“Anora” scored some points — well, make that one central point — at the Critics Choice Awards on Friday night, winning the top prize for best picture barely a month after being completely overlooked at the Golden Globes.
Sean Baker, who directed the picture about an exotic dancer’s star-crossed relationship with a Russian heir, used his victory speech to encourage the audience to support more independent films being distributed in theaters. “They’re going through some hard times,” Mr. Baker added. “We lost a thousand theaters during Covid, and we lose them virtually every day. That’s where we like seeing movies. Let’s see several movies in our neighborhood cinemas, okay?”
The Critics Choice Awards event, initially slated for January 12, was postponed for several weeks due to the Los Angeles wildfires. This placed the show, which was hosted in the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, California, in an odd position: The Oscar nominations and controversy surrounding “Emilia Pérez” and its star Karla SofÃa Gascóndid did not influence the outcome, as voting ended on January 10. Ms. Gascón, who is under fire for posts that denigrated Muslims, George Floyd, and the Oscars, was a no-show at the ceremony. However, her co-star Zoe Saldaña, who won the supporting actress trophy, and the film’s director, Jacques Audiard, who accepted the foreign language film award, were both in attendance.
Ms. Gascón eventually lost the Best Actress Oscar to Demi Moore (“The Substance”), who earned her second significant televised honor after winning the Golden Globes last month. The best actor prize went to Adrien Brody, the 51-year-old actor who failed to equal his early success in the 2002 picture “The Pianist,” for which he received an Oscar.
Mr. Brody remarked in his acceptance speech, “I’ve been doing this since I was 12, so I know very clearly that these moments are far and few between in an actor’s life, and I do not take this for granted.”
A man in the audience exclaimed, “Lately, you’ve been doing great!” as he paused. The two major film awards went to Kieran Culkin (“A Real Pain”) for best-supporting actor and Jon M. Chu, director of “Wicked.” Before Mr. Chu was revealed as the winner, Orlando Bloom, the award’s presenter, reminded the audience that the Critics Choice winner for Outstanding Director frequently wins the same Oscar. Mr. Chu, who was not even nominated for best director at the Academy Awards, began his acceptance speech with a joke: “I’m going to win that Oscar!” he cried, holding his prize in the air.
