Voting for the 89th New York Film Critics Circle Awards has ended and the awards have been announced. The NYFCC winners list is one of the most anticipated in the awards season leading up to the Oscars, partly due to it being the first major critics group to issue awards each year, partly due to the exceptional caliber of its members (among whom IndieWire’s Kate Erbland and David Ehrlich are counted) and partly due to their inclination to embrace true cinephilia rather than awards season narratives. Check out the full winners list below.
“Killers of the Flower Moon,” “Oppenheimer,” and “May December” were the only films to win two awards each. “Flower Moon” won the top prize, Best Film, along with Best Actress for Lily Gladstone. Christopher Nolan won Best Director for “Oppenheimer,” which also took Best Cinematography for Hoyte van Hoytema. The two films, from Apple and Universal respectively, look like juggernauts heading into the still-nascent awards season.
Todd Haynes’ Netflix drama “May December” also fared extremely well. The opening night film of the 2023 New York Film Festival won Best Supporting Actor for breakout Charles Melton and also Best Screenplay for writer Samy Burch.
A couple of delightful performances — if not surprising, given their acclaim — won the other acting prizes: Da’Vine Joy Randolph took Best Supporting Actress for her heartfelt and complex turn in Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers,” while Franz Rogowski won Best Actor for Sundance 2023 favorite “Passages.”
Four other movies each won one award. Palme d’Or winner “Anatomy of a Fall” claimed Best International Film, while Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Boy and the Heron” won Best Animated Feature, and four-hour Frederick Wiseman haute cuisine doc “Menus-Plaisir — Les Troisgros” won Best Non-Fiction Film. Celine Song’s “Past Lives,” after bowing to raves at Sundance and topping IndieWire’s own list of the Best Films of 2023, took Best First Film.
Last year “TAR” won Best Film at the NYFCC Awards, just as it topped IndieWire’s 2022 critics survey of the best films of that year. It was certainly a film tipped for the Academy Awards, and nominated for six, but ultimately was a bit more of a favorite among diehard cinephiles, the kind of people who vote for the NYFCC Awards.
In fact, Best Film at the NYFCC Awards hasn’t aligned with an Academy Award winner for Best Picture since 2011’s “The Artist.” But this is the awards body that honored “Citizen Kane” with Best Film in the early 1942 ceremony over eventual Oscar winner for Best Picture “How Green Was My Valley.” The NYFCC is all about independence.
Per tradition, the NYFCC awards were determined by an in-person vote that can get contentious, feature multiple rounds of voting, and last many hours. Check out the full NYFCC winners list below.
Best First Film: “Past Lives”
Best Animated Feature: “The Boy and the Heron”
Best Non-Fiction Feature: “Menus-Plaisirs — Les Troisgros”
Best Supporting Actor: Charles Melton, “May December”
Best Supporting Actress: Da’Vine Joy Randolph, “The Holdovers”
Best Cinematography: Hoyte van Hoytema, “Oppenheimer”
Best International Film: “Anatomy of a Fall”
Best Screenplay: “May December”
Best Actor: Franz Rogowski, “Passages”
Best Actress: Lily Gladstone, “Killers of the Flower Moon”
Best Director: Christopher Nolan, “Oppenheimer”
Best Film: “Killers of the Flower Moon”
