Los Angeles: The Social Network keeps making friends, winning the Critics' Choice award for best picture and three other prizes.
But Inception led all films Friday night with six awards total, all in technical categories.
Best actor went to Colin Firth for his portrayal of King George VI, who overcame a stammer with the help of an unconventional speech therapist, in The King's Speech, while Natalie Portman won best actress for playing a ballerina who descends into madness in Black Swan.
The Social Network, which chronicles the origin of Facebook, also won for David Fincher's direction, Aaron Sorkin's adapted screenplay and the score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.
The boxing drama The Fighter won in three categories: supporting actor Christian Bale, supporting actress Melissa Leo and best ensemble.
But from a numerical standpoint, Inception was the big winner of the night. Christopher Nolan's psychological dream thriller won for cinematography, art direction, editing, visual effects, sound and best action movie.
The Critics' Choice Movie Awards, bestowed by the Broadcast Film Critics Association, were given out at the Hollywood Palladium.
Among the other winners, Toy Story 3 was named best animated film, Waiting for Superman took the documentary prize, Easy A won best comedy and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was the foreign-language winner.
Hailee Steinfeld won the best young actor or actress award for her film debut in the Coen brothers' version of True Grit.
The front-runner this awards season, The Social Network has won top honours from several critics groups, including those in New York and Los Angeles and the National Society of Film Critics.
It's up for six Golden Globe Awards Sunday night, while The King's Speech leads with seven nominations. Both are competing for best drama.
Inception is about dreams, and dreams within dreams. It's about plundering the subconscious for secrets and, perhaps, planting a few ideas there, as well. But writer-director Christopher Nolan has done so much more than just recreate the sensation of what happens when people fall asleep. He has built a complete and complicated world, one that constantly shakes you up and makes you work - makes you stop every once in a while to find your bearings. In a good way. It is the most superbly crafted mind trip, and it follows a great tradition of challenging, innovative films. Image Credit: Rex Features
