The Critics Choice Awards Must Show More Respect to International Films or Risk Falling Behind

The Critics Choice Awards seem to be falling behind as the major voting bodies, including the Academy, become increasingly International focused in terms of film, with the Golden Globes gaining more respect in that regard.

The 31st annual Critics Choice Awards (CCA) took place last night and seemed to be a typical night with the must-see wins and the expected reactions, yet it wasn’t without huge controversy and upset. This time around, its place in the award season has suddenly shifted. As the Golden Globes usually takes place a week before the Critics Choice, that role has been reversed this year. With the Golden Globes ceremony set to broadcast next week. Therein lies a shifting perception of how the award season will play out.

While the Golden Globes was often known as the populist vote that would reward the more mainstream picks, whereas the Critics Choice tended to favor projections that would align with the Academy’s tastes, that seems to have changed after the revamp of the Golden Globes voting body after the 2021 scandal exposing the lack of diversity and ethics, introducing a more favourable view of international films and a more representative voting system from the Globes. As seen last year when the Brazilian film I’m Still Here grew staggering momentum after Fernanda Torres won best actress against a mostly Hollywood lineup. Or the fact that Emilia Perez would go on to dominate nominations even if it did end up falling drastically short upon the revelations of its lead, Karla Sofia Gascon’s twitter history and press interviews exposing a lot of controversy. Meanwhile, the Critics Choice voted for the popular Wicked director Jon M Chu, who didn’t even get a nomination for the Oscars.

Even if choosing Anora for best picture did result in an unexpected sweep for Sean Baker’s latest film and for Mikey Madison to claim glory at the Academy, there’s an increasing sense of concern that the CCA may be going through an existential dilemma. As years go by and more voting bodies across the Hollywood board express more interest and commitment to recognising International films, the CCA doesn’t seem to get the memo.

Last night demonstrated this issue more clearly. While the ceremony progressed as business as usual with many expected wins like Jessie Buckley and Timothée Chalamet winning the best actress/actor categories respectively or One Battle After Another winning best picture. There were some questionable choices that many people online found quite disappointing to watch unfold. Not being able to see Ryan Coogler and Paul Thomas Anderson react to winning the screenplay categories was a missed opportunity, especially when great scriptwriting feels rarer than it has ever been in the landscape of cinema.

But the most upsetting part is seeing the best foreign language film be announced while attendees were still on the red carpet. During a press interview, The Secret Agent director Kleber Mendonça Filho was randomly notified that he had won the category and was given an award in that moment. It almost felt like this one big joke that he wasn’t aware of participating and we were just waiting for the punchline, but it in fact was actually real. He couldn’t believe what he was witnessing, and neither did I or the many people watching across the world. There wasn’t really any time for him to react, give an acceptance speech or express thanks to anyone as the broadcasting carpet host turned away to move onto somewhere else during the livestream.

What really makes this confusing moment worse is how it leads to another questionable decision later on, when it turns out The Secret Agent director Kleber Mendonça Filho and lead actor Wagner Moura would go on to take the stage just to announce the best picture winner. At the very least, directors Kleber and Wagner slid in a thanks and highlighted how international films are important too just before announcing the best picture winner. Which brings me to my question: why let the filmmakers go on stage to announce the winners for one category but not give them the opportunity to go on stage and receive the award when they win for another? It is an incredibly disrespectful and performative way to treat international artists who travel from across the word just to attend the ceremony for the night and give your show on E! and USA Network the visibility and publicity you crave, yet when it’s time to reward that same visibility to these hardworking filmmakers the awards organisers decide not to care or extend any consideration in return.

It’s 2026 and a major awards body is still struggling to understand how to treat their guests properly, which only makes audiences and artists alike to question their integrity. Is everything just a circus act at this point. That isn’t even mentioning how often the winners feel they need to complain how lacking the food is for such a special occasion.

With the Golden Globes set for next week and many anticipated films, including international are expected to be recognised. We can only hope that the international journalist body does better and restore some goodwill to what should be a smooth award season. Critics Choice Award has been a great precursor for Oscar predictions and races in the past, but now it feels like it doesn’t know what it wants to be anymore. With the added confusion surrounding their recent decision to not allow international films to be nominated in said category if they were nominated for best picture (explains why Sentimental Value missed the spoils), it is clear that they do not want to provide visibility and admiration for films across the world as they only care about America. But that attitude can only last for so long when most other awards have learned to grow past that silly and narrow mentality, with the Academy especially leading on this improved mindset. After all, international films are cinema too. They’re just as important and valuable as any English-speaking title, and the CCA will learn that truth sooner or later.

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