The National Board of Review, which traditionally announced first during awards season now announces a day after the New York Film Critics. They have impact because they announce so early. Any bit of prestige early on always helps a contender get recognition. Most people “out there” and in fact, many industry voters, don’t really care whether the NYFCC are “real critics” and the NBR aren’t – they are both considered major critics awards, sorry NYFCC. The day the New York Film Critics pick a film like the Babadook for Best Picture – one that isn’t even eligible for the Oscars? They can say they cut the cord to the awards season for good. But for now, they are right in line with awards season groupthink.
The NBR has less of an Oscartastic track record and often thinks just a little bit outside the box. Last year, they picked Spike Jonze’s Her for Best Picture of the year. They then get ten more choices to name for Best Film of the year, though their picks can sometimes we kind of weird, like The Secret Life of Walter Mitty last year. My predictions for their their top choice, as follows:
Best Picture of the Year: Unbroken
And the top ten of the year:
Boyhood
Birdman
American Sniper
Gone Girl
Into the Woods
The Imitation Game
The Theory of Everything
Whiplash
A Most Violent Year
Selma
Please enter our contest and post your predictions in the comments. They will be announcing on Tuesday morning.
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Curious as to why Marion is not an option for a Best Actress prediction in the drop-down option (or even on the Oscar predictions on the sidebar), seeing as she’s been winning and being nominated for her work in both Two Days, One Night and The Immigrant. There is slim buzz among critics groups for Aniston, Woodley, or Dorval, yet they are viable contenders? Is this a deliberate exclusion?
Agree with Duke. Also, I don’t care who makes up their voting body, they generally produce one of my favorite lists of any given year.
@Ashwin
I really don’t see the necessity of NBR matching Academy Awards. It’s pretty acceptable to assume both groups have different opinion about the best film of the year. Actually, I prefer to think NBR or any other critics group choose their best based on their true opinion, and not trying to guess or predict the Oscar winner, which would be pretty boring.
The last time the NBR Best Picture lined up with the Oscar Best Picture winner was in 2007, 2008 with No country for Old Men and Slumdog Millionaire. it is probably time for them to match up again after five years.
NBR, For Your Consideration
Ken Russell’s Film of THE DEVILS in the following categories:
Best Picture – Ken Russell, Robert H. Solo
Best Director – Ken Russell
Best Actor – Oliver Reed
Best Actress – Vanessa Redgrave
Best Adapted Screenplay – Ken Russell
Best Cinematography – David Watkin
Best Film Editing – Michael Bradsell
Best Original Score – Peter Maxwell Davies
Best Production Design
Best Costume Design
Best Sound Mixing
Best Sound Editing
Best Makeup
Posthumous Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award – Ken Russell
The Unbroken pick is pretty good…… my cynical side says they are influenced by star power for their ceremony/dinner, but any possible pick by them will be explosive. If they pick Boyhood, it begins to look like it could have an awards season like Slumdog. If they do pick Unbroken it becomes a huge contender, maybe the front runner. Same with Selma.
again someone is playing the “manipulating expectations” game….
WB + Eastwood + Cooper = BP win here.
I see “Boyhood” here, before it burns and crashes like all October winners…
I used Duke’s “bold film/great director” idea, but instead of predicting Gone Girl, I opted for Foxcatcher. I predicted Bennett Miller for Best Director, Steve Carell for Best Actor, Rosamund Pike for Best Actress, J.K. Simmons for Best Supporting Actor, and Emma Stone for Best Supporting Actress.
Since NBR loves Eastwood I predicted American Sniper AND Jersey Boys to make the top ten.
Selma for the win
I bet NBR will go for something diffferent from the Birdman/Boyhood duo, like Gone Girl. This group sometimes vote for bold films from great directors, like they did with Hugo and Her. If a film like Gone Girl can win some major critics awards, I think NBR is the one. I’d love to see a movie like this to win.