Blanchett, Christie, Langella, Ryan, Sorkin, et al. Receive Film Critics’ Awards

Stage veterans Cate Blanchett, Julie Christie, Frank Langella, and Amy Ryan are among the actors who have been rewarded for their screen work in the past year by various film critics organizations.

Christie, a former Oscar winner, has been named Best Actress for her work in Away From Her by the New York Film Critics Circle, the New York Film Critics Online, the Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Circle, as well as the National Board of Review. She was bested by La Vie en Rose star Marion Cottilard — who will star in the upcoming film version of Nine — in voting by the Los Angeles Films Critics Circle and the Boston Society of Film Critics.

The Boston group gave its Best Actor award to three-time Tony Award winner Frank Langella for Starting Out in the Evening. Other groups have given the top prize to George Clooney (Michael Clayton) and Daniel Day-Lewis (There Will Be Blood). Two-time Tony nominee Amy Ryan has been named Best Supporting Actress for her work in Gone Baby Gone by every group but the New York Film Critics Online, who awarded their trophy to Blanchett, for her performance in I’m Not There.

Ethan Coen — whose new group of short plays, Almost an Evening, bows next month at the Atlantic Theater Stage 2 — and his brother Joel have picked up numerous trophies for their direction and screenplay of No Country for Old Men, which was named Best Picture by the New York Film Critics Circle, among other groups.

Aaron Sorkin, whose new play The Farnsworth Invention bowed on Broadway last week, won the DC Critics’ award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the soon-to-open Charlie Wilson’s War, directed by Mike Nichols, and starring Oscar winners Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

As previously reported, the National Board of Review named Tim Burton as Best Director for Sweeney Todd, and the film earned Dante Ferretti a Best Production Design award from the DC Critics.