The American Film Institute’s AFI Awards on Friday proved once again to be one of the starriest events of awards season.
George Clooney, Emma Stone, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ethan Hawke, Wunmi Mosaku and Rhea Seehorn were among the earliest arrivals at the red carpet luncheon at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills.
The guest list also included Laura Dern, Adam Sandler, Mark Ruffalo, Stellan Skarsgård, Jafar Panahi, Adam Scott, Netflix’s Ted Sarandos and Apple’s Tim Cook.
This year’s film honorees included “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” Bugonia,” “Frankenstein,” “Hamnet,” “Jay Kelly,” “Marty Supreme,” “One Battle After Another,” “Sinners,” “Train Dreams” and “Wicked: For Good.”
On the TV side, honorees included “Adolescence,” “Andor,” “Death by Lightning,” “The Diplomat,” “The Lowdown,” “The Pitt,” “Pluribus,” “Severance,” “The Studio” and “Task.”
A special award was given to “It Was Just an Accident.”
Shortly after the honorees were revealed in December, Variety’s Clayton Davis wrote an Awards Circuit column, “The AFI Awards remain one of the season’s most meaningful bellwethers. Over the past decade, AFI’s top 10 films have consistently overlapped with the Academy’s best picture slate, typically matching seven or eight eventual nominees. While an AFI selection doesn’t guarantee Oscar momentum, a miss often signals a steeper hill ahead.”
This year’s juries — one for film and one for television — included Lily Gladstone, Lauren LeFranc, Patton Oswalt and Thomas Schlamme; scholars Mark Harris and Leonard Maltin along with representatives from Syracuse University, USC, UCLA and UC Santa Cruz; critics Ann Hornaday, Janet Maslin and Peter Travers; and members of the AFI Board of Trustees. The panels were chaired by AFI Board of Trustees member Jeanine Basinger, chair emerita and founder of the film studies department at Wesleyan University, and AFI Board of Trustees Vice Chair Richard Frank, former chairman of Walt Disney Television and president of Walt Disney Studios.
Check out photos from the AFI Awards below.
