Battle Wins Again at the LAFCA

Teyana Taylor in One Battle After Another.
Credit: Warner Brothers

One Battle After Another continues to dominate the pre-Oscar film Award season, winning three awards from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association including Best Picture, Best Director for Paul Thomas Anderson and Best Supporting Performance for Teyana Taylor as Perfidia Beverly Hills, a violent revolutionary. Battle has already won the top award from the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Board of Review. The LA critics met on Dec. 7 to vote for their 51st awards. 

The gender-neutral Leading Performance Awards went to Ethan Hawke of Blue Moon and Rose Byrne of If I Had Legs, I'd Kick You, who also won Best Actress from the New York Film Critics and the NBR. The LAFCA began gender-neutral acting categories four years ago with the top two vote-getters declared winners regardless of their sex. (The Drama Desk does that too.) In the Supporting Acting category, the winning pair were Taylor and Stellan Skarsgård of Sentimental Value. 

Battle's dominance with the critics' groups is not a guarantee of an Oscar win. LA Confidential and The Social Network similarly took the top three critics' prizes as well as the Best Picture slot from the National Society of Film Critics, but ultimately lost the top Oscar. Schindler's List is the only film to win all four critics' awards and the Oscar.

A complete list of winners follows:

LAFCA Votes Anora Best Picture

Mikey Madison in Anora.
Credit: Neon

Anora is pulling ahead in the 2024 film award race. The Los Angeles Film Critics Association voted the Sean Baker comedy Best Picture for its 50th annual awards. The group also awarded Best Leading Performance for the film's star Mikey Madison who shared the honor with Marianne Jean-Baptiste for Mike Leigh's Hard Truths. Anora had won in the Best Picture award from the Boston Society of Film Critics earlier the same day (Dec. 8). Madison was also named Best Actress by the Beantown reviewers. The LA scribes present their performance awards in gender-free categories. Anora's Yura Borisov and A Real Pain's Kieran Culkin won Best Supporting Performances. Culkin is emerging as the front runner for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, having also won the NYFCC and NBR awards. (Note: Unlike the other award-dispensers previously documented in this blog, the LA group included their runners-up).

A list of the 50th Los Angeles Film Critics Association winners follows:

LA Film Critics Pick Zone of Interest as Top Pic

Sandra Huller in Zone of Interest

The Los Angeles Film Critics Association has chosen Zone of Interest, Jonathan Glazer's chilling examination of the Nazi family living next to a concentration camp, as Best Picture in voting on Dec. 10. This bucks the trend of their New York counterparts and the National Board of Review, both of whom voted Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon the outstanding flick of 2023. Sandra Huller also won for her lead performance in Zone and for her role in Anatomy of a Fall. She shared lead performance honors with Emma Stone of Poor Things. Last year, the LAFCA  eliminated male and female categories in the performance awards and gives accolades to the top two vote-getters in lead and supporting fields regardless of gender (the Drama Desk does the same thing.) All acting winners were women this year with supporting performance awards going to Da'vine Joy Randolph of The Holdovers (who has won every other critics award so far) and Rachel McAdams for Are You There, God, It's Me, Margaret. 

Film award season continues to be an interesting race with several candidates possible for the upcoming Oscar nominations. The Golden Globes and Critics Choice noms, coming out this week, should tell us more.