The 21st Critics' Choice Awards were presented on January 17, 2016, at the Barker Hangar at the Santa Monica Airport, honoring the finest achievements of filmmaking and television programming in 2015. The ceremony was simulcast on A&E, Lifetime and LMN, and hosted by T.J. Miller. The nominees were announced on December 14, 2015.
This year marked the first time the awards were combined with the Critics' Choice Television Awards into one event onward.
The film ' screened too late for the vast majority of the Broadcast Film Critics Association to see it in time for consideration for the awards. But after what an email to members called "an unprecedented cry out" from its membership, the BFCA's board of directors called a "special referendum" on adding the film to the ten candidates for Best Picture, which it won. The BFCA faced immediate criticism, including from its own members, over what many saw as an attempt to increase ratings for the awards ceremony's broadcast on A&E (which is 50% owned by Disney, the company behind Star Wars) on January 17, 2016. Two membersâÂÂEric Melin (editor-in-chief of Scene-Stealers.com, a film critic of Lawrence Journal-World, and the president of the Kansas City Film Critics Circle) and Scott Renshaw (editor of Salt Lake City Weekly)âÂÂresigned in protest.
Melin, in an open letter, wrote:
Similarly, in another open letter, Renshaw wrote:
The following twenty-six films received multiple nominations:
The following five films received multiple awards:
The following programs received multiple nominations:
The following programs received multiple awards: