The New York Film Critics' Circle on Monday named United 93, a harrowing dramatization about one of the jets hijacked in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, as its best picture of the year.
The film was the first major movie to tackle the atrocity and recounts how the passengers fought back against their hijackers before the jet crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, killing all 40 passengers and crew on board.
Forest Whitaker won in the best actor category for his portrayal of Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland, while Helen Mirren picked up the best actress award for her performance as Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen.
The film also picked up the best screenplay award for Peter Morgan.
Martin Scorsese won in the best director category for his hit mafia drama The Departed, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as an undercover cop trying to bring down a mob boss played by Jack Nicholson.
United 93 and Mirren have both notably been tipped as likely winners on Oscar night in February, when the annual Academy Awards will be handed out.
In other awards news, Australia's first Aboriginal language movie has dominated the country's top cinema awards, winning best film and best direction at a star-studded ceremony in Melbourne.
Ten Canoes, the first feature to depict life in an Aboriginal community in the days before European invasion, won six awards at the 48th annual Australian Film Institute (AFI) awards on Thursday night.
Director Rolf de Heer said even though the film was predominantly in the indigenous language of Ganalbingu and portrayed tribal life of a thousand years ago, it resonated with modern audiences.
"Audiences everywhere find something in it," he said.
The film, which won awards for best original screenplay, best cinematography, best editing and best sound, will be entered in the foreign language film category at next year's Oscars.
Filmed in the remote crocodile-infested swamps of northern Australia and starring a clutch of untrained actors, Ten Canoes revolves around the story of a young man who has taken a fancy to an older man's wife.
Emmy-winning actor Peter Boyle, who played the tap-dancing monster in the movie Young Frankenstein and grouchy father Frank Barone in the TV series Everybody Loves Raymond, has died at age 71.
The former Christian Brothers monk and friend of Beatle John Lennon died on Tuesday after a long battle with multiple myeloma and heart disease, his publicists said on Wednesday.
Boyle, who often played cantankerous characters, shot to fame as a foul-mouthed, working-class bigot in the 1970 film Joe.
He also played one of Robert DeNiro's fellow taxi drivers in Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver in 1976 and the cruel, racist father to Billy Bob Thornton in 2001s Monster's Ball.
Boyle won an Emmy for outstanding guest actor appearance on The X-Files in 1996.
He is survived by his wife and two daughters.
Julia Roberts is being lined up to star in a big-screen adaptation of Lolly Winston's bestselling novel Happiness Sold Separately, entertainment trade press reported Wednesday.
The movie tells the story of a suburban wife's heartache at discovering her husband has had an affair and their subsequent battle to try to save a failing marriage, according to Variety and the Hollywood Reporter.
Roberts will produce the picture while Scott Coffey will direct and adapt, reports said.
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