Critic's Choice Award's 2025 Review

The Award season this year has been turbulent, to say the least, with the postponing of award shows due to the devastating, ongoing fires in Los Angeles and the multiple controversies that have surfaced throughout the season from the use of AI to enhance the accents of their stars from film's main star's bringing down the reputation of their movie and therefore their chances at winning any major awards. One of the ceremonies that has been postponed is The Critic's Choice Awards, which finally took place on Friday, 7th February and gave us much to discuss. So far, we have only seen The Golden Globes, and the winners are still up for discussion this awards season, and with the winners at The Critic's Choice, it confirms that. 

This award show is not like any other as it has no crossover with the different branches like Sag or The Academy and is purely voted on by the critic's so it can make for some interesting choices. The first one is John M Chu, who won Best Director for Wicked, and it is long overdue that he is getting some recognition for his work as most are correctly praising the cast, but Chu was at the helm of this production and deserves praise for what he pulled off. Unfortunately, he is not nominated anywhere else, so this can be the only award he will take home this season, but it begs the question that if he was nominated in other ceremonies, would he have a chance and steal the thunder from current front-runner Brady Corbet for The Brutalist? 

Also, despite it being shut out at The Golden Globes, Anora was awarded the biggest category of the night: Best Picture. This win has put it back in the conversation for Best Picture at the Oscar's which, up until last night, was a race between The Brutalist and Emilia Perez, two films which are currently in the middle of controversy. This win for Anora was celebrated across the board and confirms that this film is more loved by general audiences rather than voting bodies, but unfortunately, it was the only award it took home last night. The award it was guaranteed to win was for Original Screenplay however, this surprisingly went to The Substance - which does define originality and is a great win for writer/director Coralie Fargeat. 

The acting categories do feel locked in, with the guaranteed front runners collecting their prizes yesterday; however, one that did feel on the fence was Best Supporting Actress, with Zoe Saldana winning the Golden Globe and being the one to sweep the season. However, with the current controversy surrounding her film and their main star, people thought this could damage her chances at a win and allow Ariana Grande in Wicked to win an award this season. This didn't happen, and the win last night has cemented Saldana as the front-runner along with Kieran Culkin in Best Supporting Actor, Adrien Brody in The Brutalist and Demi Moore in The Substance, who all will take their wins to the end with a win at The Academy Awards.