Crash also won two Baftas, including best original screenplay

The movie has moved from 44 to 18 on HMV's overall sales chart, while Virgin Megastore reported a similar boost.

Online retailer Amazon said its US site sold 17,500 copies of the Crash DVD on Monday, more than half last week's total sales of 33,000.

The movie, about racial tension in Los Angeles, won best film ahead of favourite Brokeback Mountain on Sunday.

'Best endorsement'

Describing an Oscar win as "the best endorsement you can get", HMV spokesman Gennaro Castaldo said it was now selling "tens of thousands" of copies of Crash.

"The great thing about Crash is that the film itself came out some time ago," Mr Castaldo said.

"While it was critically acclaimed at the time, it may have passed some people by had it not won the Oscar."

Nick Park (l) and Steve Box won an Oscar for Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Crash, with a large cast including Matt Dillon and Sandra Bullock, was released in UK cinemas last August and on DVD in December.

Its distributor Lionsgate spent $4m (�2.3m) on its successful Oscar campaign, which included sending 130,000 copies of the DVD to Oscars and Screen Actors Guild award voters.

The film cost $6.5m (�3.7m) to make and has taken $54m (�31m) at the North American box office.

Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, which won the best animated feature film Oscar, remained HMV's best-selling DVD for a third week.