Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s film also won Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Actor for Hidetoshi Nishijima.
“Drive My Car” won several National Society of Film Critics awards on January 8, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Actor. As “Drive My Car” won the award for best film, the rules of the organization determined that there would not be a separate category for best foreign language film.
The winners were a decidedly international affair, with Penélope Cruz taking home the award for Best Actress for “Parallel Mothers”, Hidetoshi Nishijima for Best Actor for “Drive My Car” and Anders Danielsen Lie taking home the award for Best Supporting Actor for “ The worst person in the world ”. Ruth Negga won the award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in “Passing”.
The panel of critics met in New York and Los Angeles to vote on Jan. 8 using a weighted scoring system, choosing winners and finalists from various categories. Hidetoshi Nishijima received the highest score of all the winners for his Best Actor award.
Before the vote began, the organization tweeted: “We dedicate our awards to the memory of Morris Dickstein and Michael Wilmington, two esteemed colleagues and long-time members. They wrote about the films in reviews, essays, and books, with wit, warmth, passion, and skill, and they will both be sorely missed. We also dedicate our awards, with appreciation and gratitude, to Liz Weis, who is stepping down after serving for 47 years as Executive Director of the National Society of Film Critics. For his decades of extraordinary leadership and tireless service, we owe him immeasurable debt. “
The list of winners and finalists:
Better picture: “Drive my car”
Finalists: “Little mother”, “The power of the dog”
Best Fiction Film: “To flee”
Finalists: “Procession” and “The Velvet Underground”
Best Director: Ryusuke Hamaguchi (“Drive My Car” and “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy”)
Finalists: Jane Campion (“The Power of the Dog”), Céline Sciamma (“Little Mum”)
Best Actress: Penélope Cruz (“Parallel mothers”)
Finalists: Renate Reinsve (“The Worst Person In The World”), Alana Haim (“Licorice Pizza”)
Best actor: Hidetoshi Nishijima (“Drive my car”)
Finalists: Benedict Cumberbatch (“The Power of the Dog”), Simon Rex (“Red Rocket”)
Best Supporting Actress: Ruth Negga (“Pass”)
Finalists: Ariana DeBose (“West Side Story”), Jessie Buckley (“The Lost Girl”)
Best Supporting Actor: Anders Danielsen Lie (“The Worst Person In The World”)
Finalists: Vincent Lindon (“Titanium”), Mike Faist (“West Side Story”) and Kodi Smit-McPhee (“The Power of the Dog”)
Best screenplay: Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe (“Drive my car”)
Finalists: Pedro Almodóvar (“Parallel Mothers”), Paul Thomas Anderson (“Licorice Pizza”)
Best photography: Andrew Droz Palermo (“The Green Knight”)
Finalists: Ari Wegner (“The Power of the Dog”), Sayombhu Mukdeeprom (“Memoria”)
Special citation for a film awaiting distribution in the United States: Jean-Gabriel Périot’s documentary “Retour à Reims”, which is inspired by the memoirs of Didier Eribon from 2009 on his French hometown and the inequalities of class and education that shaped him and his family.
Film Heritage Prize: The late Bertrand Tavernier and Peter Bogdanovich, distinguished filmmakers-critics who have never lost their passion for other people’s cinema and the history of cinema.
Film Heritage Prize: Maya Cade for Black Film Archive, which expands knowledge of and access to films noir made between 1915 and 1979, and includes her critical essays which define the project and consider the films in relation to each other and to cinema in its together.
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