NYFCC Winners
Wednesday, December 2, 2015 at 9:19AM 
The New York Film Critics Circle takes their sweet time each year debating their "bests" and shouldn't we all? Nevertheless it's agony for awards addicts like us, the excruciating wait times that commence between 9 AM EST and continue for hours. With lunch break. If you want to have a laugh at my expense I tried to predict the winners as part of the Gurus of Gold chart this week (update: This year they wrapped up by 1:00 PM though so all is well. The only thing i got right in my predictions was Carol for Film/Director)
A bit of Oscar adjacent history: In the past 20 years of their long long history (they're octogenarians now!) they've selected 4 films that went on to win Best Picture at the Oscars, 11 more that were nominated and 5 that were critical darlings and eventual Oscar players but were shut out of the big race (Leaving Las Vegas, Topsy-Turvy, Mulholland Drive, Far From Heaven, United 93). Which is a long way of saying they have refined if not quite populist taste but they're never too far afield of Oscar's wheelhouse. Do they influence the Oscars? It's tough to say. The Film Experience's position is, generally speaking, that no single critics group influence voters beyond pointing them at films... but the NYFCC and LAFCA are the ones the industry cares most about and are most likely to let in... at least to pique their interest in particular films and performances.
So here we go...
Best Film Carol
Best Director Todd Haynes, Carol
It's worth noting, as Sasha Stone did, that very few directors have ever won Best Director twice at the NYFF. The list includes Martin Scorsese and Kathryn Bigelow and now Haynes. Carol was the big winner of today's announcement taking home 4 prizes.
Best Actress Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn
Best Actor Michael Keaton, Spotlight
Best Supporting Actress Kristen Stewart, Clouds of Sils Maria
Best Supporting Actor Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies
But not in acting. That said these are wonderful choices for the prizes, going out of their way to remember Kristen Stewart's amazingly naturalistic engaging work as Binoche's personal assistant in Sils Maria. That performance has already won her a Cesar Award in France but since she's not campaigning things will probably stop here. Saoirse Ronan and Mark Rylance will surely go the distance to a nomination in Best Actress and Supporting Actor and both could well compete for the win... though we'll have to see the whole field before we really get into that.
The strangest thing is to ignore the supporting campaign (a legitimate choice to make everyone supporting in such an ensemble film) for Keaton and give him the Best Actor prize. But he gives the best performance in a film filled with good work so hurrah!
Best Screenplay Carol, adapted by Phyllis Nagy from the Patricia Highsmith novel "The Price of Salt"
Best Cinematography Carol, Edward Lachman
A thousand times yes. The whole team on Carol was doing exquisite work. That's why we asked them all why they were such geniuses. NYFCC are Todd Haynes fans (as all truly outstanding people are) and they gave Far From Heaven 5 awards in 2002.
Best First Film Son of Saul d. László Nemes
Best Animated Film Inside Out (Pixar) d. Pete Docter & Ronnie del Carmen
Best Documentary In Jackson Heights d. Frederick Wiseman
Best Foreign Language Film Timbuktu (Mauritania) d. Abderrahmane Sissako
Special Award William Becker and Janus Films
Special Award Ennio Morricone, composer
Son of Saul looks fairly unstoppable for the Foreign Film Oscar this season so the race to watch is probably the nominations themselves. And whether Son of Saul can expand into other categories... which it wants to. As previously stated in the Documentary Finalist post it's odd that the Academy's documentary branch continues to pass on Frederick Wiseman's documentaries considering that they are routinely greeted with "masterpiece" level reviews; he's never been Oscar nominated.
That's it. On a scale of 1-10 how happy did today's announcement make you?
WE'LL LET CATE BLANCHETT HAVE THE FINAL WORD SINCE CAROL WAS THE BIG WINNER...
Reader Comments (56)
Since last yr, NYFCC did not released the runners-up. Any1 had insider news on who's up agst Ronan???
From the luv showered Carol, I bet Blanchett & Mara must be in the top 4 or 5. Thr's a high chance they might have crossed ea other out!
Do u tink Keaton's win will change the campaign trail fr Supp to Lead?? If he's nom as Supp, I tink he will win for sure
<But even more impressive was the way she communicated every tiny flicker of her character's inner world to the audience while plausibly hiding it from her scene partners. It's the anti-Meryl-Streep approach to acting.>
Yes I'd pick this kind of acting over the hammy, over-the-top approach anytime. Well said, Goran!
I thought Brooklyn was fine but nothing spectacular. Ronan was strong--but best actress of the year? Hardly.
Just wait until we start getting to the groups who feel the need to give nominations and then we'll start seeing frontrunners and flatlining categories.
HOWEVER, this batch of winners is great. Haven't seen BROOKLYN yet, but the rest are great choices especially Haynes, Stewart and Rylance.
All due respect but Sasha is writing stuff without checking the facts. The STATEMENT IS ABSOLUTELY MISLEADING.
John Ford, Elia Kazan, David Lean, Robert Altman, Fred Zinnemann each have 3 directing wins from the NYFCC.
Ingmar Bergman, Jonathan Demme, John Huston, Woody Allen, Billy Wilder, Stanley Kubrick, Mike Leigh and Terrence Mallick each have 2 (in addition to Scorsese and Bigelow). So this isn't all that rare.
William Wyler only won once? That's stupid.