Alfonso Cuaron and his film Roma took top honors today from the New York Film Critics Circle. Cuaron received Best Director and Best Cinematography while Roma received Best Picture in today’s voting. The awards will be presented in a ceremony in New York City in January.
The ecclesiastical drama First Reformed also received two awards with star Ethan Hawke receiving the Best Actor nod and Paul Schrader receiving the award for Best Screenplay.
Bo Burnham’s dark comedy coming of age story Eighth Grade won Best First Film. The film already won Burnham the Bingham Ray Breakthrough Director prize at the IFP Gotham awards earlier this week as well as star Elsie Fisher winning Breathrough Actor. With four Independent Spirit Award nominations as well, including Best Feature, Female Lead (Fisher) and Screenplay (Burnham), Eighth Grade could be moving into a dark horse position for Academy Awards consideration.
But Roma‘s wins aren’t just victories for Cauron and his filmmaking team. The film is being distributed by Netflix who are giving it a limited theatrical release ahead of becoming available on the streaming service on December 14. Although the film won the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival earlier this fall, Roma has been encountering some pushback from other critics groups and from Hollywood due to Netflix’s usual practice of eschewing theatrical releases for straight to its streaming platform premiers.
Founded in 1933, the New York Film Critics Circle is comprised of critics from both print and online publications.
Here is a complete list of today’s winners:
Best Picture – Roma
Best Director – Alfonso Cuaron, Roma
Best Actor – Ethan Hawke, First Reformed
Best Actress – Regina Hall, Support The Girls
Best Screenplay – Paul Schrader, First Reformed
Best Supporting Actress – Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk
Best Supporting Actor – Richard E Grant, Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Best Animated Film – Spider-Man: Into The Spiderverse
Best Cinematography – Roma
Best First Film – Eighth Grade
Best Foreign Language Film – Cold War
Best Nonfiction Film – Minding The Gap
Special Award – David Schwartz, chief film curator at the Museum of the Moving Image, stepping down after 33 years
Special Award – Kino Classics box set Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers
