Jane Campion was named Best Director at the Critics Choice Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday – her third win this weekend after wins at the Directors Guild Awards and Baftas.
Her film The Power of the Dog won Best Picture while she also won Best Adapted Screenplay.
Will Smith, Troy Kotsur and Ariana DeBose all won Critics Choice and Baftas acting awards of equal value.
This year, both ceremonies took place on the same evening.
The Critics Choice was originally scheduled for January but was postponed due to Covid-19 concerns.
With the ceremony taking place in LA just hours after the London Baftas, the nominees faced a dilemma as to whether to attend.
Some managed to do both, courtesy of a parallel live stream event for Critics Choice at London’s Savoy Hotel, following the Baftas ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall.
These included Lady Gaga and Ted Lasso’s Hannah Waddingham, who managed to walk the red carpet at both events.
However, both Campion and Smith, who won Best Actor for King Richard, accepted their Critics Choice awards in person in LA.
“We are so proud and so grateful to the Critics Choice Awards that they chose us,” said Campion. “I still have some PTSD from critics dating back to the early years of my career!”
“I’m like the grandmother in the women’s movement in the film now. But I’m still here,” she added.
However, she drew criticism from some quarters after joking about getting tennis lessons from Venus and Serena Williams, who were at the event to support the film King Richard, which is based on her father and former coach.
“Venus and Serena, you are such wonders,” Campion said during her speech. “But you don’t play against the boys like I do.”
Film and TV producer said Franklin Leonard The comment was “unnecessary”, adding that Serena had more Grand Slam titles than any man, while only four men had more than Venus.
Author, lawyer and activist Dr. Shola Mos-Shogbamimu tweeted: “White women center themselves [sic] so normalized towards black women,” he describes the comments as “unnecessary, petty, and ugly.”
Across the pond, Benedict Cumberbatch accepted Campion’s Bafta directing award on her behalf, while King Richard director Reinaldo Marcus Green stood in for Smith
But Ariana DeBose was among those who picked up her Bafta for Best Supporting Actress in West Side Story in person, as was Troy Kotsur for Best Supporting Actor (Coda).
With Hollywood dominating Britain’s biggest film awards, it turned out to be a good night for British talent on the other side of the Atlantic.
Although Sir Kenneth Branagh missed out on Best Director for Belfast, his semi-autobiographical film won the Critics Choice Awards for Best Ensemble Cast, Best Original Screenplay and Best Young Actor/Actress for its 11-year-old star, Jude Hill.
That was a huge improvement over his Bafta performance, where Belfast had six nominations but only picked up one award – Best British Film.
Hill attended the Critics Choice Awards and gave an endearing speech in which he joked that his younger brother and sister were “copycats” because “they’re also starting out in acting.”
He also thanked his parents for “always being there and … letting me go down this path in the first place” and Sir Kenneth “for choosing me.”
Other big winners included Jessica Chastain, which won Best Actress for Tammy Faye’s Eyes, and the Japanese film Drive My Car, which won Best Foreign Language Film.
Critics Choice also recognizes TV work, including wins for Netflix’s Squid Game for Best Foreign Language Series; Best Actor in a TV Series for Lee Jung-Jae.
Ted Lasso won TV comedy awards, four in all, including a supporting actress award for British star Hannah Waddingham.
British actress Kate Winslet was also a winner for her role in Mare of Easttown.
Meanwhile, Billy Crystal was honored with a lifetime achievement award and Halle Berry received the SeeHer award, an award that recognizes women who push boundaries and defy industry stereotypes.
In her acceptance speech, Berry said it’s time to see and create stories for women where audiences “see us fully in all our diversity and contradictions, because we’re confident and we’re scared.
“We are vulnerable and we are strong, we are beautiful and we are abused. We are everything and all of that and all at the same time.”
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