The New York Film Critics Circle revealed their year-end honors and, surprise, Kelly Reichardt’s “First Cow” won Best Film. It was a year of female filmmakers being honored by the organization as Chloé Zhao won Best Director for “Nomadland,” Eliza Hittman earned a Best Screenplay honor for “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” and Radha Blank took Best First Film for “The 40-Year-Old Version.”
The organization also honored Spike Lee with a special award for his short film “New York, New York” and “advocating for a better society through cinema.” Two of the stars of his Netflix film “Da 5 Bloods,” Delroy Lindo and Chadwick Boseman, won Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, respectively.
READ MORE: “Nomadland” named the best film of 2020 by Boston Society of Film Critics
In three mild surprises, Maria Bakalova won Best Supporting Actress for “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” while Sidney Flanigan won Best Actress and “Never Rarely Sometimes Always.”
2019 Cannes selection “Bacaru” won Foreign Language Film while “Time” took the Non-Fiction prize.
Here are all of this year’s recipients.
Best Picture
“First Cow”
Best Director
Chloé Zhao, “Nomadland”
Best Screenplay
Eliza Hittman, “Never Rarely Sometimes Always”
Best Actress
Sidney Flanigan, “Never Rarely Sometimes Always”
Best Actor
Delroy Lindo, “Da 5 Bloods”
Best Supporting Actress
Maria Bakalova, “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm”
Best Supporting Actor
Chadwick Boseman, “Da 5 Bloods”
Best Cinematographer
“Small Axe” (All Films)
Best Animated Film
“Wolfwalkers”
Best Non-Fiction Film (Documentary)
“Time”
Best Foreign Language Film
“Bacurau”
Best First Film
“The 40-Year-Old Version”
Special Award
Kino Lorber, for their creation of Kino Marquee, a virtual cinema distribution service that was designed to help support movie theaters, not destroy them
Special Award
Spike Lee for inspiring the New York community with his short film “New York New York” and for advocating for a better society through cinema