The Johnny Depp-voiced Rango, an adventure about a colorful chameleon helping a parched desert village to find water, won the best animated feature Oscar on Sunday.
The film beat Kung Fu Panda 2, Puss in Boots, France's A Cat in Paris, and Spain's Chico & Rita.
The win by the Paramount-produced movie ended a four-year run of triumphs by Pixar films in the animated feature category of the Academy Awards. Last year's winner was Toy Story 3.
Rango tells the story of a lonely chameleon who is used to making up stories -- playing out scenes with a fellow cast of inanimate objects -- and who finds himself stuck in the middle of the desert after a road accident.
He ends up in the parched village of Dirt, whose inhabitants ask him to become their sheriff -- after a tour-de-force made-up bar-room scene in which he invents his own backstory and name -- to help them find water.