by Nathaniel R
We had quite a lull of no new awards during the holidays but it's started up again so it's time to update the scorecard. Though sometimes we see a galling conformity in Best Picture prizes this year groups have been a smidgeon (a tiny smidgeon) more 'spread the wealth' adventurous with a total of 14 films winning at least 1 top prize thus far. That's a much wider spread of favourites than we're seeing in the depressingly conformist read of the other "top" categories...
Get this only 6 men in total have won a Best Actor prize, and only 8 men have been cited for Best Supporting Actor. The biggest spread of the high profile categories is Supporting Actress and Lead Actress but even those categories have only had 9 winning names. The worst of the headline categories in terms of a spread of opinion is Best Director; Jane Campion has been so dominant that she's missed only seven prizes with only 4 other people managing a win. Denis Villeneuve is the only director, other than Campion, to win multiple prizes... unless you include "breakthrough/first film" awards but those are not strictly "Best Director" prizes.
Some of the less discussed categories like Animated Film, International Film, and Documentary Film have had very few winners suggesting that there is a lot of groupthink combined with a general lack of curiousity about the abundant options available to moviegoers in those categories. (Depressing since critics should be expanding the conversations about great cinema, not narrowing it down)
Here are the 8 more critics groups to announce: Columbus, Oklahoma, Central Florida, North Carolina, Greater Western New York, DiscussingFilm Awards ... and New Mexico and North Texas which we missed in previous roundups This time Nicolas Cage and Alana Haim pick up more prizes, one group is really high on The French Dispatch for a nice change of pace, and Tragedy of Macbeth wins its first Best Picture prize.
THE LATEST WINNERS
COFCA
Columbus Film Critics Association. Founded in 2002. 28 Members. They gave both Benedict Cumberbatch and Alana Haim two awards each. Tnis is why we'll always preferred juried critics awards rather than nomination based voting, to prevent such redundancies. And it might be years before I forgive them for thinking Jude Hill's acting in Belfast was superior to Woody Norman in C'Mon C'Mon. (He was the runner up to Alana Haim in "Breakthrough Film Artist")
Ruth Negga has picked up 5 prizes for her utter brilliance in "Passing"
Film Power of the Dog
The rest of their top ten in order was: 2) Licorice Pizza, 3) West Side Story 4) Belfast 5) Summer of Soul, 6) Pig 7) C'mon C'mon, 8) The Tragedy of Macbeth 9) tick, tick... BOOM!, 10) Dune
Director Jane Campion, Power of the Dog
Actress Alana Haim, Licorice Pizza
Actor Benedict Cumberbatch, Power of the Dog
Supporting Actress Ruth Negga, Passing
Supporting Actor Kodi Smit-McPhee, Power of the Dog
Actor of the Year (Body of Work) Benedict Cumberbatch
Breakthrough Film Artist Alana Haim, Licorice Pizza
Original Screenplay Licorice Pizza
Adapted Screenplay The Power of the Dog
Ensemble The Power of the Dog
Animated Feature Mitchells vs the Machines
Documentary Summer of Soul
Score Power of the Dog
Cinematography The Tragedy of Macbeth
Editing West Side Story
Foreign Film Drive My Car
OFCC
Oklahoma Film Critics Circle. Founded in 2006. 23 Members. It was obviously a close race for them this year between Licorice Pizza (3 wins including the top prize) and Power of the Dog (6 wins including 75% of the acting categories). They have nearly identical awards to Columbus differing only on supporting actress in the "top" categories. Or perhaps we should say Columbus is nearly identical because they came afterwards.
Film Licorice Pizza
The rest of their top ten in order was: 2) Power of the Dog, 3) West Side Story 4) Green Knight 5) Summer of Soul, 6) The French Dispatch 7) Tick Tick BOOM, 8) C'mon C'mon, 9) Dune, 10 tie Nightmare Alley, Pig, and Red Rocket
Director Jane Campion, Power of the Dog
Actress Alana Haim, Licorice Pizza
Actor Benedict Cumberbatch, Power of the Dog
Supporting Actress Kirsten Dunst, Power of the Dog
Supporting Actor Kodi Smit-McPhee, Power of the Dog
Original Screenplay Licorice Pizza
Adapted Screenplay The Power of the Dog
First Feature Maggie Gyllenhaal, The Lost Daughter
Ensemble The French Dispatch
Animated Feature Mitchells vs the Machines
Documentary Summer of Soul
Score Power of the Dog
Cinematography Dune
Foreign Film Drive My Car
Most Disappointing Film Don't Look Up
CACF
Critics Association of Central Florida. Founded in 2021. 13 Members. Yes there are still new groups forming each year. (Soon there will be more critics groups than there are full-time gigs for film critics!) But at least they threw a couple of first wins into the pile, so well done.
Film Tragedy of Macbeth
Director Denis Villeneuve, Dune
Actress Reinata Reinsve, Worst Person in the World
Actor Andrew Garfield, tick tick BOOM!
Supporting Actress [TIE] Ann Dowd, Mass and Aunjanue Ellis, King Richard
Supporting Actor Bradley Cooper, Licorice Pizza
Screenplay Mass
Cast Dune
Animated Feature Mitchells vs the Machines
Documentary Flee
Score Dune
Original Song "No Time To Die" No Time To Die
Cinematography Dune
International Film A Hero
NCFCA
North Carolina Film Critics Association Founded in . 51 Members. Though Power of the Dog took the top spot and the most awards, Dune came close with 5 awards.
Film Power of the Dog
The rest of their top ten in order (alphabetically) Drive My Car, Dune, The French Dispatch, The Green Knight, Licorice Pizza, Mass, Pig, West Side Story, Worst Person in the World
Director Jane Campion, Power of the Dog
Actress Jessica Chastain, Eyes of Tammy Faye
Actor Benedict Cumberbatch, Power of the Dog
Supporting Actress Ann Dowd, Mass
Supporting Actor Kodi Smit-McPhee, Power of the Dog
Vocal Performance Stephanie Beatriz, Encanto
Original Screenplay Licorice Pizza
Adapted Screenplay The Power of the Dog
Ensemble Mass
Breakthrough Performance Alana Haim, Licorice Pizza
Directorial Debut Michael Sarnoski, Pig
Animated Feature Mitchells vs the Machines
Documentary Summer of Soul
Editing The French Dispatch
Visual Effects Dune
Stunts Shang-Chi
Costumes Dune
Hair and Makeup Cruella
Production Design Dune
Score Dune
Song No Time to Die
Sound Dune
Cinematography Power of the Dog
Foreign Film Drive My Car
Lifetime Achievement Screenwriting The Coen Brothers
Ken Hanke Memorial Tar Heel Award -for North Carolina connections (born and raised or studied acting there etc... Jonathan Majors, Harder They Fall
GWNYFCA
Greater Western New York Film Critics Association. Founded in 2018. 16 Members. They went big for Pig and went by the full calendar year with two prizes for last Oscar season's Judas and the Black Messiah.
Film Pig
The rest of their top ten alphabetically was: C'mon C'mon, CODA, Dune, The Green Knight, Judas and the Black Messiah, The Last Duel, Licorice Pizza, The Power of the Dog, and Spencer
Director Jane Campion, Power of the Dog
Actress Kristen Stewart, Spencer
Actor Nicolas Cage, Pig
Supporting Actress Ruth Negga, Passing
Supporting Actor Daniel Kaluuya, Judas and the Black Messiah
Original Screenplay Judas and the Black Messiah
Adapted Screenplay The Power of the Dog
Breakthrough Performance Rachel Sennott, Shiva Baby
Breakthrough Director Michael Sarnoski, Pig
Ensemble The French Dispatch
Animated Feature Mitchells vs the Machines
Documentary Summer of Soul
Editing The Power of the Dog
Score Spencer
Cinematography The Green Knight
Foreign Film Drive My Car
DFCA
These are awards from the website Discussing Film so it functions kind of like a poll. As IndieWire best ofs due. But they poll critics from other sites who join their association. Supposedly there are 50 or so members. It's confusing. This is their thired annual awards. Though they went for Power of the Dog in best film it didn't actually lead the wins even remotely. Spencer and Titane hoovered up the most awards with 4 each followed by, Dune and Mass with three each.
Film Power of the Dog
The rest of their top ten alphabetically was: C'mon C'mon, Dune, The Green Knight ,Mass, Petite Maman, Spencer, Tick Tick Boom, Titane, West Side Story
Director Julia Ducournau, Titane
Actress Kristen Stewart, Spencer
Actor Andrew Garfield, Tick Tick BOOM
Supporting Actress Ariana DeBose, West Side Story
Supporting Actor Vincent Lindon, Titane
Original Screenplay Mass
Adapted Screenplay The Power of the Dog
Debut Performance Agatha Rousselle, Titane
Debut Film Mass
Indie Feature Mass
Ensemble Mass
Animated Feature Mitchells vs the Machines
Editing Spencer
Costume Design Cruella
Production Design Nightmare Alley
Visual Effects Dune
Score Dune
Sound Dune
Use of Music "All I Need is a Miracle" Spencer
Original Song "So May We Start" Annette
Cinematography Spencer
International Film Titane
NTCFCA
North Texas Critics Film Critics Association. Founded in 2009. 14 Members though we're not sure if that still holds as they haven't updated their website in a year. They really dug the acting in The French Dispatch giving it three separate acting awards!
Film The Green Knight
Director Denis Villeneuve, Dune
Actress Kristen Stewart, Spencer
Actor Nicolas Cage, Pig
Supporting Actress Tilda Swinton, French Dispatch
Supporting Actor Jeffrey Wright, French Dispatch
Newcomer Rachel Zegler, West Side Story
Ensemble The French Dispatch
Animated Feature Raya and the Last Dragon
Documentary Summer of Soul
Cinematography Dune
Foreign Film Lamb
NMXFC
New Mexico Film Critics. Founded in 2016. Supposedly the have only 5 members but they still do not publicly list those members (Sunset Critics has a similar sketchy problem) but we do like that they choose based on consensus rather than nomination and voting which tends to make the winners less interesting as you can see in the abundant groups that do that versus, say, the big dogs of LAFCA and NYFCC.
Film West Side Story
Director Steven Spielberg, West Side Story
Actress Alana Haim, Licorice Pizza
Actor Clint Eastwood, Cry Macho
Supporting Actress Anya Taylor-Joy, Last Night in Soho
Supporting Actor Kodi Smit-McPhee, Power of the Dog
Young Actor/Actress Emilia Jones, CODA
Ensemble The Last Duel
Original Screenplay Licorice Pizza
Adapted Screenplay Drive My Car
Animated Feature Evangelion 3.0
Documentary Summer of Soul
Editing West Side Story
Cinematography One Second
Production Design West Side Story
Score Dune
Original Song "Find a New Home" Cry Macho
Foreign Language Film The Falls
Several more groups have yet to announce so this will continue on through all of January.
best picture scorecard if you like the shorthand version
14 for Power of the Dog (Philadelphia, NY Online, Boston Online, Chicago, SEFCA, Florida, OAFCC, Utah, Phoenix, Dublin, Dallas, Columbus, North Carolina, DiscussingFilm)
4 for Licorice Pizza (Atlanta, St Louis, NBR, Oklahoma)
3 for Drive My Car (NYFCC, LAFCA, Boston)
2 for Belfast (DC, Las Vegas)
2 for The Green Knight (Portland, North Texas)
1 each for CODA (Nevada), Cyrano (Detroit), Dune (Sunset Circle), King Richard (BFCC), The Lost Daughter (Gothams), Mass (IFJA) and Pig (Greater New York), The Tragedy of Macbeth (Central Florida) and West Side Story (New Mexico)
High profile awards-seeking movies that have won zero Best Picture awards: tick tick BOOM!, Nightmare Alley, Spencer, Being the Ricardos, Don't Look Up, and any foreign-language critical darling not named Drive My Car.