Beverly Hills, Calif. ? The sultry jazz musical “Chicago” won the Golden Globe for best musical-comedy Sunday while “The Hours” was honored as best film drama.

Dramatic performance honors went to Jack Nicholson for playing a depressed retiree in “About Schmidt” and Nicole Kidman for her role as suicidal writer Virginia Woolf in “The Hours.”

“I don’t know whether to be happy or ashamed because I thought we made a comedy,” said Nicholson, who took home his seventh Golden Globe. He stars in the tragicomic “About Schmidt” as a widower searching for meaning at the end of his life.

Kidman, who disguised her face with a prosthetic nose for the role, said she was just glad “The Hours” was made into a film. “It was a tricky movie in terms of the subject matter,” said the actress, who now has three Golden Globes.

“Chicago” co-stars Renee Zellweger and Richard Gere won for best musical-comedy acting, and Meryl Streep and Chris Cooper received supporting performer honors for the loopy screenwriting comedy “Adaptation.”

Martin Scorsese received the best director award for “Gangs of New York,” a Civil War-era immigrant saga he’d wanted to make for decades that, once completed, was delayed for more than a year by Miramax Films.

“Maybe ‘dream come true’ is a cliche because cliches are true. But it really is,” he said.

Zellweger, who played a star-struck prisoner trying to beat a murder charge in “Chicago,” thanked co-star Catherine Zeta-Jones, who was nominated in the same category. “You’re a goddess, and I’m so glad the world now knows what you can do,” Zellweger told her while onstage.

“I’m literally totally shocked. I don’t win anything,” said Gere, who played a slick, tap-dancing lawyer in the musical. “And I didn’t even want to do this movie. That’s what I know.”

The ceremony, hosted by the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn., is considered by some to be a barometer for the upcoming Academy Award nominations in February. Many of the nominated films have been unavailable in most parts of the country as studios waited to do wide releases closer to the awards ceremony and next month’s Oscar nominations.

The Golden Globes, broadcast live on NBC, is renowned as one of Hollywood’s biggest parties, where participants are encouraged to be spontaneous and irreverent.

“You have no idea how many men I’ve had to sleep with to get this award,” said Kim Cattrall, who won in the TV supporting actress category for her role as the most promiscuous of the four women on HBO’s “Sex and the City.”

Gene Hackman accepted the Cecil B. DeMille Award for a career spanning more than 80 films. His roles in “The French Connection” and “Unforgiven” won him both Golden Globes and Academy Awards and he received an additional Golden Globe honor last year for the comedy “The Royal Tenenbaums.”