TV awards: The Penguin’s Cristin Milioti triumphs at last
After being snubbed at the Golden Globes, Cristin Milioti received deserved recognition for her role as Sophia Falcone in The Penguin at the 2025 Critics Choice Awards.
Winning the accolade cements Milioti’s performance as one of the best from 2024.
Film News Blitz’s Aidan Leo celebrates The Penguin star’s award win.
When and where did the ceremony take place?
The 30th annual Critics Choice Awards took place on Friday, February 7, at the Barker Hangar event space in Santa Monica.
For the third year running, comedian Chelsea Handler took the reins as the award show’s host.
What does Milioti’s win mean for the rest of awards season?
Milioti won the award for Best Actress in a Limited Series or TV Movie, triumphing over Naomi Watts (Feud: Capote vs The Swans); Phoebe-Rae Taylor (Out of My Mind); Jessica Lange (The Great Lillian Hall); Cate Blanchett (Disclaimer); and Jodie Foster (True Detective: Night Country) for the top honour.
The latter was victorious at the Golden Globes.
After rave reviews swarmed in for Milioti’s role as Sophia Falcone, she was seemingly on track to sweep her contemporaries at all the notable award ceremonies in 2025.
With Forbes dubbing Foster’s role in True Detective: Night Country as good, but not nearly as “compelling” and in the “lesser of the two shows”, The Penguin entourage would have thought they were set for a Golden Globes win, but unfortunately, missed out.
READ MORE: Film awards: A magic weekend as Anora gathers pace ahead of the Oscars
The Penguin’s Milioti garnered popularity and critical acclaim from several outlets, such as Esquire, labelling her performance as one of an “All-time TV villain” and Vulture characterised it as one that “Made the Penguin the Sofia Falcone Show”.
Her co-star Colin Farrell has been scooping up honours thus far for his turn in the lead role with wins at the Golden Globes for Actor in a Miniseries or Motion Picture for TV and this past weekend at the Critics Choice Awards for Best Actor in a Limited Series or TV Movie.
Milioti will hope to follow in those footsteps as far as the rest of awards season is concerned, as she is as deserving, if not more so.
Her role in The Penguin adds a deeper dynamic to the show and cements it as an all-time classic.
As well as being consistently nominated amongst similar, if not the same competition thus far, she should be the frontrunner for the highest of accolades in the year 2025 with nominations in the upcoming Film Independent Spirit Awards and Screen Actors Guild Awards to look forward to.
Notable winners at the Critics Choice Awards
Among the noteworthy selections for the film categories at the Critics Choice Awards was Anora, a well-deserved winner for Best Picture.
Best Actor and Best Actress went to Adrien Brody (The Brutalist) and Demi Moore (The Substance) respectively.
Best Supporting Actor was won by Kieran Culkin for A Real Pain and unsurprisingly Zoe Saldana won Best Supporting Actress for her first-rate performance in Emilia Perez.
Wicked’s Jon M. Chu picked up the top spot in the Best Director category for his directorial performance of the Broadway stage-to-film adaptation and global box-office success.
The influential horror classic and remake Nosferatu saw cinematographer Jarin Blaschke take home the top honour.
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE: Film awards: Critics Choice spreads the love among Anora, The Substance & more
Notable top spots for the television categories consisted of Best Drama Series, Best Actor in a Drama Series, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress won by Shogun and stars, Hiroyuki Sanada, Tadanobu Asano, and Moeka Hoshi respectively, for their stellar performances in the historical Japanese epic.
Kathy Bates, for her strong showing in Matlock, was successful in taking home the award for Best Actress in a Drama Series.
Hacks won Best Comedy Series, additionally, Adam Brody (Nobody Wants This) won Best Actor in a Comedy Series.
A personal favourite of mine from the year prior, X-Men ‘97, merited its win for Best Animated Series.
With what could be considered a pleasant array of winners selected from each category, the ceremony was a success in its variety of selections and the Critics Choice Awards seemingly came with little objection from the public.
Justified winners coming away with deserved top honours is something we can all get behind so long may it continue for the award shows that lie ahead for 2025.
READ NEXT: Film news: The Batman sequel is stuck in the bat cave a while longer
