Chris here, with some goodness from more regional critics' groups. It's always fascinating to see what pockets of passion occur throughout the countries various critics' groups, even in a year such as this that appears to be largely dominated by a handful of films. This year's key films in that regard have been Roma and The Favourite, both recognized by two more groups in this roundup...
But first is a group that departed that Best Picture consensus, and wouldn't you know that yours truly also belongs to this group. I'm one of the 25ish members of the Columbus Film Critics Association (formerly titled Central Ohio... under the same acronym) and we've just announced If Beale Street Could Talk as 2018's best! Humblebrag: my personal best film of the year has won both years of my voting.
Here are the COFCA winners in addition to wins from critics in Houston and North Carolina...
Columbus Film Critics Association:
Best Film:
- If Beale Street Could Talk
- BlacKkKlansman
- The Favourite
- Eighth Grade
- Roma
- Black Panther
- Widows
- A Quiet Place
- First Man
- Hereditary
Best Director: Alfonso Cuarón - Roma
Runner-up: Spike Lee - BlacKkKlansman
Best Actor: Ben Foster - Leave No Trace
Runner-up: Ethan Hawke - First Reformed
Best Actress: Olivia Colman - The Favourite
Runner-up: TIE Elsie Fisher - Eighth Grade and Melissa McCarthy - Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Best Supporting Actor: Richard E. Grant - Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Runner-up: Michael B. Jordan - Black Panther
Best Supporting Actress: Regina King - If Beale Street Could Talk
Runner-up: Emma Stone - The Favourite
Best Ensemble: The Favourite
Runner-up: Widows
Actor of the Year (body of work): Brian Tyree Henry for Hotel Artemis, If Beale Street Could Talk, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, White Boy Rick, and Widows
Runner-up: Emily Blunt for Mary Poppins Returns, A Quiet Place, and Sherlock Gnomes
Breakthrough Film Artist: Bo Burnham - Eighth Grade
Runner-up: Boots Riley - Sorry to Bother You
Best Cinematography: Roma
Runner-up: First Man
Best Editing: Widows
Runner-up: TIE Roma and The Favourite
Best Adapted Screenplay: BlacKkKlansman
Runner-up: TIE Burning AND Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Best Original Screenplay: Eighth Grade
Runner-up: The Favourite
Best Score: If Beale Street Could Talk
Runner-up: Eighth Grade
Best Documentary: Shirkers
Runner-up: Free Solo
Best Foreign Language Film: Shoplifters
Runner-up: Burning
Best Animated Film: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Runner-up: Incredibles 2
Best Overlooked Film: Private Life
Runner-up: Leave No Trace
Houston Film Critics Society
Best Picture: The Favourite
Best Director: Alfonso Cuarón - Roma
Best Actor: Christian Bale - Vice
Best Actress: Toni Collette - Hereditary
Best Supporting Actor: Mahershala Ali - Green Book
Best Supporting Actress: Rachel Weisz - The Favourite
Best Cinematography: Roma
Best Animated Film: Isle of Dogs
Best Original Score: If Beale Street Could Talk
Best Original Song: "Shallow" A Star is Born
Best Foreign Language Film: Roma
Best Documentary Feature: Won't You Be My Neighbor?
Texas Independent Film Award: The Standoff at Sparrow Creek
Best Visual Effects: First Man
Worst Film of the Year: The Happytime Murders
North Carolina Film Critics Association
Best Narrative Film: Roma
Best Documentary Film: Won't You Be My Neighbor?
Best Animated Film: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Best Foreign Language Film: Roma
Best Director: Alfonso Cuarón - Roma
Best Cinematography: Roma
Best Actor: Ethan Hawke - First Reformed
Best Actress: Olivia Colman - The Favourite
Best Supporting Actor: Michael B. Jordan - Black Panther
Best Supporting Actress: Regina King - If Beale Street Could Talk
Best Original Screenplay: The Favourite
Best Adapted Screenplay: If Beale Street Could Talk
Best Special Effects: Black Panther
Best Music: A Star is Born
Ken Hanke Memorial Tar Heel Award (for an artist with a special connection to North Carolina): Lucas Hedges
Friday, January 4, 2019 at 11:00PM 
Reader Comments (12)
Houston is shady as fuck for that "worst of the year" catagory.
How appropriate that your critic's association gave the supporting actor award to Richard E. Grant - I just got back from seeing 'Can You Ever Forgive Me?' and if this becomes a Richard E. Grant coronation year I am in for it.
I am torn, being a person over 50, with the weed-like invasion of critics groups propagating their best lists year after year, in exceedingly never-ending frequency and viral abundance. I expect, shortly, that towns, seaside b&b's, resorts, neighborhoods, light-houses and living-rooms will chime in just around the cusp. I struggle with the feeling that the dozens of bodies that create groups each an every year tenfold simply devalues the whole idea of rewards, awards. In the 70's, 80's and other decades, there were enough voting bodies that would almost cover each finger on the hand. To keep up the same metaphor we would have to create a monster of an octopus with enough hands to equate a head of hair. Then I wonder if this superfluousness devalues the whole notion of prizes. Does the honour become less valuable, does it simply feed into the "everybody gets a prize" culture, and, thus, become a instrument of negation? I don't know. But when I look on IMDB and see that Bergman's Persona or Lang's Metropolis won 6 prizes in it's entirety, and then discover that The Artist won 337, or The Darkest Hour won 114, I certainly take a pause. Clearly more prizes don't make a movie better, in fact the access to more prizes may even make a piece a work (especially something middling or middle-brow) act against the intrinsic value. Even though I enjoy making my Top 10 list (really Top 50) each year, I still find this excess of "deciders", this swamp soup of voices with pens and acronyms only add to the feeling of a rinse-cycle that ends in importance deferred. At least until time has the final say, or after the weed wacker has exceeded it's life-span. Is anyone else troubled by the embarrassing amount of awards, and those so eager to be a member of a group who does the honours? Is excess and overkill just a commendable move towards inclusivity? Is something lost? And finally, is it okay that populism takes over, or perhaps usurps the definition of art? I obviously don't know. I'm just ask'n. But, don't get me wrong; I'll still be making my yearly lists.
Ishmael - Heard of the enter key?
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The same kind of egoism that allows everyone to think they should be bestowing awards to whoever they think worthy, that kind of egoism results in a 363 word post saying, basically, "there are too many awards groups out there." (The fact that THE ARTIST won 331 more awards than PERSONA is galling, though.)
Ishmael -- well, i'd be a lot more comfortable with there being this many groups if it was more like "everyone gets a prize" but what we've found each year is that the groups dont differ much and only about 5 or 6 actors and 3 or 4 films are dubbed "Best" by 100s of groups.
Ah shoot, Nathaniel beat me to it.
It's not that everyone needs a prize, so much as each individual group just seems to reinforce the frontrunner statuses. NY and the NSFC still do what they do, and I think Boston tend to mix it up a bit.
It's no individual year or individual film, but just this vibe that the consensus has been reached. Like when The Return of the King pretty much swept everything, it was for me "Wow I haven't seen this before". Schindler's List maybe did that, tho I was too young, but even then that's a unique case. And the Return of the King, given it was the best in the trilogy as well as possessing the cumulative effect, was another exception. Then Brokeback Mountain really took it up a notch. Then Daniel Day-Lewis was winning everything for There Will Be Blood. But since all that it's just homogeneity.
Man, Micharl B. Jordan is sneakily winning a bunch of precursors.
He's now up to 5 wins and 23 nominations. I don't know who he bumps out, but it feels like it's coming.
This will surely be the first and last time SHERLOCK GNOMES is mentioned this awards season!
Travis -- LOL!
Ben -- but does that really matter? Alll of these awards are regional critics awards and not the big ones that the mainstream media cares about (LAFCA & NYFCC)
The onslaught of awards has indeed become beyond tedious. After about the 10th or 11th list I begin to tune out.