Boston Film Critics choose hometown heroes -- "Spotlight" for Best Picture
Sunday, December 6, 2015 at 1:15PM Every other year the BSFC chooses the future Oscar winner as their Best Picture. Look at the evidence: 2009 The Hurt Locker; 2010: The Social Network; 2011: The Artist; 2012: Zero Dark Thirty; 2014: 12 Years a Slave; 2015: Boyhood. Before that it's a little bumpier statistically since 2008 saw a tie between Slumdog Millionaire (the eventual Oscar winner and WALL•E, a much more deserving (and braver) choice. But it was only in 2006 with The Departed that they started lining up regularlyt. Before then Boston could often be counted on for more iconoclastic choices like Mulholland Drive, Out of Sight, Three Kings, Trainspotting, Bull Durham, Ran, etcetera. They've been handing out awards since 1980 when Raging Bull won their inaugural Best Picture award.
Here's what they chose this year...
Best Picture -Spotlight (ru: Mad Max: Fury Road)
Best Director - Todd Haynes, Carol (ru: Tom McCarthy, Spotlight)
Best Screenplay - Spotlight, Tom McCarthy & Josh Singer (ru: Carol, Phyllis Nagy)
Spotlight becomes the third Boston Film Critics Best Picture winner set in Boston after Mystic River (2003) and The Departed (2006) but it was clearly a hard-fought win with Carol and Mad Max Fury Road fighting for key prizes.
Best Cinematography -Carol, Ed Lachman (ru: The Revenant, Emmanuel Lubezki)
Best Film Editing -Mad Max: Fury Road, Margaret Sixel (ru: Spotlight, Tom McArdle)
Best Original Score - Love and Mercy, Atticus Ross (ru: Creed, Ludwig Göransson)
This awards used to be "Best Use of Music" i.e. nonoriginal scores were eligible -- but they changed it this year to the more traditional awards option. And yet it seems that they voted as if it were still "use of music"
Paul Dano shares his role in "Love and Mercy" and he also has to share this Best Actor prize
Best Actor [TIE]- Paul Dano, Love and Mercy and Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant (ru: Bryan Cranston, Trumbo and Tom Hardy, Legend)
Best Actress - Charlotte Rampling, 45 Years (ru: Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn)
Best Supporting Actor - Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies (ru: Sylvester Stallone, Creed)
Best Supporting Actress - Kristen Stewart, Clouds of Sils Maria (ru: Alicia Vikander, multiple films)
Best Ensemble Cast -Spotlight (ru: The Big Short)
Alicia Vikander had multiple films mentioned. According to Ty Burr they would have voted on which film, if she had won the category.
Best Documentary -Amy (ru: The Look of Silence)
Best Foreign-Language Film The Look of Silence (ru: Son of Saul and White God)
Best Animated Film - [TIE] Inside Out and Anomalisa (ru: Shaun the Sheep)
Best New Filmmaker - Marielle Heller for Diary of a Teenage Girl (ru: Alex Garland for Ex Machina)
Perhaps I should give Diary of a Teenage Girl a second look. I admired it but never felt the love as it were. All in all solid and mostly interesting choices from Boston even if they couldn't make up their minds in two key categories.
What do you make of their prizes?
Reader Comments (13)
Glad to see you're still reporting on SOME of the regional critics awards. I know there are way too many, but some of them (Boston, Chicago and Online mainly) have a bit of history and made some pretty solid choices.
And it looks like Kristen Stewart could very well be this year's Tilda Swinton in Snowpiercer at the very least. This is amazing!
I just hope Alicia Vikander's runner up citation for multiple roles did NOT include the wretched Guy Ritchie mess The Man from UNCLE. She was actually pretty bad in it. My choice for Worst film of they Year.
Go Charlotte Rampling!
Mark Rylance isn't campaigning, but with all these critics' wins, "would it help?"
Todd wins Best Director ;) may the force be with CAROL until the very end!
Spotlight finally wins a Best Picture award. Now it's on to Los Angeles! Maybe we'll get a different winner. Room, perhaps?
Is it me or does it seem like the trio duking it out for Picture, Director and Screenplay are Carol, Spotlight, and Mad Max? I mean Max not as much in Screenplay but still that's a very surprising trinity to be fighting for the top prize.
Happy to see the critics step up for Rylance, he was terrific in Bridge of Spies.
I wish that SAG and Academy voters would take a cue from the critics and move Dano and possibly Keaton (I still haven't seen Spotlight) up to the lead category, it would make for a much more interesting race. Lead actor seems so anemic now.
This year is a hot mess in the awards section, with basically nothing similar between the wins.
I love it.
I must say I did not expect at all to see so much love for Rampling, Stewart, and the cinematography of CAROL.
I love Vikander and all the love she's getting, but her only supporting win should be for 'Ex Machina.' 'The Danish Girl' is a lead performance, and her better but criminally overlooked work in 'Testament of Youth' is also a lead performance. 'The Man from U.N.C.L.E.' was fun but nothing award worthy. Still, wouldn't it be awesome if the Academy grew some balls and nominated her for 'Ex Machina' instead of 'The Danish Girl'?
Really loving the love that 'Mad Max' has been getting. I guess I didn't expect this from critics groups. Also loving the love Ronan is getting. She's magical in 'Brooklyn.'
Glad to see Ronan's getting some critics awards, with NYFC, 2 runner-ups from the other major groups and the BIFA (not that that one'd influence the campaign much, but still).