It’s hard to believe a whole year has flown by that we were all studiously predicting The Tree of Life and Hugo to win Best Picture at the New York Film Critics only to then see that award go to The Artist. They aren’t as off base with Oscar as you might think. For instance, our trusty Nate Silver Oscar wonk, Marshall Flores has compiled nominees chart that says if you win the New York Film Critics you have a 90% chance of getting of nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. 90% if you win Best Actor, and 90% if you win animated feature. Winning both, the percentage drops to 40%. Best Actor has a slightly better percentage, 42%.
ENTER OUR PREDICTIONS CONTEST!
To see how the winners have matched up with Oscar check out our handy dandy chart at the bottom of this post, which also features Los Angeles. Last year LA went a different way than the entire universe and chose The Descendants. But Oscar, well, he went with the status quo on down the line.
You can see that LA and NY can agree and still Oscar might go a different way but if you had to pick between the two groups, New York has a better batting average than Oscar, which means, their taste is far more aligned with the steak eaters than they probably care to admit. Well, it’s either that or they have greater influence, you know, the whole “New York is smarter than Los Angeles” mentality. Either way, we will be finding out on Monday morning what they pick for Best Film. Their awards will trickle down beginning at 7am LA time. They vote and announce, vote and announce.
You can follow us, @awardsdaily or @filmystic, for all of the breaking news.
Now on to the predictions. Last year I ended up going with Hugo, changing my predictions from Tree of Life at the last minute. It didn’t matter because the NYFCC picked The Artist. They usually go for the best reviewed film of the year, though not always. Let’s take a quick look at the Metacritic scores for their recent winners going back five years:
2011: The Artist – 89
2010: The Social Network – 95
2009-The Hurt Locker-94
2008-Milk 84
2007-No Country for Old Men -91
2006-United 93 – 90
2005-Brokeback Mountain-87
The lowest score was for Milk at 84. It’s still kind of a marvel that it won but it was up against Slumdog Millionaire and hell would have to freeze over before the NYFCC was going to pick Slumdog Millionaire. Still, you have to figure, whatever they pick it probably isn’t going to be below their lowest scoring film. It’s possible, of course, that they will pick something divisive that has love it/hate it reviews. It’s also possible that they will pick something that hasn’t been widely reviewed yet, like Les Miserables, Django Unchained or The Hobbit. What? Could happen!
But of the films that has been released what have been the best reviewed, above at least 84, that are in the Oscar conversation (it’s rare that they pick something totally out of the blue – Topsy-Turvy was the last time they did that back in 1999). Sadly, the state of film criticism now, really since The Social Network, has made it so that no movie ever seems to be able to top a score 90 anymore. Used to happen with frequency.
86
Argo
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Lincoln
The Master
84
Moonrise Kingdom
Looper
81
Silver Linings Playbook
The Sessions
78
Life of Pi
76
Flight
Is it any wonder studios hold movies from critics before the awards start being handed out? 2012 has been one of the best years for films in a long while but you’d never know it by the scores you see on Metacritic (and Rotten Tomatoes is far too unreliable).
To that end, I have to wonder if it isn’t down to the highest rated films in the bunch. Since I know many of these critics I know what movies they liked and didn’t like. you could take each one of them and score the reviews they had for each movie but I think that’s overkill. I’ll just go with the overall score and leave it at that.
Predictions:
Best Film: Lincoln (alternate: Silver Linings Playbook)
Best Director: Steven Spielberg, Lincoln (alternate: Kathryn Bigelow)
Screenplay: Lincoln
Actress: Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
Supporting Actress: Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables (Or Jacki Weaver, Silver Linings)
Supporting Actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master
Cinematography: The Master
Documentary: The Queen of Versailles
Foreign: Amour
How about you?
The Chart
LAFCA | New York Film Critics | Oscar – Best Picture
*Also nominated for best picture
2010 | The Descendants | The Artist | The Artist |
2010 | The Social Network* | The Social Network* | The King’s Speech |
2009 | The Hurt Locker | The Hurt Locker | The Hurt Locker |
2008 | Wall-E | Milk* | Slumdog Millionaire |
2007 | There Will Be Blood* | No Country for Old Men+ | No Country |
2006 | Letters from Iwo Jima* | United 93 | The Departed |
2005 | Brokeback Mountain* | Brokeback Mountain* | Crash |
2004 | Sideways* | Sideways* | Million Dollar Baby |
2003 | American Splendour | Return of the King | Return of the King |
2002 | About Schmidt | Far From Heaven | Chicago |
2001 | In the Bedroom* | Mulholland Drive | A Beautiful Mind |
2000 | Crouching Tiger* | Traffic* | Gladiator |
1999 | The Insider* | Topsy-Turvy | American Beauty |
1998 | Saving Private Ryan* | Saving Private Ryan* | Shakespeare in Love |
1997 | L.A. Confidential* | L.A. Confidential* | Titanic |
1996 | Secrets & Lies* | Fargo* | The English Patient |
1995 | Leaving Las Vegas | Leaving Las Vegas | Braveheart |
1994 | Pulp Fiction* | Quiz Show* | Forrest Gump |
1993 | Schindler’s List+ | Schindler’s List+ | Schindler’s List |
1992 | Unforgiven+ | The Player | Unforgiven |
1991 | Bugsy* | The Silence of the Lambs+ | Silence of the Lambs |
1990 | Goodfellas* | Goodfellas* | Dances With Wolves |
1989 | Do the Right Thing | My Left Foot* | Driving Miss Daisy |
1988 | Little Dorrit | The Accidental Tourist* | Rain Man |
1987 | Hope and Glory* | Broadcast News* | The Last Emperor |
1986 | Hannah and Her Sisters* | Hannah and Her Sisters* | Platoon |
1985 | Brazil | Prizzi’s Honor* | Out of Africa |
1984 | Amadeus+ | Passage to India* | Amadeus |
1983 | Terms of Endearment+ | Terms of Endearment+ | Terms of Endearment |
1982 | E.T.* | Gandhi+ | Gandhi |
1981 | Atlantic City* | Reds* | Chariots of Fire |
1980 | Raging Bull* | Ordinary People+ | Ordinary People |
1979 | Kramer Vs. Kramer+ | Kramer Vs. Kramer+ | Kramer Vs. Kramer |
1978 | Coming Home* | The Deer Hunter+ | The Deer Hunter |
1977 | Star Wars* | Annie Hall+ | Annie Hall |
1976 | Network* | All the President’s Men* | Rocky |
1975 | Dog Day Afternoon* | Nashville* | One Flew Over/Cukoo’s Nest |
1974 | Armacord | Godfather II | |
1973 | La Nuit Américaine | The Sting | |
1972 | Viskningar och rop | The Godfather | |
1971 | A Clockwork Orange* | The French Connection | |
1970 | Five Easy Pieces* | Patton | |
1969 | Z* | Midnight Cowboy | |
1968 | Lion in Winter* | Oliver | |
1967 | In the Heat of the Night+ | In the Heat of the Night | |
1966 | A Man for All Seasons* | A Man for all Seasons | |
1965 | Darling* | the Sound of Music | |
1964 | My Fair Lady+ | My Fair Lady | |
1963 | Tom Jones+ | Tom Jones | |
1962 | none | Lawrence of Arabia | |
1961 | West Side Story+ | West Side Story | |
1960 | The Apartment+ | Billy Wilder, The Apartment | |
1959 | Ben Hur+ | Ben Hur | |
1958 | THe Defiant Ones* | Gigi | |
1957 | Bridge on the River Kwai+ | Bridge on the River Kwai | |
1956 | Around the World in 80 Days+ | Around/World in 80 Days | |
1955 | Marty+ | Delbert Mann, Marty | |
1954 | On the Waterfront+ | Elia Kazan, On the Waterfront | |
1953 | From Here to Eternity+ | From Here to Eternity | |
1952 | High Noon* | The Greatest Show on Earth | |
1951 | Streetcar Named Desire* | An American in Paris | |
1950 | All About Eve+ | All About Eve |
Thelma Adams, US Weekly
John Anderson, Newsday
Melissa Anderson, Time Out New York
David Ansen, Newsweek
Dwight Brown, NNPA & UPSCALE
Richard Corliss, Time
Mike D’Angelo, Esquire Magazine
David Denby, New Yorker
Karen Durbin, Elle Magazine
David Edelstein, New York Magazine
David Fear, Time Out New York
Marshall Fine, Star Magazine
Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
J. Hoberman, Village Voice
Andre O’Hehir, Salon
Stuart Klawans, The Nation
Lou Lumenick, New York Post
Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal
Vincent Musetto, New York Post
Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor
Rex Reed, New York Observer
Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out New York
Leah Rozen, People Magazine
Andrew Sarris, New York Observer
Richard Schickel, Time
Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly
Kyle Smith, New York Post
Steve Snyder, New York Sun
Dana Stevens, Slate.com
Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News
Armond White, NY Press
Stephen Whitty, Newhouse Newspapers
Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com