The “awards” portion of this year’s awards season has officially begun. The New York Film Critics Circle is always the first critics group out of the gate, and today they named American Hustle the best film of the year. The move comes as a slight surprise given that Hustle only first screened a week ago and 12 Years a Slave and Gravity have been the Best Picture frontrunners for the past few months, but the awards race may be in for a twist. Steve McQueen was awarded Best Director for 12 Years a Slave, Robert Redford took Best Actor for All Is Lost, and Cate Blanchett began what’s sure to be an awards season sweep of Best Actress trophies. American Hustle picked up three awards in total, including Best Supporting Actress for Jennifer Lawrence and Best Screenplay. The excellent Blue Is the Warmest Color was named Best Foreign Film, and Stories We Tell won Best Documentary.
Hit the jump to see the full list of winners and for my commentary on what this means for the coming Oscar season.
As I said, the NYFCC begins a string of critics group announcements that will bleed into January, when the Academy Award nominations will be unveiled. It’s important to remember that the critical consensus doesn’t always match up with Oscar (see: The Social Network and Zero Dark Thirty), and I’m interested to see if the critics groups will rally around one of the two Best Picture frontrunners (12 Years a Slave and Gravity), or if they’ll be more scattershot than recent years. Last year, for example, most early critics groups sprung for Zero Dark Thirty, then the tide turned towards Argo in the latter half. Judging by the NYFCC pick for Best Picture, we may be in for more surprises in the coming weeks.
Check back tomorrow when the National Board of Review unveils its Top 10 list. We’ll have plenty more Oscar coverage here on Collider by way of Oscar Beat in the coming weeks.
Best Film:
American Hustle
Best Director:
Steve McQueen – 12 Years a Slave
Best Screenplay:
Eric Warren Singer and David O. Russell – American Hustle
Best Actor:
Robert Redford – All Is Lost
Best Actress:
Cate Blanchett – Blue Jasmine
Best Supporting Actor:
Jared Leto – Dallas Buyers Club
Best Supporting Actress:
Jennifer Lawrence – American Hustle
Best Foreign Language Film:
Blue Is the Warmest Color
Best Animated Film:
The Wind Rises
Best Non-Fiction Film:
Stories We Tell
Best Cinematography:
Bruno Delbonnel – Inside Llewyn Davis
Best First Film:
Fruitvale Station
Special Award:
Frederick Wiseman
