2024 Awards season and the Oscars

[Chris Knipp]

2024 Awards season and the Oscars

Awards season is on us, with the NBR (see below), with the National Film Critics Circle, the Film Independent Spirit Awards, the AFI awards and the Gotham Awards all this week. This thread will feature the award lists, all the leadups to the Oscars. The National Board of Review surprises by its placement of WICKED at the top and the odd, questionable choice of Daniel Craig in QUEER as "best actor." The National Film Critics Circle choices are more in keeping with current critical views, where the much admired THE BRUTALIST ranks highest, and most of their other choices make critical sense. My BRUTALIST excpericnce at the NYFF press screenings was too blah to go along there personally (pending a rewatch), but the mentions of NO OTHER LAND, Culkin in A REAL PAIN, Carol Kane, ANORA for the screenplay, all the rest makes sense, even NICKEL BOYS which I haven't seen yet for cinematography makes its sense given its radical POV experimentation, and ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT is a warm and universally appealing "Best International" film choice. Lots of the National Board of Review choices make sense too, but not WICKED, and not FURIOSA, GLADIATOR II, or QUEER, which sort of put a hole in their best list. Just saw JUROR #2, pondering it now. See the IndieWire comments on both of the following lists (in "source") for background on these two groups, the National Film Critics Circle being the more historical one.

National Film Critics Circle
SOURCE
Best First Film: “Janet Planet”
Best Animated Feature: “Flow”
Best Non-Fiction Feature: “No Other Land”
Best Supporting Actor: Kieran Culkin, “A Real Pain”
Best Supporting Actress: Carol Kane, “Between the Temples”
Best Cinematography: Jomo Fray, “Nickel Boys”
Best International Film: “All We Imagine as Light”
Best Screenplay: “Anora”
Best Actor: Adrien Brody, “The Brutalist”
Best Actress: Marianne Jean-Baptiste, “Hard Truths”
Best Director: RaMell Ross, “Nickel Boys”
Best Film: “The Brutalist

National Board of Review 2024 winners
SOURCE
Best Film: Wicked
Best Director: Jon M. Chu, Wicked
Best Actor: Daniel Craig, Queer
Best Actress: Nicole Kidman, Babygirl
Best Supporting Actor: Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain
Best Supporting Actress: Elle Fanning, A Complete Unknown
Best Ensemble: Conclave
Breakthrough Performance: Mikey Madison, Anora
Best Directorial Debut: India Donaldson, Good One
Best Original Screenplay: Mike Leigh, Hard Truths
Best Adapted Screenplay: Clint Bentley & Greg Kwedar, Sing Sing
NBR Spotlight Award: Creative Collaboration of Cynthia Erivo & Ariana Grande
NBR Freedom of Expression Award: No Other Land
Best Animated Feature: Flow
Best International Film: The Seed of the Sacred Fig
Best Documentary: Sugarcane
Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography: Jarin Blaschke,
NosferatuOutstanding Achievement in Stunt Artistry: Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Top Films (in alphabetical order):
Anora
Babygirl
A Complete Unknown
Conclave
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Gladiator II
Juror #2
Queer
A Real Pain
Sing Sing

Top 5 International Films (in alphabetical order):
All We Imagine As Light
The Girl with the Needle
I’m Still Here
Santosh
Universal Language

Top 5 Documentaries (in alphabetical order):
Black Box Diaries
Dahomey
Look Into My Eyes
Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story
Will & Harper

Top 10 Independent Films (in alphabetical order):
Bird
A Different Man
Dìdi
Ghostlight
Good One
Hard Truths
His Three Daughters
Love Lies Bleeding
My Old Ass
Thelma

I have to catch up. on the Independent list and see BIRD, A DIFFERENT MAN. Recently saw HIS THREE DAUGHTERS, superbly acted drama of sisters waiting for their father to die that's a bit slow, I thought; and the sprightly, intense violent lesbian neo-noir with Kristen Stewart, LOVE LIES BLEEDING, which definately deserves to be here, as does Mike Leigh's HARD TRUTHS (NYFF). I'd forgotten Sean Wang's fluent first feature about being a boy growning up Taiwanese American in California, DIDI: it probably deseerved some menton on my own personal best list page. I need to catch up on these International titles: THE GIRL WITH THE NEEDLE, SANTOSH, UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE. Why is the coming Dylan biopic I'M NOT HERE listed there?