The Critics Choice Awards were presented Sunday night in Santa Monica, California, honoring the best performances in film and television.
“Oppenheimer” won the most with eight awards total, including best film. “Barbie” scored six awards, including best comedy. The top television categories were a series of sweeps for “Beef” and “The Bear,” which each won four awards.
Robert Downey Jr. won a Critics Choice Award for best supporting actor in “Oppenheimer” .
He took the opportunity to remind the critics who voted for him that they haven’t always loved his work.
“The Critics Choice Association, they’ve given me such beautiful feedback, really just so many great moments,” Downey Jr. said at the start of his acceptance speech. “And some of it’s so poetic, I just want to share some of their thoughts with you over the years.”
He went on to quote several unflattering critiques he’s received throughout his career, starting with one review Downey Jr. described as haiku: “sloppy, messy and lazy.”
Another critique he cited compared his performance in an unnamed project to “Pee Wee Herman emerging from a coma.” Downey Jr. also quoted a British critic who once called him “a puzzling waste of talent.”
The final review “lingered” with him, Downey Jr. said, when a critic wrote that he was as “amusing as a bedlocked fart.”
While Downey Jr. didn’t specify which performances he received such colorful feedback on, he appeared to enjoy himself as he quoted each review. As did the audience, who laughed along with him.
After his trip down critical memory lane, Downey Jr. thanked his “Oppenheimer” co-stars – who he endearingly called his “Oppenhomies” – Emily Blunt, Alden Ehrenreich, Cillian Murphy and the film’s director, Christopher Nolan.
Downey Jr. starred as former acting US Secretary of Commerce Lewis Strauss in the blockbuster to – this time – rave reviews. Earlier this month, he won a best supporting actor Golden Globe for his performance in the drama.
The film followed physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer (Murphy) as he and a team created the first atomic bomb during World War II.
“Oppenheimer” was released in July in tandem with the “Barbie” movie and, as part of the “Barbenheimer” craze, drew in over $550 million within the first month of its release, according to official estimates from Universal Pictures.
