Critics Choice Awards 2023: Rajamouli’s RRR made a splash at this year’s Critics’ Choice Awards as it won the Best Foreign Language Film and Best Song (Naatu Naatu) categories. However, it could not dethrone the Hollywood blockbuster Avatar: The Way of Water. James Cameron’s Avatar 2 won the award for Best Visual Effects. This year RRR was nominated in five categories.
Avatar 2 beats RRR’s VFX
Cameron’s ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ won the award for Best Visual Effects. In the category, RRR was competing against films such as Avatar: The Way of Water, The Batman, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Everything Everywhere All at Once and Top Gun: Maverick.
‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ is the sequel to the 2009 film Avatar and the second installment in the Avatar film series. Cast members Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Giovanni Ribisi, Dilip Rao and Matt Gerald reprise their roles from the original film, with Sigourney Weaver returning in an additional role.
New cast members include Kate Winslet, Cliff Curtis, Edie Falco and Jemaine Clement. In the film, Na’viJake Sully (Worthington) and his family, under renewed human threat, seek refuge with the Metkayina clan of Pandora.
Rajamouli lost to Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert for Best Director.
In the Best Director category, SS Rajamouli lost to Everywhere Everywhere All at Once directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert. Others nominated were James Cameron (Avatar: The Way of Water), Damien Chazelle (Babylon), Todd Field (Tar), Baz Luhrmann (Elvis), Martin McDonagh (The Banshees of Inishrin), Sarah Polley (Women Talking), Gina Prince-Bythewood (The Woman King) and Steven Spielberg (The Fablemen).