Lincoln leads Houston Film Critic Society Awards with eight nominations

Houston – The Houston Film Critics Society proudly announces its nominees for the 6th Annual HFCS Awards celebrating the best of film for 2012. This year’s nominees are led by “Lincoln” with eight nominations and followed by “Les Misérables” and “The Master” with six nominations apiece.

Best Picture

• Argo, Warner Bros. (produced by Ben Affleck, George Clooney, Grant Heslov)
• Beasts of the Southern Wild, Fox Searchlight (produced by Josh Penn, Dan Janey, Michael Gottwald)
• Cloud Atlas, Warner Bros. (produced by Grant Hill, Stefan Arndt, Tom Tykwer, and Andy & Lana Wachowski)
• Django Unchained, The Weinstein Company (produced by Reginald Hudlin, Stacy Sher, Pilar Savone)
• Lincoln, DreamWorks (produced by Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy)
• The Master, The Weinstein Company (produced by Paul Thomas Anderson, Megan Ellison, Daniel Lupi, JoAnne Sellar)
• Les Miserables, Universal (produced by Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Debra Hayward, Cameron Mackintosh)
• Moonrise Kingdom, Focus Features (produced by Jeremy Dawson, Scott Rudin, Wes Anderson, Steven M. Rales)
• Silver Linings Playbook, The Weinstein Company (produced by Bruce Cohen, Donna Gigliotti)
• Zero Dark Thirty, Columbia (produced by Kathryn Bigelow, Colin Wilson, Greg Shapiro, Ted Schipper, Megan Ellison)

Best Director
Ben Affleck, Argo
Kathryn Bigelow, Zero Dark Thirty
Tom Hooper, Les Misérables
Steven Spielberg, Lincoln
Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained

Best Actor
Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
John Hawkes, The Sessions
Hugh Jackman, Les Miserables
Joaquin Phoenix, The Master
Denzel Washington, Flight

Best Actress
Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty
Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
Emmanuelle Riva, Amour
Quvenzhane Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild
Naomi Watts, The Impossible

Best Supporting Actor
Alan Arkin, Argo
Javier Bardem, Skyfall
Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln
Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master
Matthew McConaughey, Magic Mike

Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams, The Master
Judi Dench, SkYfall
Sally Field, Lincoln
Anne Hathaway, Les Misérables
Helen Hunt, The Sessions

Best Screenplay
Chris Terrio, Argo
Tony Kushner, Lincoln
Rian Johnson, Looper
David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook
Mark Boal, Zero Dark Thirty

Best Animated Film
Brave, Pixar/Disney
Frankenweenie, Disney
ParaNorman, Focus Features
Rise of the Guardians, DreamWorks
Wreck-It Ralph, Disney

Best Cinemaography
Danny Cohen, Les Misérables
Roger Deakins, Skyfall
Janusz Kaminski, Lincoln
Mihai Malaimare, Jr., The Master
Claudio Miranda, Life of Pi

Best Documentary
Bully, The Weinstein Company
The Central Park Five, Sundance Selects
The House I Live In, Abramorama
The Imposter, Indomina Releasing
The Queen of Versailles, Magnolia Pictures
Searching for Sugar Man, Sony Pictures Classics

Best Foreign Language Film
Amour, Sony Pictures Classics
Holy Motors, Les Films de Losange
The Intouchables, The Weinstein Company
A Royal Affair, Magnolia Pictures
Rust and Bone, Sony Pictures Classics

Best Original Score
Mychael Danna,Life of Pi
Danny Elfman, Hitchcock
Johnny Greenwood, The Master
Reinhold Hall, Johnny Klimek & Tom Tykwer, Cloud Atlas
Thomas Newman, Skyfall
Dan Romer & Benh Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild
John Williams, Lincoln

Best Original Song

• “Learn Me Right,” from Brave, music & lyrics by Mumford & Sons
• “Skyfall,” from Skyfall, music & lyrics by ADELE and Paul Epworth
• “Song of the Lonely Mountain,” from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, music & lyrics by Neil Finn
• “Suddenly,” from Les Misérables, music by Claude-Michel Schonberg, lyrics by Alain Boubil & Herbert Kretzmer
• “Touch the Sky,” from Brave, music by Alex Mandel, lyrics by Alex Mandel & Mark Andrews

Texas Independent Film Award
Bernie, Millenium Entertainment
Incendiary: The Willingham Case, Yokel
Kid-Thing, Zeller Bros.
Sushi: The Global Catch, Lorber Films
Trash Dance, Andrew Garrison

Technical Achievement
Cloud Atlas
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Life of Pi

Worst Film
Anna Karenina, Focus Features
Battleship, Universal
Prometheus, 20th Century Fox
That’s My Boy, Columbia
The Three Stooges, 20th Century Fox

Press release:

The HFCS Awards recognize excellence in writing, directing, acting and production along with technical excellence in cinematography and the best in animation, foreign and documentary film making for the year.

“From Argo to Zero Dark Thirty, 2012 was an exciting year for film with several films which could lay claim to being the best of the year,” HFCS President Joshua Starnes said. “This year’s nominations continue the Houston Film Critics tradition of giving a second look to quality films which might have been passed over during the end of year rush.”

The winners will be announced in at the live HFCS Award Show on Saturday, January 5, 2013 at the Museum of Fine Arts-Houston.

During the presentation the HFCS will also present its 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award to Robert Duvall and its 2012 Humanitarian of the Year Award to the late Adam Yauch.

The Society will also present the second annual Texas Independent Film Award, given to the best independent film produced in Texas and distributed during 2012.

Founded in 2007, the Houston Film Critics Society is a not-for-profit organization of 26 print, broadcast and Internet film critics based in the Greater Metropolitan Houston area. Its membership includes critics not only from all the major Houston-area outlets but also from national publications and websites and respected Hollywood trade publications.