Oppenheimer has won eight awards at the Critics Choice Awards.
The London-born filmmaker won the Best Director award for the epic starring Christopher Nolan. Robert Downey Jr. also won Best Film and Best Supporting Actor. Star Cillian Murphy lost out in the Best Actor category, which went to “The Holdovers” star Paul Giamatti.
Greta Gerwig’s box office hit “Barbie” was also a success at the 29th awards ceremony: The film received six awards, including for best comedy, best original screenplay and best original song for “I’m Just Ken” by British star Mark Ronson – sung by Ryan Gosling.
In the TV categories, Succession, Beef and The Bear dominated the main prizes.
As he took the stage to accept his award for Best Director, Nolan said: “To paraphrase a quote from Sir Isaac Newton, ‘If I seem tall, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants.’ And those giants I stand on are Kai (Bird) and Marty (Sherwin), who wrote the incredible book ‘The American Prometheus’ and worked on it for 25 years.
“Thank you, Kai, for your trust in my work and in Marty. Unfortunately, he left before I could show him the final script. But Kai, your constant assurances after seeing the film that he would have approved of it meant a lot to me.”
Oppenheimer star Emily Blunt also thanked Nolan for his “ability to connect with actors” when she accepted the award for best ensemble on behalf of the cast.
“I love that we call it the ensemble, and we’re very grateful for that. Most of us were just part-timers gathered around this absolutely captivating fire of Cillian Murphy. Really,” she said.
When Downey Jr. accepted the award for Best Supporting Actor, he read out his own worst reviews.
“I was thinking about this this morning, I just love critics… you know, they’ve given me such wonderful feedback, really so many great moments, and some of it is so poetic. I just want to share some of their thoughts with you throughout the year.
“The first is a bit like a haiku: ‘Sloppy, messy and lazy.’ The next is more metaphorical: ‘Like Pee-wee Herman coming out of a coma.’ This one came from a Brit: ‘A puzzling waste of talent.’ And lastly, and this one stuck: ‘As amusing as a fart tied to a bed.'”
He then thanked his “Oppen buddies” with whom he had worked on the film and joked: “Every day of shooting was like my ego got a kick in the ass at the door and I don’t think that could have happened to a nicer guy.”
However, Cord Jefferson beat out Nolan’s Oppenheimer in the Best Adapted Screenplay category for his directorial debut, American Fiction, based on Percival Everett’s 2001 novel Erasure.
A number of awards, including the one for Best Comedy for Barbie, were not televised. Nevertheless, Critics Choice host Chelsea Handler asked Gerwig and Robbie to come on stage to accept their award – which was not part of the scheduled show.
Robbie said: “Thank you Chelsea, I love you so much. You know when everyone says ‘this is so unexpected’ – this was actually unexpected. This wasn’t part of the show, but we’re still very grateful.”
British music star Ronson said the award for best original song also belongs to actor Gosling, who “made the world fall in love with this song.”
Speaking to Gerwig, he said: “The fact that you took 11 minutes out of this prog-rock-power-ballad-dream-ballad-shred-fest so the guys could cry a little and hold hands, we really are forever indebted to you for that.”
The ceremony also honored Da’Vine Joy Randolph with Best Supporting Actress for “The Holdovers,” while Emma Stone won Best Actress for “Poor Things.”
She said: “Playing Bella was one of the greatest joys of my life and I unlearned many things in the process.”
“We unlearn parts of the shame and societal things that are imposed on us. I’m very grateful to the critics for that… but I’m learning not to care what you think,” Stone joked.
Giamatti, who won best actor for his role in “The Holdovers,” said he was thinking of his father.
“Tonight I want to think of my father, who never saw me act professionally. Whether what I do is professional acting, I’m not sure,” he said.
“He was a literary critic and so you could only do good work with him. This will make him really happy and it will make me really happy too, so thank you.”
In the TV category, Ali Wong and Steven Yeun from the Netflix series “Beef” won the awards for Best Actress and Best Actor in a Miniseries, while Maria Bello was named Best Supporting Actress and the series also received the award for Best Miniseries.
The awards for Best Actor and Actress in a Drama Series went to Kieran Culkin and Sarah Snook from “Succession,” and the series itself won the award for Best Drama Series.
“The Bear” also impressed at the awards ceremony and, alongside Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edebiri, was named best actor and actress in a comedy series, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach was named best supporting actor.
Meryl Streep also won Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her role in “Only Murders In The Building” and Elizabeth Debicki won Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for her role as Diana, Princess of Wales in “The Crown.”
She praised her co-star Khalid Abdalla, who played Dodi Fayed, adding: “If I’ve done one good thing on this show, half of it is you, you’re a dear friend.”
