Harvey Weinstein, the powerhouse film producer whose downfall over sexual misconduct ignited a global movement, was found guilty of two felony sex crimes after a trial in which six women testified that he had sexually assaulted them.

The jury found Weinstein guilty of rape and criminal sexual act but acquitted him of three other counts, including the two most serious charges against him — that he is a sexual predator.

Weinstein displayed little emotion as the verdict was read. He appeared stunned as he was handcuffed and led out of court, limping between two court officers on his way to jail to await sentencing. He faces a possible sentence of between five and 25 years.

For many, the trial was a watershed moment for the #MeToo movement and a crucial test in the effort to hold influential men accountable for sexual harassment in the workplace.

Complaints about Weinstein, an Oscar-winning producer of films including Shakespeare in Love, had opened the floodgates in late 2017, as hundreds of women aired their own stories of harassment. Weinstein quickly became a symbol not just of the casting couch culture in Hollywood, but of the abuse women had endured for hundreds of years.

The criminal charges brought in Manhattan against Weinstein, 67, rested narrowly on the complaints of two women: Miriam Haley, a production assistant who said he had forced oral sex on her in 2006, and Jessica Mann, a former actress who alleged he had raped her at a hotel in 2013.

Jurors also had to consider the testimony of the actress Annabella Sciorra, who claimed Weinstein had raped her in the early 1990s, in deciding whether he was a sexual predator. Three other women were allowed give their accounts of alleged assaults to establish a pattern of behaviour, but Weinstein was not charged in those incidents.

But the jury found him not guilty on the two counts of predatory sexual assault, suggesting that the jurors did not believe Sciorra’s allegation.

The case, heard in the State Supreme Court, was an unusually risky one for Manhattan prosecutors, who had little or no physical or forensic evidence to support the women’s allegations. The trial turned into a battle over the women’s credibility.

Donna Rotunno, the lead defence lawyer, tried to put the #MeToo movement on trial, arguing that public outrage over Weinstein’s behaviour had stripped him of a career and branded him as a rapist without due process. He was, she said, “a target of a cause and of a movement”.

Prosecutors portrayed Weinstein as a predator who kept his victims close after his attacks to control them, using his power over their future in the film industry.