Critics Choice Awards Shower Dune, Belfast and West Side Story 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