# Anora leads Critics Choice winners as Jon M. Chu takes best director for Wicked

The event date is 2025-02-07.

The 30th Critics Choice Awards handed its top film prize to *Anora*, while Jon M. Chu won best director for *Wicked* at a ceremony held in Santa Monica after delays caused by the Los Angeles fires.

Vanity Fair's winner list shows *Anora* among the night's biggest winners, with Sean Baker's film taking best picture. The same source also lists Chu as the winner in the directing category for *Wicked*, placing the musical among the evening's headline titles even as *Anora* dominated the marquee awards.

The delayed ceremony reflected the scale of the disruption in Los Angeles, where the awards had originally been pushed back by fires that swept the region the previous month. Host Chelsea Handler alluded to the situation in her opening remarks, using the stage to acknowledge the wider mood around the event.

The awards spread beyond the two top-line wins. *Demi Moore* and *Conclave* were also among the winners, and the detailed list shows that the voting body recognized a wide range of films across acting, directing and craft categories.

For *Anora*, the best picture victory capped a strong run for a film that had already drawn awards attention earlier in the season. Baker also used his acceptance speech to argue for the value of theatrical exhibition, saying local theaters still matter to the moviegoing experience.

Chu's win for *Wicked* underscores the film's strength in a field that included several of the year's most visible directors. The Critics Choice result puts him in a prominent position in the awards conversation, especially because the film also appeared repeatedly in technical and performance categories throughout the night.

The full winners list shows how competitive the awards season had become by early February. Films such as *The Brutalist*, *Conclave*, *Emilia Pérez*, *Dune: Part Two* and *The Substance* all appear in the lineup of winners and nominees, reflecting a crowded field rather than a single-film sweep.

Still, the central story from the ceremony is straightforward. *Anora* won the marquee best picture prize, and Jon M. Chu was recognized for directing *Wicked*, making the delayed Critics Choice ceremony one of the most consequential awards stops of the season.

The results are especially useful as a snapshot of where industry recognition stood on 2025-02-07: one film at the top of the night, and a separate directing win for one of the year's most visible studio releases.