The Critics Choice Awards Are Becoming ‘Foreign’ to Oscar Voters’ Increasingly International Tastes

Though the 2026 Critics Choice Awards certainly felt business as usual, with comedian Chelsea Handler hosting for the fourth straight year at the ceremony’s third consecutive year at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, they did also represent the ongoing identity crisis that most televised awards shows are currently facing.

While much has been said by the team here at IndieWire about SAG’s Actors Awards now streaming on Netflix and the Oscars heading to YouTube in 2029, the most pressing thing about the Critics Choice Awards is not its broadcast partner as much as it’s the ceremony’s relationship to the Golden Globes.

How that comes up immediately is that this go-round, the shows swapped weekends, so that the Critics Choice Awards became the first major televised awards show of the year. For attendees, the benefit of that is to re-enter awards season off of holiday break in a more casual setting.