BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — The tragic romance "Atonement" was named best drama yesterday at a Golden Globes event that was deflated from star-studded revelry to a dry, news conference-style awards announcement because of the Hollywood writers strike.

The bloody stage adaptation "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" was chosen as best musical or comedy. Its star, Johnny Depp, won for best actor in a musical or comedy for the title role, playing a vengeful barber who slits the throats of his customers in the adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's stage musical.

Also winning two awards was the crime saga "No Country for Old Men," which earned the screenplay Globe for writer-directors Ethan and Joel Coen and the supporting actor honor for Javier Bardem as a merciless killer tracking a fortune in crime cash poached by an innocent bystander who stumbles onto a drug deal gone bad.

"Thank you to the Hollywood Foreign Press!" said Bardem in a written statement after his win. "It is a great honor to have been recognized with this award in a time when there are so many outstanding performances in this category."

"Atonement," which led contenders with seven nominees, also won for best score. The film stars Keira Knightley and James McAvoy, both losers in the best dramatic acting categories, in a period drama that traces the dire consequences that follow a jealous teen's false criminal accusation against her sister's new lover.

Daniel-Day Lewis was named best dramatic actor for the historical epic "There Will Be Blood," in which he plays a baron of California's oil boom in the early 20th century whose commercial interests put him at odds with a young preacher.

Julie Christie won best dramatic actress for the gloomy drama "Away From Her," starring as a woman succumbing to Alzheimer's disease who forms a new attachment to a fellow patient that causes heartache for her steadfast husband.

Cate Blanchett won the first award of the night, taking the supporting actress Globe for the Bob Dylan tale "I'm Not There." And like Blanchett, who took the honor for the gender-bending role as one of six actors playing incarnations of Dylan, no other winners were there, either.

"Yes, I yearn for the days of Jack Nicholson mooning the Golden Globes, Christine Lahti getting locked in the bathroom. But we have that for next year," said Mary Hart of "Entertainment Tonight," who announced some of this year's winners.

Actors and filmmakers skipped the Golden Globes because of the 2-month-old strike by the Writers Guild of America, which had planned pickets outside the show if organizers tried to do their usual televised ceremony. Globe planners and NBC canceled the three-hour star-studded bash in favor of a news conference, at which clips of film and TV nominees were shown and reporters from entertainment news shows announced winners.

"We all hope that the writers strike will be over soon so that everyone can go back to making good movies and television programs, which is what the Golden Globes were designed to celebrate," said Jorge Camara, president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which hands out the Globes, at the start of the news conference.

Although the Writers Guild called off pickets after the bash was canceled, the strike left one of Hollywood's brightest and giddiest nights in shambles. The Beverly Hilton hotel, normally awash with celebrities, was so barren of stars that "Entertainment Tonight" host Hart was surrounded by photographers and TV cameras as she entered the ballroom where the Globes were announced.

The fate of Hollywood's biggest night, the Feb. 24 Oscars, remains uncertain.

Guild leader Patric Verrone has said writers would not be allowed to work on that show, either, and that could force stars to make an even tougher choice on whether to stay away or cross the picket line.

Oscar organizers insist their show will come off as planned, with or without the writers.

With two best-picture categories, drama and musical or comedy, the Globes traditionally have had a good shot for one of its movie winners to come away with the top prize at the Oscars.

But the Golden Globes have not correctly forecast an Oscar best-picture winner in four years, the last one being "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King."