London Film Critics’ Circle To Fete Daniel Craig

The London Film Critics’ Circle will hand Daniel Craig the Dilys Powell Award for Excellence in Film, the organization’s top honor, at this year’s London Critics’ Circle Film Awards. 

“This is such an immense honor and I’m incredibly grateful to the London Film Critics’ Circle,” Craig said of the award.

Last year, the London critics presented the Dilys Powell Award to Jeffrey Wright. Recent recipients have included Michelle Yeoh, Sandy Powell, Sally Potter, Pedro Almodovar, and Kate Winslet. 

At the 2024 ceremony, Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest and Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers won three awards each. Colman Domingo received the inaugural Derek Malcolm Award for Innovation, which will be presented to Zoe Saldaña at this year’s ceremony. Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist and Sean Baker’s Anora lead the Critics’ Circle nominees.

Craig is this year on the awards circuit with Queer by Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino. His performance in the pic earned him a Golden Globe nom. The film is an adaptation of Beat writer William S. Burroughs’ early memoir set in the gay subculture of 1950s Mexico City. Craig plays William Lee, a pseudonym Burroughs used to protect his parents from the then-scandalous aspects of his writing — homosexuality and hard drugs. 

However, Craig is, of course, best known for starring as James Bond, first in 2006’s Casino Royale. The actor then went on to portray 007 in four more films: Quantum of Solace in 2008, Skyfall in 2012, and Spectre in 2015, with his run as Bond culminating with the release of No Time to Die in 2021. In recent years, Craig starred as detective Benoit Blanc in the hit mystery Knives Out (2019), reprising the role in Glass Onion and the forthcoming Wake Up Dead Man.

The London Film Critics’ Circle Awards will take place at The May Fair Hotel on February 2nd.