The Film Experience™ was created by Nathaniel R. All material herein is written by our team. (This site is not for profit but for an expression of love for cinema & adjacent artforms.)
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Thursday, January 7, 2021 at 8:27PM 
Minari wins two best picture prizes
Here's four more groups of prizes from critics groups. Chloe Zhao continues her total sweep of Best Director prizes for Nomadland (she hasn't lost one yet) but Minari and Promising Young Woman find some love in this week's batch of honors...
Thursday, December 31, 2020 at 1:37PM by Nathaniel R
With over 30 critics groups now in the US (and *still* literally more each year) and many of them now doing two rounds of announcements we don't give everyone two posts or even one here at TFE (we need time to actually write about movies!) but we do like to check in once in a while. Chloe Zhao continues to be a literal sweeper in Best Director (with no one else ever winning) while Maria Bakalova continues to dominate in Supporting Actress though some, including the upcoming Golden Globe Awards argue it's a leading role.
Here's a few more prizes, the most famous being the Chicago Film Critics Association...
Monday, December 21, 2020 at 9:30PM by Nathaniel R
Florida Film Critics Circle is the fourth major critics group to announce prizes and they've handed First Cow the top honor. For the curious when we say "major" we mean critics groups that existed before the absolute explosion of awards bodies -- which took place all throughout the Aughts and into the 2010s as well -- since they have a solid awards history and are unlikely to suddenly vanish as occassionally happens with smaller regional critics groups. Plus they are never a spin-off or offshoot of an already existing much longer-running critics prize from the same locale. ANYWAY... there hasn't been as much variety as we were expecting in this strange year. Among single films (excluding LAFCA's "collection" curveball) Only First Cow and Nomadland have picked up Best Picture prizes. Nobody but Chloe Zhao has won Best Director. Florida stays very closely in line with what we've heard so far but since they have a few additional craft categories we get a couple of new winners, too...
Sunday, December 20, 2020 at 7:28PM by Nathaniel R
The Los Angeles Film Critics have spoken awarding two prizes each to Steve McQueen's series Small Axe (film and cinematography), the new adaptation of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (winning both male acting awards), and the controversial rape revenge comedy Promising Young Woman (actress and screenplay). Because I am something of a purist when it comes to movie awards I have to sigh a bit at their reaction to Small Axe. It's like pick a lane, LA critics. You're obviously trying to make a statement that it's a film rather than tv series (and from our understanding it was pitched and produced as the latter and will definitely be considered television for its awards campaign) but if it is one mammoth film why are you also admitting that it's a series by singling out one "episode" for a runner up Best Score prize? So which is it, LA? Or were you arguing amongst yourselves about this during voting...
Friday, December 18, 2020 at 4:49PM by Nathaniel R
The New York Film Critics Circle have spoken, delivering their verdict on the Best of 2020. The only films which scored multiple awards were Da 5 Bloods and Never Rarely Sometimes Always. But the top prize went to First Cow (which is the only prize it won). This year featured the most female directors they've ever honored simultaneously with female-helmed films winning Best Film, Best First Film, Best Director, and Best Screenplay (all four of them different films, too!). Their honors for 2020 go like so...
