Critics Choice: Jon Chu wins Best Director for 'Wicked;" "Shogun" shines

Jon M. Chu was surprised at winning the Critics Choice award for Best Director.

Though overlooked by the Oscars, the motion picture critics named Jon M. Chu as their choice for Best Director for his work on Wicked.

Accepting his award, Chu caused the audience to gasp when he joked, I'm gonna win tht Oscar! at the 2025 Critics Choice Awards. “I’m not nominated, I’m not nominated,” he quickly addedsai as the crowd laughed at his soft jab at the upcoming Academy Awards.

"You don’t get a lot of times to celebrate when you’re making a movie. Ninety-five percent of the time, you’re torturing yourself and you have your cast and your crew every day sort of pulling you forward and building another bridge to get over the next thing,” Chu said. “So when a movie comes out and you see the world embrace it, that is everything to us as storytellers.”

FYI: For complete list of winners of the Critics Choice Awards

He continued, "It means the world to me personally and, for this movie, I think it deserves to be seen. I think it deserves to be loved and praised in all the ways - because it's the work of thousands of people, of human hands building every set piece, and all the work of the girls. It's been the journey of my life to witness that personally."

Clearly surprised at winning because most of his fellow nominees are also Oscar nominees, the Chinese American director went on to thank his family and cast: “This is for all the people who love artists. It’s a hard life to love an artist. We are selfish people. We are weird. But you guys pick us up ... America is the greatest place in the world. Yes, we have our issues. It’s the greatest place where dreams can come true. We can achieve stuff my parents could have never dreamed.”

In all, Wicked won a total of three awards. Besides Chu's Best Director nod, the movie won awards for Nathan Crowley and Lee Sandales for Best Production Design, as well as Paul Tazewell for Best Costume Design.

For television productions, Shogun followed its big night at the Emmy's and the Golden Globes by taking home Critics Choice awards for Best Drama Series, Best Actor ina Drama Series for Hoyuki Sanada, Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for Tadanobu Asano and Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for Moeka Hoshi.

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