LOS ANGELES:

Crime thriller No Country for Old Men cemented its status as a front-runner for Oscars glory after scooping three honours including best picture at the Critics Choice Awards on January 7. The bleak adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel also took the top prize as well as the best director award for film-making brothers Joel and Ethan Coen.

Spanish star Javier Bardem won a best supporting actor award for his role as cold-blooded hit man.

The Critics Choice Awards are handed out annually by the Broadcast Film Critics Association, a group of 200 critics based in the United States and Canada, which is the largest association of its kind. Other winners at the awards included British actor Daniel Day-Lewis for Paul Thomas Anderson’s epic There Will be Blood. Julie Christie took the best actress award for Away From Her. Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada, one of the child stars from The Kite Runner who was relocated to the United Arab Emirates from Afghanistan because of concern about his safety, was named best young actor.