‘I’m Just Ken’ and ‘Oppenheimer’ Win Music Awards at 2024 Critics Choice Awards
“I’m Just Ken” from Barbie won best song at the 2024 Critics Choice Awards, which were presented on Sunday (Jan. 14) at Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, Calif. One week ago, Billie Eilish and Finneas’ “What Was I Made For?” from Barbie won the Golden Globe in that category. With these mixed verdicts, we appear to have a genuine contest on our hands for the Oscar for best original song for the first time in three years. The last two years, “No Time to Die” from the James Bond film of the same name and “Naatu Naatu” from RRR won both of these run-up awards on their way to winning the Oscar.
This is the second Critics Choice Award in this category for “I’m Just Ken” co-writers Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt. They won five years ago for co-writing “Shallow” from A Star Is Born with Lady Gaga and Anthony Rossomando.
In accepting the award, Ronson thanked Ryan Gosling, who performed the song in the film. “This is as much your award as ours,” he said. “You made the audience fall in love with this song with your matchless performance.” Ronson also thanked director Greta Gerwig. “The fact that you carved out 11 minutes for this prog-rock, power ballad, dream ballet, shred-fest so the boys could cry and hold hands a little too, we’re really forever in your debut for that.”
There doesn’t appear to be much of a contest for the Oscar for best original score. Ludwig Göransson’s work on Oppenheimer won best score at the Critics Choice Award just as it did at the Golden Globes.
The 29th annual Critics Choice Awards, hosted by a funny and sharp Chelsea Handler, aired live on The CW.
Oppenheimer was the top winner on the film side with eight awards (including best picture and best director), followed by Barbie, with six.
All three core cast members of Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers won awards – Paul Giamatti (best actor), Da’Vine Joy Randolph (best supporting actress) and Dominic Sessa (best young actor/actress).
The biggest shutout on the film side was Killers of the Flower Moon, which had 12 nominations, yet went home empty-handed. Maestro and The Color Purple were also shut out, despite eight and five nods, respectively.
The Bear and Beef were the top winners on the TV side, with four awards each, followed by Succession with three.
Two non-competitive awards were presented. James Mangold presented Harrison Ford with the Career Achievement Award. Margot Robbie presented her Barbie co-star America Ferrera with the SeeHer Award. In her acceptance speech, Ferrera nodded to three younger Latina actresses who are scoring big – Ariana Greenblatt, who played her daughter in Barbie, Selena Gomez and Jenny Ortega.
The show was executive-produced by Bob Bain Productions and Berlin Entertainment. The Critics Choice Association is the largest critics organization in the U.S. and Canada, representing more than 600 media critics and entertainment journalists. It was established in 2019 with the formal merger of the Broadcast Film Critics Association and the Broadcast Television Journalists Association.
