” postulated Hendrik Hertzberg in The New Yorker magazine last month. “So is James Cameron … these factors could push ‘Avatar’ to the bottom of a choice-ranked ballot.’”

AND SPEAKING OF “AVATAR”…

Was “Avatar” ever really going to win? Blogger O’Neil doesn’t think so, even though it won the Golden Globe and seemed to be at the top of many prediction lists.

“I think we pundits convinced ourselves that ‘Avatar’ might win, but in reality there’s a science-fiction bias in the Academy, and it’s pretty unbudgeable,” he says.

We’ll never know how close the vote was — the Academy doesn’t release that information and it doesn’t do exit polls. But informal exit polls done privately by industry insiders, and his own conversations, lead O’Neil to think that Quentin Tarantino’s wild “Inglourious Basterds” was actually the film that almost won, not “Avatar.”

HOW ABOUT … IT’S JUST A REALLY GOOD MOVIE:

“Look at all the awards this film won — screenplay, sound, editing,” notes Sklar, the NYU film professor and author of “Movie-Made America.”

“The sheer quality of the work must have influenced a lot of the professionals in the industry who were voting. It’s just such a well-made movie from aesthetic and technical point of view, it overcomes all those other concerns.”

And so maybe it’s this simple: In the end, good writing, superb acting and just plain excellent filmmaking do win out in Hollywood.

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An average of 41.3 million people in America watched the 82nd Academy Awards ceremony held on Sunday night at Kodak Theater, a 14-percent increase from last year’s telecast and the highest in five years, according to figures released on Monday.

Audience watching Sunday night’s telecast was the largest for any entertainment program since the 2005 Oscars, which averaged 42. 14 million viewers, according to the Nielsen Co.. Seventy million viewers watched at least six minutes of ABC’s coverage of the ceremony co-hosted by Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin.

Before the recent increase, viewership for awards shows had generally dropped because proliferation of such shows made each one less unique. Like all forms of television programming, they are also impacted by growing competition from such leisure activities as the Internet, video games, home video and watching programming on video recorders.

Last year, 36.31 million people across the country watched the live broadcast on average, when “Slumdog Millionaire” was named best picture. Oscar viewership found itself slip to a record low in 2008, when only 32.01 million watched the show.

The increased viewership was likely helped by the best picture nomination for the box office record-setter “Avatar.” There has traditionally been a high correlation between the box office figures of the best picture nominees and Oscar viewership, with nominees with high box office receipts leading to highly watched Oscar telecasts.

However, James Cameron’s box-office behemoth failed to win best film or best director awards at the latest Academy Awards presentation.

However, the metered market ratings aren’t completely comparable to past years since Nielsen is using digital video recording data for the first time. Anyone who recorded the Oscars and started watching them a little later — either because they weren’t home on time or wanted to avoid commercials — are counted this year and in previous years they weren’t.

The most-watched ceremony since individual viewership figures began being compiled in 1974 was in 1998, when 55.25 million tuned in to see the box office record-setter “Titanic” win best picture honors.

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Anna Kendrick arrives during the 82nd Academy Awards Sunday, March 7, 2010, in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles.

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Deborah Ann Woll arrives at the 82nd Academy Awards Sunday, March 7, 2010, in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles.

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Director Pete Docter arrives during the 82nd Academy Awards Sunday, March 7, 2010, in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles.