Gladiator won numerous awards in 2000
The American Film Institute (AFI) has announced it is to launch a new joint awards dinner which will be aired live in a three-hour television broadcast on CBS.
The first show will take place in Beverly Hills on 5 January with the aim of presenting the previous year in review.
The awards will go out two weeks before the Golden Globes and two months before the climactic Oscars.
The AFI will choose two 13-member juries, one each for film and television, who will determine 19 awards categories.
The committees, made up of academics, critics and artists, will also be able to choose up to six AFI Moments of Significance from the year.
Achievement
Once the nominees are revealed, another AFI jury of 100 experts from film and television will decide on the winners.
The AFI is well-known for publishing a top 100 films list each year, chosen by critics.
It also presents a lifetime achievement award annually with previous winners including Barbara Streisand, Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg.
"Since its founding in 1967, one of AFI's core missions has been to document excellence in the moving image arts," said AFI Director and CEO Jean Picker Firstenberg.
"AFI Awards will add another volume to the history of American film and television by creating an almanac of annual achievement for future generations."
The AFI Awards 2001 will also count down the 10 most outstanding American films of the year, which it started this year.
Creative team
The films, listed in no order, will be chosen by a panel of journalists, academics, and industry professionals, similar in make-up to the Pulitzer Prize jury.
The awards will go to an entire creative team, not just individual's such as directors or actors.
But the executive director of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is concerned at the proliferation of award ceremonies.
Bruce Davis said: "It would be nice to think of ourselves as the climax to a series of playoffs.
"But the fact is that these awards tend to involve the same films, the same people presenting them, the same people receiving them."