The 26th Annual Critics Choice Awards 2021 was recently held in honor of the finest in both film and television. Here are our favorite winners from the night that recognized talent and art while serving us glamour and entertainment.
Best Picture: Nomadland (Searchlight Pictures) – this film, starring Frances McDormand and directed by Chloe Zhao (who also won Best Director), is about a woman who leaves home for a life on the road.
Best Actor: Chadwick Boseman, won this award posthumously, for his role as Levee Green in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, a film about Chicago’s jazz scene in the 1920s.
Best Actress: Carey Mulligan won Best Actress for her role as a troubled woman who seeks revenge for the rape of her best friend in the film Promising Young Woman.
Best Acting Ensemble: If you haven’t watched the quip-heavy, fast-paced courtroom political drama The Trial of the Chicago 7, you’re in for a treat. The cast won this award for their distinctive performances which informed and shaped the movie, making it what it is.
Best Score: The animated film Soul, which explored what the true purpose of a soul should be, won this award. The score in this film was a collaborative effort by Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, and Jon Batiste. As he accepted the award, Reznor quipped that this would be the first piece of art he would be able to show his kids.
Best Drama Series: Netflix’s The Crown, which is built around the politically tumultuous life of British monarch Queen Elizabeth II received this award. Actors Josh O’Connor, Emma Corrin, and Gillian Anderson also won awards for their performances on the show.
Best Actor in a Drama Series: Michael. K. Williams won Best Actor in a Drama Series for his portrayal as Montrose Freeman, a complicated, tough man with secrets in his past.
Best Comedy Series: Ted Lasso, a tightly-written, endearing, fish-out-of-water series about a friendly American coach who moves to the United Kingdom won this award.