National Board of Review Preview and Predictions

The National Board of Review announces Wednesday.  While most people go on and on about how they don’t matter, the truth is that yes, they DO matter.  Any major awards precursor matters because they give a contender publicity and legitimacy, no matter who they are.   The National Board of Review really pushed Hugo into the race last year and set The Social Network up for its sweep of the critics awards.  To date, it’s the only film that ever won Film, Director and Screenplay; usually they split up the awards. Will NBR recognize a woman with their best director award for the first time in their 77 year history, or give Spielberg his first win there since Empire of the Sun. Will DDL also finally win Best Actor there?

According to our Oscar wonk, Marshall Flores:

Historically, NBR Best Film winners have an average total haul of two wins, and it’s more likely that the best film winner takes an acting award with it instead of director or screenplay; unlike LAFCA or NYFCC, where pic and director match more than half the time (56% at NYFCC, 60% at LAFCA), pic and director/screenplay match only 33% of the time at the NBR, so splits are more common here. Also worth noting: No Country for Old Men is the only film in NBR history to win both Best Film and Best Ensemble, while The Social Network is the only film to have won Film, Director, and a screenplay award.

Finally, it is uncommon (though not rare) for both the NBR and the NYFCC to select the same Best Film winner – this has occurred 25% of the time in the past 67 years (although this match frequency is twice as high compared to NBR and LAFCA). Eleven of the 17 films NBR and NYFCC both agreed on for Best Film did go on to win the Best Picture Oscar; however, the last time this occurred was back in 1993 with Schindler’s List. Take from these stats and trends what you will.

You got that last part? When they DO match, that movie, unless it’s something brave and exceptional like LA Confidential or The Social Network it goes on to win Best Picture. If Zero Dark Thirty wins the NBR and Los Angeles, we now know it could still not win Best Picture, as The Social Network proved. To win the Oscar you have to win the guild awards, specifically the DGA (not always, but it helps).

The Best Picture winner has been on NBR’s list 9 out of the last 12 years. Only twice have they matched Best Picture with Oscar since 2000- No Country for Old Men and Slumdog Millionaire.  Since 1934, 19 NBR winners have won the Best Picture Oscar.  Since 2001, all of their winners have at least gone on to be nominated for Best Picture.

But something tells me the NBR will not go for Zero Thirty, although it’s certainly possible. In 2009, for instance, they didn’t go for The Hurt Locker. They don’t really have any specific taste but tend to be more general audience friendly than the NYFCC.  They used to be the first critics group that announced until the New York Film Critics cockblocked them.  Usually this would be considered too early to start deciding winners but everything has been shifted back and Oscar voters get their ballots on the 17th.

To that end, egads, I’m going to predict the winner and then the ten best. For our contest, you will do the same. I didn’t add the other categories in the previous versions of the contest so we’ll just leave it at the 11.

Best Picture winner
Argo (alt Les Miserables)
Top Ten:
Lincoln
Life of Pi
Les Miserables (alt Argo)
Zero Dark Thirty
Moonrise Kingdom
Silver Linings Playbook
Cloud Atlas
The Dark Knight Rises
Beasts of the Southern Wild

The past winners:

2000:
*Quills
Traffic
Croupier
You Can Count On Me
Billy Elliot
Before Night Falls
Gladiator 
Wonder Boys
Sunshine
Dancer in the Dark

2001:
*Moulin Rouge!
In the Bedroom
Ocean’s Eleven
Memento
Monster’s Ball
Black Hawk Down
The Man Who Wasn’t There
A.I. Artificial Intelligence
The Pledge
Mulholland Drive

2002:
*The Hours
Chicago 
Gangs of New York
The Quiet American
Adaptation.
Rabbit-Proof Fence
The Pianist
Far from Heaven
Thirteen Conversations About One Thing
Frida

2003:
*Mystic River
The Last Samurai
The Station Agent
21 Grams
House of Sand and Fog
Lost in Translation
Cold Mountain
In America
Seabiscuit
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

2004:
*Finding Neverland
The Aviator
Closer
Million Dollar Baby 
Sideways
Kinsey
Vera Drake
Ray
Collateral
Hotel Rwanda

2005:
*Good Night, and Good Luck
Brokeback Mountain
Capote
Crash 
A History of Violence
Match Point
Memoirs of a Geisha
Munich
Syriana
Walk the Line

2006: 
*Letters from Iwo Jima
Babel
Blood Diamond
The Departed 
The Devil Wears Prada
Flags of Our Fathers
The History Boys
Little Miss Sunshine
Notes on a Scandal
The Painted Veil

2007:
*No Country for Old Men
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Atonement
The Bourne Ultimatum
The Bucket List
Into the Wild
Juno
The Kite Runner
Lars and the Real Girl
Michael Clayton
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

2008:
*Slumdog Millionaire  
Burn After Reading
Changeling
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Defiance
Frost/Nixon
Gran Torino
Milk
WALL-E
The Wrestler

2009:
*Up in the Air
(500) Days of Summer
An Education
The Hurt Locker  
Inglourious Basterds
Invictus
The Messenger
A Serious Man
Star Trek
Up
Where the Wild Things Are

2010:

*The Social Network
Another Year
The Fighter
Hereafter
Inception
The King’s Speech
Shutter Island
The Town
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter’s Bone

2011: (in alphabetical order except for 1)
Hugo
The Artist
The Descendants
Drive
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2
The Ides of March
J. Edgar
The Tree of Life
War Horse

Just winners

2011 Hugo
2010 The Social Network
2009 Up in the Air
2008 Slumdog Millionaire
2007 No Country for Old Men
2006 Letters from Iwo Jima
2005 Good Night, And Good Luck
2004 Finding Neverland
2003 Mystic River 
2002 The Hours 
2001 Moulin Rouge 
2000 Quills
1999 American Beauty 
1998 Gods and Monsters
1997 L.A. Confidential 
1996 Shine 
1995 Sense & Sensibility 
1994 Pulp Fiction
1993 Schindler’s List
1992 Howards End
1991 The Silence of the Lambs
1990 Dances With Wolves
1989 Driving Miss Daisy
1987 Empire of the Sun
1986 A Room with a View
1985 The Color Purple
1984 A Passage to India
1983 Betrayal
1982 Gandhi
1981 Chariots of Fire
1980 Ordinary People
1979 Manhattan
1978 Days of Heaven
1977 The Turning Point
1976 All the President´s Men
1975 Nashville
1974 The Conversation
1973 The Sting
1972 Cabaret
1971 Macbeth
1970 Patton
1969 They Shoot Horses, Don´t They?
1968 The Shoes of the Fisherman
1967 Far From the Madding Crowd
1966 A Man for All Seasons
1965 The Eleanor Roosevelt Story
1964 Becket
1963 Tom Jones
1962 The Longest Day
1961 Question 7
1960 Sons and Lovers
1959 The Nun´s Story
1958 The Old Man and the Sea
1957 The Bridge on the River Kwai
1956 Around the World in 80 Days
1955 Marty
1954 On the Waterfront
1953 Julius Caesar
1952 The Quiet Man
1951 A Place in the Sun
1950 Sunset Boulevard
1949 The Bicycle Thief
1948 Paisan
1947 Monsieur Verdoux
1946 Henry V
1945 The True Glory
1944 None But the Lonely Heart
1943 The Ox-Bow Incident
1942 In Which We Serve
1941 Citizen Kane
1940 The Grapes of Wrath
1939 Confessions of a Nazi Spy
1938 The Citadel
1937 Night Must Fall
1936 Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
1935 The Informer
1934 It Happened One Night