Critics Choice Awards Shower Dune, Belfast and West Side Story with Nominations
The Critics Choice Awards moves into position as the first major televised ceremony of the season, and Belfast, West Side Story, and Dune lead the pack with nominations.
The Critics Choice Awards is having a moment. With the recent and significant crisis occurring around the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s lack of diversity and other litany of scandals, NBC announced that they were cancelling 2022’s Golden Globes telecast. While the Globes are still going on, it has created a fortuitous moment for the Critics Choice Awards body (which, for full disclosure, this writer is a member). With its 27th annual ceremony, the CCAs have now moved for the first time into the weekend traditionally perched by the Globes: the first non-holiday Sunday in January.
Which makes the nomination line-up for this year’s Critics Choice Awards very interesting. Indeed, the awards body has showered nominations on multiple films including popular mainstream entertainments like Dune. Denis Villeneuve’s science fiction epic walked away this morning with an impressive 10 nominations—including nods for Best Picture, Denis Villeneuve for Best Director, Villeneuve and Jon Spaihts for Best Adapted Screenplay, Greig Fraser for Best Cinematography, and more, with the film dominating in many technical categories.
However, the two biggest nomination-grabbers were Kenneth Branagh’s semi-autobiographical reverie about growing up in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, Belfast, as well as Steven Spielberg’s sweeping reinvention of West Side Story. Both films walked away with a significant 11 CCA nominations. In the case of West Side Story that included the coup of two Best Supporting Actress nominations, one for Ariana DeBose and the other for Rita Moreno, the latter of whom famously won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for playing the same role as DeBose in the original 1961 film version of West Side Story. She was the first Latina actress to do so. Their co-star, the 20-year-old Rachel Zegler, was also nominated for Best Young Actress, and the body of more than 500 critics also recognized Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner with nominations in their respective categories.
Belfast meanwhile picked up nods for Picture, Branagh for both Best Director and Best Original Screenplay, Ciarán Hinds for Best Supporting Actor, Caitríona Balfe for Best Supporting Actress, and in a surprise, Jamie Dornan in Best Supporting Actor.
Also major players in the eyes of the critics this year include Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog, which earned 10 nominations, as many as Dune. This included nods for Campion in both the Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay categories, as well as acting nominations for Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, and Kodi-Smit McPhee. Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza and Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley also both showed well, earning eight CCA nominations each.
You can read the full list of nominees below:
BEST PICTURE
Belfast
CODA
Don’t Look Up
Dune
King Richard
Licorice Pizza
Nightmare Alley
The Power of the Dog
tick, tick…Boom!
West Side Story
BEST ACTOR
Nicolas Cage – Pig
Benedict Cumberbatch – The Power of the Dog
Peter Dinklage – Cyrano
Andrew Garfield – tick, tick…Boom!
Will Smith – King Richard
Denzel Washington – The Tragedy of Macbeth
BEST ACTRESS
Jessica Chastain – The Eyes of Tammy Faye
Olivia Colman – The Lost Daughter
Lady Gaga – House of Gucci
Alana Haim – Licorice Pizza
Nicole Kidman – Being the Ricardos
Kristen Stewart – Spencer
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Jamie Dornan – Belfast
Ciarán Hinds – Belfast
Troy Kotsur – CODA
Jared Leto – House of Gucci
J.K. Simmons – Being the Ricardos
Kodi Smit-McPhee – The Power of the Dog
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Caitríona Balfe – Belfast
Ariana DeBose – West Side Story
Ann Dowd – Mass
Kirsten Dunst – The Power of the Dog
Aunjanue Ellis – King Richard
Rita Moreno – West Side Story
BEST YOUNG ACTOR/ACTRESS
Jude Hill – Belfast
Cooper Hoffman – Licorice Pizza
Emilia Jones – CODA
Woody Norman – C’mon C’mon
Saniyya Sidney – King Richard
Rachel Zegler – West Side Story
BEST ACTING ENSEMBLE
Belfast
Don’t Look Up
The Harder They Fall
Licorice Pizza
The Power of the Dog
West Side Story
BEST DIRECTOR
Paul Thomas Anderson – Licorice Pizza
Kenneth Branagh – Belfast
Jane Campion – The Power of the Dog
Guillermo del Toro – Nightmare Alley
Steven Spielberg – West Side Story
Denis Villeneuve – Dune
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Paul Thomas Anderson – Licorice Pizza
Zach Baylin – King Richard
Kenneth Branagh – Belfast
Adam McKay, David Sirota – Don’t Look Up
Aaron Sorkin – Being the Ricardos
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Jane Campion – The Power of the Dog
Maggie Gyllenhaal – The Lost Daughter
Siân Heder – CODA
Tony Kushner – West Side Story
Jon Spaihts, Denis Villeneuve, Eric Roth – Dune
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Bruno Delbonnel – The Tragedy of Macbeth
Greig Fraser – Dune
Janusz Kaminski – West Side Story
Dan Laustsen – Nightmare Alley
Ari Wegner – The Power of the Dog
Haris Zambarloukos – Belfast
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
Jim Clay, Claire Nia Richards – Belfast
Tamara Deverell, Shane Vieau – Nightmare Alley
Adam Stockhausen, Rena DeAngelo – The French Dispatch
Adam Stockhausen, Rena DeAngelo – West Side Story
Patrice Vermette, Zsuzsanna Sipos – Dune
BEST EDITING
Sarah Broshar and Michael Kahn – West Side Story
Úna Ní Dhonghaíle – Belfast
Andy Jurgensen – Licorice Pizza
Peter Sciberras – The Power of the Dog
Joe Walker – Dune
BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Jenny Beavan – Cruella
Luis Sequeira – Nightmare Alley
Paul Tazewell – West Side Story
Jacqueline West, Robert Morgan – Dune
Janty Yates – House of Gucci
BEST HAIR AND MAKEUP
Cruella
Dune
The Eyes of Tammy Faye
House of Gucci
Nightmare Alley
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Dune
The Matrix Resurrections
Nightmare Alley
No Time to Die
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
BEST COMEDY
Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar
Don’t Look Up
Free Guy
The French Dispatch
Licorice Pizza
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Encanto
Flee
Luca
The Mitchells vs the Machines
Raya and the Last Dragon
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
A Hero
Drive My Car
Flee
The Hand of God
The Worst Person in the World
BEST SONG
Be Alive – King Richard
Dos Oruguitas – Encanto
Guns Go Bang – The Harder They Fall
Just Look Up – Don’t Look Up
No Time to Die – No Time to Die
BEST SCORE
Nicholas Britell – Don’t Look Up
Jonny Greenwood – The Power of the Dog
Jonny Greenwood – Spencer
Nathan Johnson – Nightmare Alley
Hans Zimmer – Dune