Helen Mirren Wins NYC, L.A, and Boston Film Critics Awards

Stage and screen star Helen Mirren has been named Best Actress by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the Boston Society of Film Critics, and the New York Film Critics Circle for her role as Elizabeth II in The Queen. She previously won the National Board of Review Award for this performance and is the clear front-runner for the Academy Award.

The New York group also named Peter Morgan as the Best Screenplay winner for The Queen and gave Dreamgirls star Jennifer Hudson, who plays Effie White, the Best Supporting Actress Award. She was the runner-up in the Best Supporting Actress category in the L.A. voting (losing to little-known Romanian actress Luminita Gheroghiou) and was named Best Breakthrough Performance by a Female by the National Board of the Review.

The L.A. organization bestowed four awards on The Queen, including Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor for Michael Sheen, who plays Tony Blair. Sheen is currently co-starring in the London production of Morgan’s play Frost/Nixon, which is reportedly due on Broadway this spring. The film was named first runner-up for Best Picture, losing to Clint Eastwood’s Letters from Iwo Jima.

A number of stage stars, most notably Cheyenne Jackson and David Alan Basche, were also honored by the Boston Film Critics organization, as it gave the Best Ensemble Award to their film United 93. The film was named Best Picture by the New York Film Critics Circle. (The Boston group opted for Martin Scorsese’s The Departed, which won four awards.)

In other Dreamgirls news, the film was named one of the Top 10 Films of the Year from the American Film Institute, and three of the film’s new songs, “Listen,” “Love You I Do” and “Patience” are among the 56 songs that have been deemed eligible for this year’s Academy Award for Best Song. Dreamgirls is expected to score numerous Golden Globe Award nominations, which will be announced on Thursday, December 14.