Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland Leads Chicago Film Critics Association 2020 Nominations

The complete list of 2020 Chicago Film Critics Awards nominations is as follows:

BEST PICTURE

• Da 5 Bloods
• First Cow
• Lovers Rock
• Nomadland
• Promising Young Woman

BEST DIRECTOR

• Emerald Fennell, Promising Young Woman
• Spike Lee, Da 5 Bloods
• Steve McQueen, Lovers Rock
• Kelly Reichardt, First Cow
• Chloé Zhao, Nomadland

BEST ACTOR

• Riz Ahmed, Sound of Metal
• Chadwick Boseman, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
• Anthony Hopkins, The Father
• Delroy Lindo, Da 5 Bloods
• Steven Yeun, Minari

BEST ACTRESS

• Jessie Buckley, I’m Thinking of Ending Things
• Carrie Coon, The Nest
• Viola Davis, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
• Frances McDormand, Nomadland
• Carey Mulligan, Promising Young Woman

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

• Chadwick Boseman, Da 5 Bloods
• Bill Murray, On the Rocks
• Leslie Odom, Jr., One Night in Miami
• Paul Raci, Sound of Metal
• David Strathairn, Nomadland

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

• Maria Bakalova, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm
• Toni Collette, I’m Thinking of Ending Things
• Amanda Seyfried, Mank
• Letitia Wright, Mangrove
• Yuh-Jung Youn, Minari

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

• Da 5 Bloods by Danny Bilson, Paul De Meo, Kevin Willmott & Spike Lee
• Never Rarely Sometimes Always by Eliza Hittman
• Promising Young Woman by Emerald Fennell
• Soul by Pete Docter, Mike Jones & Kemp Powers
• The Trial of the Chicago 7 by Aaron Sorkin

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

• The Father by Christopher Hampton & Florian Zeller
• First Cow by Jonathan Raymond & Kelly Reichardt
• I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Charlie Kaufman
• Nomadland by Chloé Zhao
• One Night in Miami by Kemp Powers

BEST ANIMATED FILM

• Onward
• A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon
• Soul
• The Wolf House
• Wolfwalkers

BEST DOCUMENTARY

• Collective
• David Byrne’s American Utopia
• Dick Johnson is Dead
• The Social Dilemma
• Time

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

A tie in the nominations process resulted in six nominees in this category.

• Another Round
• Bacurau
• Beanpole
• Collective
• La Llorona
• Vitalina Varela

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

• First Cow, Christopher Blauvelt
• Lovers Rock, Shabier Kirchner
• Mank, Erik Messerschmidt
• Nomadland, Joshua James Richards
• The Vast of Night, Miguel Ioann Littin Menz

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

• Da 5 Bloods, Terence Blanchard
• Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Branford Marsalis
• Mank, Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross
• Soul, Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross and Jon Batiste
• Tenet, Ludwig Goransson

BEST ART DIRECTION

• Birds of Prey
• Emma
• First Cow
• I’m Thinking of Ending Things
• Mank

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

• Birds of Prey
• Emma
• First Cow
• Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
• Mank

BEST USE OF VISUAL EFFECTS

• I’m Thinking of Ending Things
• The Invisible Man
• The Midnight Sky
• Possessor
• Tenet

BEST EDITING

• I’m Thinking of Ending Things, Robert Frazen
• Lovers Rock, Chris Dickens & Steve McQueen
• Nomadland, Chloé Zhao
• Tenet, Jennifer Lame
• The Trial of the Chicago 7, Alan Baumgarten

MILOS STEHLIK AWARD FOR PROMISING FILMMAKER

• Radha Blank, The Forty-Year-Old Version
• Lee Isaac Chung, Minari
• Emerald Fennell, Promising Young Woman
• Darius Marder, Sound of Metal
• Andrew Patterson, The Vast of Night

MOST PROMISING PERFORMER

• Maria Bakalova, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm
• Kingsley Ben-Adir, One Night in Miami
• Sidney Flanigan, Never Rarely Sometimes Always
• Kelly O’Sullivan, Saint Frances
• Helena Zengel, News of the World

NOMINATION TOTALS

7 – Nomadland

Best Picture | Best Director | Best Actress | Best Supporting Actor | Best Adapted Screenplay

Best Editing | Best Cinematography

6 – Da 5 Bloods

Best Picture | Best Director | Best Actor | Best Supporting Actor | Best Original Screenplay

Best Original Score

      First Cow

Best Picture | Best Director | Best Adapted Screenplay | Best Costume Design | Best Art Direction

Best Cinematography

      I’m Thinking of Ending Things

Best Actress | Best Supporting Actress | Best Adapted Screenplay | Best Use of Visual Effects

Best Editing | Best Art Direction

5 – Mank

Best Supporting Actress | Best Costume Design | Best Art Direction | Best Original Score

Best Cinematography

     Promising Young Woman

Best Picture | Best Director | Best Actress | Best Original Screenplay | Breakthrough FIlmmaker

4 – Lovers Rock

Best Pictures | Best Director | Best Editing | Best Cinematography

     Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Best Actress | Best Actor | Best Costume Design | Best Original Score

3 – Minari

Best Actor | Best Supporting Actress | Breakthrough Filmmaker

     One Night in Miami

Best Supporting Actor | Best Adapted Screenplay | Most Promising Performer

     Soul

Best Animated Film | Best Original Score | Best Original Screenplay

    Sound of Metal

Best Actor | Best Supporting Actor | Breakthrough Filmmaker

    Tenet

Best Editing | Best Use of Visual Effects | Best Original Score

2 – Birds of Prey – Best Costumes | Best Art Direction

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm – Best Supporting Actress | Most Promising Performer

Collective – Best Documentary | Best Foreign Film

Emma. – Best Costumes | Best Art Direction

The Father – Best Actor | Best Adapted Screenplay

Never Rarely Sometimes Always – Best Original Screenplay | Most Promising Performer

The Trial of the Chicago 7 – Best Original Screenplay | Best Editing

The Vast of Night – Breakthrough Filmmaker | Best Cinematography

1 – A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon – Best Animated Film

Another Round – Best Foreign Language Film

Bacurau – Best Foreign Language Film

Beanpole – Best Foreign Language Film

David Byrne’s American Utopia – Best Documentary

Dick Johnson is Dead – Best Documentary

The Forty-Year-Old Version – Breakthrough Filmmaker

The Invisible Man – Best Use of Visual Effects

La Llorona – Best Foreign Language Film

Mangrove – Best Supporting Actress

The Midnight Sky – Best Use of Visual Effects

The Nest – Best Supporting Actress

News of the World – Most Promising Performer

On the Rocks – Best Supporting Actor

Onward – Best Animated Film

Possessor – Best Use of Visual Effects

Saint Frances – Most Promising Performer

The Social Dilemma – Best Documentary

Time – Best Documentary

Vitalina Varela – Best Foreign Language Film

The Wolf House – Best Animated Film

Wolfwalkers – Best Animated Film

Chicago, IL (December 18, 2020) — The Chicago Film Critics Association (CFCA) today announces nominees for their top film honors of 2020; winners will be announced at the organization’s annual awards ceremony, a virtual event for Association members to be held on Monday, December 21. Leading with seven total nominations is Chloé Zhao’s NOMADLAND; Spike Lee’s DA 5 BLOODS, Kelly Reichardt’s FIRST COW and Charlie Kaufman’s I’M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS each earned six nominations, while MANK and PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN are each recognized with five. A complete list of nominees is below.

Comprised of voting members who represent outlets including the Chicago Sun-Times, The New York Times, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, RogerEbert.com, The A.V Club, Vulture, NPR, and many more, the Chicago Film Critics Association annually presents traditional awards including Best Picture, Director, Actor and Actress, among others. With a particular focus on emerging talents, the CFCA also presents breakthrough awards to both an actor and filmmaker with the most promise for future career achievements. As each awards-giving body individually responded to 2020’s shifting theatrical release calendar due to the pandemic, the CFCA opted to maintain their calendar-based awards eligibility timeline. The nominees were selected from films with planned theatrical releases (virtual or otherwise) through December, so long as they were made available to voting members for consideration.

A reliably diverse voting body, the 2020 Chicago Film Critics Awards again honor a broad list of films and creators, with a total of 43 films nominated across nineteen categories. With 28 nominations, Netflix is the most recognized studio; Amazon and A24 share the second and third most nominations with 16 and 15, respectively. Fully one third of the nominees this year are women (19 of the 58 nominated individuals); filmmakers Chloé Zhao and Emerald Fennell each boast three nominations while Kelly Reichardt and Maria Bakalova each have two. In a first for the CFCA, the Best Director category is comprised entirely of women and POC: Emerald Fennell, Spike Lee, Steve McQueen, Kelly Reichardt and Chloé Zhao. And finally, composing duo Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross achieve a rare double nomination in the same category, earning Best Original Score nominations for their work in both Soul and Mank.

About the Chicago Film Critics Association

A 501(c)3 non-profit organization, the Chicago Film Critics Association (CFCA) was founded in 1990 to support and celebrate quality filmmaking that has something to say about our world, our lives, and our society. Membership includes Chicago-based journalists, broadcasters, critics and media personalities who actively work in the area of film across a wide variety of local, regional and national outlets. The annual Chicago Critics Film Festival presents a selection of recent festival favorites and as-yet-undistributed works from established voices and talented newcomers alike, curated by the CFCA membership. Every December, the CFCA votes on and announces their selections for best films of the year, contributing to the annual national discourse on cinema. Learn more at