Nat'l Society of Film Critics Votes Nickel Boys Top PIc

Ethan Herisse and Brandon Wilson in Nickel Boys,
the National Society of
Film Critics' pick for Best Picture of 2024.
Credit: Amazon/MGM Studios

Once again, the National Society of Film Critics has broken from the pack of movie award-dispensing groups and chosen Nickel Boys, based on Colson Whitehead's 2019 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, as the Best Picture of 2024. Anora is the choice of the Boston and Los Angeles film critics while The Brutalist was the favorite of the NY scribe and Wicked won at the National Board of Review. Marianne Jean-Bapiste and Michelle Austin who plays very different sisters in Hard Truths were voted Best Actress and Supporting Actress. Jean-Bapiste has won similar prizes from the NY and LA critics, taking the triple crown of major reviewers' award. Colman Domingo was named Best Actor for Sing Sing and Kieran Culkin continued his dominance of the Supporting Actor field, winning for A Real Pain for which Jesse Eisenberg won for Best Original Screenplay.

The voting took place on Sat. Jan. 4 at critics' gatherings in NY and LA and virtually across the country. The NSFC was found in 1966 and consists of over 60 critics from major papers in Los Angeles, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Denver. Its members also include the critics not just of The Wall Street Journal, The Nation, and The New Yorker, but also of The Village Voice, The Boston Herald, and prominent online sites. Second, membership is by election.

2024 NATIONAL SOCIETY OF FILM CRITICS AWARDS

BEST PICTURE: “Nickel Boys” (47 points)
Runners-up:
“All We Imagine as Light” and “Anora” (34 points)

BEST DIRECTOR: Payal Kapadia, “All We Imagine as Light” (49 points)
Runners-up:
RaMell Ross, “Nickel Boys” (42 points)
Sean Baker, “Anora” (33 points)

BEST ACTRESS: Marianne Jean-Baptiste, “Hard Truths” (79 points)
Runners-up:
Mikey Madison, “Anora” (35 points)
Ilinca Manolache, “Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World” (32 points)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Michele Austin, “Hard Truths” (55 points)
Runners-up:
Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, “Nickel Boys,” and Natasha Lyonne, “His Three Daughters” (39 points)

BEST ACTOR: Colman Domingo, “Sing Sing” (60 points)
Runners-up:
Adrien Brody, “The Brutalist” (51 points)
Ralph Fiennes, “Conclave” (45 points)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Kieran Culkin, “A Real Pain” (52 points)
Runners-up:
Guy Pearce, “The Brutalist” (50 points)
Edward Norton, “A Complete Unknown,” and Adam Pearson, “A Different Man” (41 points)

BEST SCREENPLAY: Jesse Eisenberg, “A Real Pain” (47 points)
Runners-up:
Radu Jude, “Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World” (46 points)
Sean Baker, “Anora” (45 points)

BEST FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE: “All We Imagine as Light” (49 points)
Runners-up:
“Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World” (41 points)
“The Seed of the Sacred Fig” (28 points)

BEST NONFICTION FILM: “No Other Land” (70 points)
Runners-up:
“Dahomey” (51 points)
“Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” (24 points)

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: Jomo Fray, “Nickel Boys” (80 points)
Runners-up:
Lol Crawley, “The Brutalist” (38 points)
Jarin Blaschke, “Nosferatu” (21 points)

BEST EXPERIMENTAL FILM: “The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire”

SPECIAL CITATION FOR A FILM AWAITING U.S. DISTRIBUTION: “No Other Land”

FILM HERITAGE AWARDS:
— Scott Eyman, for his outstanding books on film artists and epochal shifts in moviemaking, most recently with “Charlie Chaplin vs. America: When Art, Sex, and Politics Collided,” a revelatory study of the nexus of American politics and American pop culture.
— IndieCollect, which, since its founding in 2010 by Sandra Schulberg, has met the challenge of preserving independent films with a rare sense of artistic responsibility.
— To Save and Project: The MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation, for more than two decades of superb restorations and diverse programming from all over the world, in collaboration with archives, foundations, studios and other organizations.