The unofficial start of the awards season took place on Monday as De Niro, Affleck, Gere and many other Hollywood celebrities were honored for movies that haven’t been released yet. The event, which triggered lots of amusing comments on behalf of actors, gave film critics the possibility to place their bets on next year’s most awarded films, according to Reuters.

The 16th edition of the Hollywood Film Awards was hosted on Monday, October 22, during a special gala organized at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Robert De Niro, Bradley Cooper, director David O. Russell and writer-director Quentin Tarantino were some of the guests who were honored for their unseen movies. Although the warm-up for the official awards season may seem a little bit odd, critics’ have always made correct choices about the next movies to be positioned as awards contenders.

This year it was Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained” that was honored as one of the most anticipated movie. Although he received the award for screenwriter of the year, Tarantino wasn’t so sure about his film’s success. He told viewers that he finds it very strange to receive an award for a project that he hasn’t finished yet. Nevertheless, he plans to use the prize as a line during negotiations with actors in the cast. “I’ll be able to say, hey, you want to take a line out of my AWARD-WINNING screenplay?” the writer joked.

Writer-director Judd Apatow was also honored in anticipation for his motion picture “This Is 40”, which is due to be released around Christmas. He, too, described the gala as “strange” because he didn’t even hear about many of the films that were nominated. Despite this, he had a wonderful time and even suggested that the Hollywood Film Awards should replace Golden Globes.

Ben Affleck and his co-stars in the recently released movie “Argo” were also honored on Monday night. However, the most emotional moment of the evening was when actor Richard Gere received a lifetime achievement award.