LOS ANGELES — Rain Man, nominated in eight categories, was the grand winner in Wednesday night’s 61st annual Academy Awards ceremony, with a total of four victories.

As well as taking the categories of Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay, Dustin Hoffman, a previous winner for 1979’s Kramer vs. Kramer, won as Best Actor and Barry Levinson (Good Morning Vietnam, Tin Men, Diner), won the Oscar as Best Director.

“This is really about two actors. If Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise didn’t deliver in the performances they gave, I wouldn’t be up here tonight. I’m really moved in the response to the film,” Levinson said.

Earlier in the month, Levinson won the Directors’ Guild of America award as best director.

Asked what it was like to work with Hoffman, Cruise said: “You see it in the film. What an incredible experience it was working with Dustin Hoffman and how generous he was.

“I don’t think anybody anticipated the effect the film is having on autistic people. People are treating them differently. People are becoming more aware of them, and it’s a beautiful thing.”

In an emotional speech, Hoffman said, “I’m supposed to be jaded by this point, but I’m very honored.”

He thanked the autistic people he had met who had helped him with his role of an idiot savant. Victory had a special meaning to him, he said, since his father suffered a stroke three weeks ago and had “joined the family of the disabled.” He said that his father was watching the telecast on a rented TV with his fellow hospitalized friends.

The young guard of the Academy membership made their influence felt in several categories this year, most notably by naming Jodie Foster as Best Actress for her role as a gang-rape victim in The Accused. Industry insiders felt that Glenn Close, with her fifth nomination — and no wins — in a total of eight films in her career, had a lock on the award, especially after being overlooked last year for her role in the thriller, Fatal Attraction.

After receiving her statuette, Foster said, “I feel great, I can’t stop laughing — like Robert Redford in The Candidate. “It’s more like winning the lottery.”

Onstage, she said, “This is such a big deal, and my life is simple — there’s love, work and family.”

The next biggest winner of the night was Who Framed Roger Rabbit, with four Oscars in technical-achievement categories.

Richard Williams won a special Oscar for Animation Direction. The presentation followed a funny, rap-influenced introduction from Robin Williams dressed as a rat and Charles Fleischer, the man who was the voice of Roger Rabbit.

It was the Academy’s way of trying to compensate for overlooking the popular hit — which married live-action and animation in ways that had never been possible before — in the more important categories of Best Direction, Best Actor (Bob Hoskins) and Best Film. Roger Rabbit also won in the technical categories of Visual Effects and Sound-Effects Editing, Film Editing.

In another early upset, Geena Davis won the Best Supporting Actress award for playing an eccentric dog trainer in The Accidental Tourist.

“I’m rather stunned,” she said after winning. “It was weird; I went back forth thinking I’d win, then I wouldn’t.”

But since Sigourney Weaver was nominated as Best Actress in Gorillas in the Mist and had lost, the industry talk was that Weaver would win as Best Supporting Actress in Working Girl. Certainly there was a precedent for her doing so. Weaver is the fourth actress in Oscar history to be nominated in both the Supporting and Best Actress categories in the same year. The previous double-timers include Jessica Lange, nominated for Frances and Tootsie; Fay Bainter in White Banners and Jezebel; and Teresa Wright for The Pride of the Yankees and Mrs. Miniver. In each case, the actresses won in the Best- Supporting-Actress category.

There was yet another surprise in the Best Supporting Actor category, with Kevin Kline winning for playing a silly psychotic in the comedy A Fish Called Wanda. He beat out veteran actors Dean Stockwell (Married to the Mob) and Martin Landau (Tucker: The Man and His Dream) — both of whom were regarded to be on a comeback trail. The limited release of Little Dorrit hurt nominee Alec Guinness. And as had been predicted, the youngster of the bunch, 17-year- old River Phoenix (nominated for Running on Empty), also lost.

In accepting his award, Kline said, “This is astonishing.

“Charles Crichton (director of Wanda), at 77, proves there’s no such thing as growing old when you’ve a dream.

“You can’t do better than working with that company.”

Denmark’s Pelle the Conqueror won the Academy Award as Best Foreign Film. It is the second year in a row that the Scandinavian country produced a winner. Last year, it was Babette’s Feast.

Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie, directed by Marcel Ophuls, won the Best Documentary Feature. The film opens on April 7 at the Fox Sunrise in Sunrise.

In the first-ever Computer-Animated Short Film category, Tin Toy, was the winner. The Appointments of Dennis Jennings, which was shown at last fall’s Greater Fort Lauderdale Film Festival, was the winner in Live Action Short Film. “We’re really glad we cut out the other 60 minutes,” filmmaker-star Steven Wright said.

For the first time on Wednesday, the Academy dropped the traditional line, “The winner is …” in favor of “And the Oscar goes to …” The intent was to soften the sense of competition.

More than one billion people in 91 countries and territories will see this year’s Oscar telecast. It will also air later in the Soviet Union for the first time.

In what was a fairly dull and fairly humorless telecast, it was a sight to see Martin Short show up in the same short dress and sequined jacket as fellow presenter Carrie Fisher.

THE WINNERS

Here is a list of winners at Wednesday night’s 61st Annual Academy Awards:

— BEST PICTURE: Rain Man.

— BEST DIRECTOR: Barry Levinson, Rain Man.

— BEST ACTOR: Dustin Hoffman, Rain Man.

— BEST ACTRESS: Jodie Foster, The Accused.

— SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Geena Davis, The Accidental Tourist.

— SUPPORTING ACTOR: Kevin Kline, A Fish Called Wanda.

— ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Rain Man, Ronald Bass and Barry Morrow.

— ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Dangerous Liaisons, Christopher Hampton.

— FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: Pelle the Conqueror, Denmark.

— SOUND: Les Frescholtz, Dick Alexander, Vern Poore and Willie D. Burton, Bird.

— SOUND EFFECTS EDITING: Charles L. Campbell and Louis L. Edemann, Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

— MAKEUP: Ve Neill, Steve LaPorte and Robert Short, Beetlejuice.

— MUSIC ORIGINAL SCORE: Dave Grusin, The Milagro Beanfield War.

— ART DIRECTION: Art director Stuart Craig and set decorator Gerard James, Dangerous Liaisons.

— COSTUME DESIGN: James Acheson, Dangerous Liaisons.

— MUSIC ORIGINAL SONG: Carly Simon, Let the River Run.

— VISUAL EFFECTS: Ken Ralston, Richard Williams, Edward Jones and George Gibbs, Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

— DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT: William Guttentag and Malcolm Clarke, You Don’t Have to Die.

— DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: Marcel Ophuls, Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie.

— CINEMATOGRAPHY: Peter Biziou, Mississippi Burning.

— ANIMATED SHORT FILM: John Lasseter and William Reeves, Tin Toy.

— LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM: Dean Parisot and Steven Wright, The Appointment of Dennis Jennings.

SOURCE: The Associated Press

THE YEAR’S BEST

Wednesday night’s Oscar winners:

BEST BEST SUPPORTING SUPPORTING

ACTOR ACTRESS ACTOR ACTRESS

Dustin Hoffman Jodie Foster Kevin Kline Geena Davis

BEST DIRECTOR: Barry Levinson, Rain Man BEST PICTURE: Rain Man