Tomorrow the New York Film Critics Circle will start announcing winners – I think this happens early and they do it on Twitter. We will be here trying to keep a record of the proceedings.
With the exception of Carol (sob), all of their winners since 2009 have gone on to be nominated for Best Picture, and two have won: The Hurt Locker in 2009 and The Artist in 2011.
They sometimes award one film Picture and Director – like last year’s Roma and Alfonso Cuaron, but they also can split it up, as they did the year before with Lady Bird winning Picture and Sean Baker winning Best Director for The Florida Project. La La Land and Moonlight split in 2016, American Hustle famously won in 2013 with Steve McQueen for 12 Years a Slave winning Best Director.
I figure there are a few possible scenarios that could play out.
1. Little Women wins with either Greta Gerwig winning in Director or someone else. It would be kind of funny if that someone was Noah Baumbach. They gave Lady Bird Best Picture so they might want to repeat that. Also, they like to award films that haven’t yet opened, as they did with American Hustle. So Little Women might fit that nicely.
2. Marriage Story wins Best Picture, and either Noah Baumbach wins Best Director or, say, Martin Scorsese wins for Best Director. Or, wouldn’t it be funny if Greta Gerwig won for Best Director.
3. The Irishman wins Picture and Director – or maybe it splits and someone else wins Best Director, like Bong Joon-Ho for Parasite.
4. Parasite wins, and someone else wins Best Director, like Baumbach or Scorsese. Or Bong Joon-Ho.
5. Uncut Gems wins, and someone else wins Best Director. Or the Safdies do.
It seems like there are so many movies that can rise as the chosen film by critics. No one knows what that movie is going to be yet. We suspect it was going to be Parasite but it could just as easily be The Irishman or Marriage Story.
Best Actor – I’m gonna figure it’s down to Adam Sandler for Uncut Gems or Adam Driver for Marriage Story and I’m leaning towards the latter. I’m getting a Marriage Story vibe from New York overall and it’s going to win something there – or maybe everything. After all, the Gotham jury members are pretty much crossover voters, at least partly, with NYFCC.
Best Actress – Still thinking Renee Zellweger continues to her winning streak, but if it isn’t her – they picked Regina Hall last year for Support the Girls, the year before was Saoirse Ronan for Lady Bird, Isabelle Huppert for Elle the year before, and Saoirse Ronan for Brooklyn. Oh what the hell, let’s just say Saoirse Ronan wins for Little Women. Make it a threepeat. Jodie Turner-Smith could surprise and win for Queen & Slim. Maybe Alfre Woodard wins for Clemency. I dare them to pick Lupita Nyong’o for Us.
Best Supporting Actor – If they’re smart they’ll pick Brad Pitt for this because who would not want Brad Pitt showing up awards night? Or it could go to Joe Pesci for The Irishman. Or Al Pacino.
Supporting Actress – Laura Dern very likely has this in the bag, although you know, they could go Jennifer Lopez for Hustlers.
The bottom line is that their choices are likely to be down to Marriage Story, The Irishman, Little Women and then peppered with wild card predictions.
But it feels like an unpredictable year all around – so it will be exciting to see how things land. We’ll find out tomorrow.
