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?