"The Favourite" Leads the OFCS Nominations
Wednesday, December 26, 2018 at 1:03PM
NATHANIEL R in OFCS, The Favourite

by Nathaniel R

The Online Film Critics Society have released their nominations for their 21st annual awards. The Favourite leads (as it has quite often this season -- the typical advantage of being an acclaimed period piece with stellar performances) with Roma just behind it. There are some pleasant surprises among their honors and some unpleasant non-surprises (category fraud)

Their full list of nominees is after the jump...

BEST PICTURE

 

11 nominees for Best Picture. Hmmm. Interesting that Black Panther and Green Book both couldn't manage despite a large category but are both featured in the supporting actor category. Still trying to wrap my head around the critical support of Suspiria this year. An interesting and somewhat ambitious movie but "best of the year". Curious.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

 

These are looking more and more like the 5 for Oscar unless the 'letting everyone vote' thing dooms Mirai for something with a higher profile like Grinch or Smallfoot or whatnot.

BEST DIRECTOR

 

Very diverse Best Director list here and multinational too with Mexican, Scottish, Greek, and US directors represented. 

BEST LEAD ACTOR

 

Malek and Mortensen miss but they probably don't have to worry about their Oscar bids since they're both populist choices. 

BEST LEAD ACTRESS

 

This tracks for how online critics have been behaving about Best Actress. 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

 

If only Ali (a leading man) had been replaced with Sam Elliott this would have been a spectacular list and way better than what Oscar will eventually come up with. 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

 

SIGH YET AGAIN 60% LEADING LADIES IN THE SUPPORTING CATEGORY. WHY ARE CRITICS RUBBERSTAMPING THIS. WHY ARE THEY SO BEHOLDEN TO STUDIO STRATEGIES INSTEAD OF USING THEIR CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS?

But yay for Debicki and King.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

 

Someone will have to explain to me sometime what appeal there is in Roma's screenplay. (And I love the movie). It's entirely visual storytelling and Cuarón didn't even show anyone else working on it the "script"

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

 

It's a surprise to see Widows show up since it's been so largely forgotten already in awards season

BEST EDITING

 

It's strange that Fallout doesn't seem to have any Oscar traction, even in craft categories, isn't it, given how hugely popular it was?

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

 

This would be a great Oscar list though I wonder if A Star is Born will be Oscar-nominated. Matthew Libatique is so talented and those concert scenes in particular are beautifully shot. 

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

 

Great list. And one of only 2 nominations for Black Panther.

BEST DEBUT FEATURE

 

Debut features are so perfect for critics awards and critics should always be considering new talent and if they're going to "predict" anything it should well be which directors have voices worth paying attention to moving forward.

BEST FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

 

Critics *do* love Zama... 

BEST DOCUMENTARY

 

 

I liked Three Identical Strangers but have to admit that the unanimous critical support as "best" is somewhat surprising. The movie is involving but it often feels quite evasive and coy about details of the story. Minding the Gap and Shirkers have such passionate support among critics but it still feels like an Oscar nomination would be a surprise for either.

Article originally appeared on The Film Experience (http://thefilmexperience.net/).
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