By Neil Woulfe - Breaking Celebrity News Senior News Director

George Clooney, Viola Davis and The Artist were among the big winners at the 2012 Critics’ Choice Awards Thursday night in Los Angeles.

Clooney won Best Actor for The Descendants, beating pals Brad Pitt (Moneyball) and Ryan Gosling (Drive), among others for the top acting prize.

In accepting the award, Clooney reminisced about the time he complained to his father than his acting career wasn’t going the way he wanted and his father reminded him of his grandfather's work as a sharecropper.

"If you're not proud of what you're doing, then do it better," Clooney said his father told him. "I have to say that I am very proud to be in this film," Clooney added.

Click here for complete list of winners at 2012 Critics’ Choice Awards

In somewhat of a surprise, Viola Davis won Best Actress over Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady) for her dramatic turn as Aibileen Clark, a maid living in Mississippi in the 1960s, in the sleeper hit, The Help.

In perhaps the most moving speech of the night, Davis said, "I am absolutely so humbled…"

"I wanted to be somebody. I wanted to dream big and make a mark somehow, and that's something absolutely that Aibileen was not afforded," she continued