The National Board of Review used to be the unofficial kick off to awards season / best of year honors but though it's still early, the race for "first" got so ridiculous that we've crept into November of late. They lost that distinction but they're still doing their thing super early in December. The first day of it. Welcome to month twelve!
THEY LOOKED AT ME. THEY LOOKED AT ME.
This year they named George Miller's feminist action epic Mad Max Fury Road as the year's best and we salute them since we love it so and it's peak spectacle filmmaking. But Furiosa will be pissed to hear that they mostly ignored the other big female driven films this year.
Let's investigate after the jump...
Best Film: Mad Max: Fury Road
Top Films (aka the rest of their top ten)
Bridge of Spies
Creed
The Hateful Eight
Inside Out
Spotlight
The Martian
Room
Sicario
Straight Outta Compton
Since those aren't alphabetized, one has to wonder if that's a ranking though they don't specify on their site or in press release. UPDATE: but it must be a mistake since Spotlight is the only one that's out of sequence.
Jennifer Jason Leigh is the prisoner in "Hateful Eight"
Best Director: Ridley Scott – The Martian
Best Actor: Matt Damon – The Martian
Best Actress: Brie Larson – Room
Best Supporting Actor: Sylvester Stallone – Creed
Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Jason Leigh – The Hateful Eight
Best Original Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino – The Hateful Eight
Best Adapted Screenplay: Drew Goddard – The Martian
Best Animated Feature: Inside Out
Breakthrough Performance: Abraham Attah – Beasts of No Nation & Jacob Tremblay – Room
Best Directorial Debut: Jonas Carpignano – Mediterranea
Best Foreign Language Film: Son of Saul
Top 5 Foreign Language Films (aka the runners up)
Goodnight Mommy
Mediterranea
Phoenix
The Second Mother
The Tribe
Best Documentary: Amy
Top 5 Documentaries (aka the runners up)
Best of Enemies
The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution
The Diplomat
Listen to Me Marlon
The Look of Silence
William K. Everson Film History Award: Cecilia De Mille Presley
Best Ensemble: The Big Short
Spotlight Award: Sicario, for Outstanding Collaborative Vision
NBR Freedom of Expression Award: Beasts of No Nation & Mustang
I thought everyone had forgotten about '71 -- but it sure is thrilling
Top 10 Independent Films
’71
45 Years
Cop Car
Ex Machina
Grandma
It Follows
James White
Mississippi Grind
Welcome to Me
While We’re Young
There is rarely much to glean from them awards wise because their patterns -- apart from things that don't apply this year like "always bet on Clint Eastwood, no matter how blah the reception of his latest movie was" -- are patterns until they're not. Take their Best Film prize... that almost always becomes a Best Picture nominee (which would be very good news since they chose so well this year) but last year they went with J.C. Chandor's A Most Violent Year... a terrific film that Oscar passed over in every category, even the one where it should've been a slam dunk (Best Supporting Actress, Jessica Chastain).
The 'Losers': What to make of them completely ignoring three of the four major female-driven films presumed to be in the Oscar race? Carol, Brooklyn, and Joy
The Martian didn't really need this help for its upcoming Oscar harvest
The Winners: Since the NBR comes early, they make the most impact if and when they go for an underdog. Since they mostly went for expected Oscar nominees this year in their acting categories, even two arguable frontrunners in Stallone and Larson, the only true boosts today beyond the top honor for Mad Max Fury Road and the total outpouring of love for The Martian (it feels like a tie essentially with so many prizes) are for the films that received multiple honors: two each for Beasts of No Nation, Sicario, and Creed (the last of which only truly entered the conversation when people realized how good it was*), and three honors for Hateful Eight. The latter proves once again that with NBR it's good to arrive last. They nearly always give big honors to basically the last film screened before voting.
* as should always be the case come to think of it.