New York Film Critics Circle: ‘One Battle After Another’ Takes Best Film; Panahi, Moura, Madigan Among Winners
Close to four hours after closing the doors to vote, the New York Film Critics Circle on Tuesday gave its Best Film prize to Warner Bros’ One Battle After Another, from director Paul Thomas Anderson. It’s the second Best Film win for the Leonardo DiCaprio-starring movie following last night’s Gotham Awards.
Overall, Warner Bros came up big at this year’s NYFCC with four awards: a second for One Battle After Another in the Best Supporting Actor category for Benicio Del Toro, Best Supporting Actress for Weapons’ Aunt Glady herself Amy Madigan, and Cinematography for Ryan Coogler’s Sinners.
Voting began around 9:16 a.m. ET in what is historically a lengthy voting huddle for the 50-member-plus critics organization; the group revealed winners as they were selected.
The oldest critics group in the U.S. has a solid run for being a bellwether for Oscar nominees, and sometimes winners. But they haven’t been in sync with the Oscar Academy on Best Picture since 2011’s The Artist. Perhaps that will change this year.
Among other winners today, Best Director went to Iranian director Jafar Panahi for his Cannes Palme d’Or-winning It Was Just an Accident. In recent days, the filmmaker was sentenced to one year in prison and a two-year travel ban in absentia by the Tehran Islamic Revolutionary Court. This went down during Panahi’s awards-season tour for France’s International Film Oscar submission.
On Monday, the director won Best Screenplay at The Gothams, dedicating the award to filmmakers “deprived of the right see and be seen.” Panahi was also banned from membership of political and social groups due to “propaganda activities against the system.”
Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent, which won Best Director, Best Actor (Wagner Moura), the FIPRESCI Prize and AFCAE prize at Cannes, was named Best International Film by the NYFCC, with Moura taking Best Actor.
The first NYFCC award of the day was for Best First Film for Carson Lund’s Eephus, about a grown men’s recreational baseball game that stretches to extra innings on their beloved field’s final day before demolition. The movie played Cannes Directors Fortnight in 2024.
Benicio Del Toro in ‘One Battle After Another’
Warner Bros
Del Toro received his second New York Film Critics award after winning Best Actor in 2000 for Traffic; he wound up winning the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for the role. Madigan, Moura and Rose Byrne, who was named Best Actress today for If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, are all first-time NYFCC winners.
Last year, NYFCC bestowed Best Picture to Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist, and its Best Actor for that film’s Adrien Brody. Of the NYFCC winners on which the Oscars saw eye to eye were Brody for Best Actor, Kieran Culkin for Best Supporting Actor for Searchlight’s Real Pain, Best Screenplay for Anora, Best Animated Feature Film for Flow, and Best Documentary for No Other Land.
Here’s this year’s winners list.
Film: One Battle After Another
Director: Jafar Panahi, It Was Just an Accident
Actor: Wagner Moura, The Secret Agent
Actress: Rose Byrne, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Supporting Actor: Benicio Del Toro, One Battle After Another
Supporting Actress: Amy Madigan, Weapons
Screenplay: Josh Safdie and Ronald Bronstein, Marty Supreme
Animated Film: KPop Demon Hunters
Cinematography: Autumn Durald Arkapaw for Sinners
Non-Fiction Film: My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow
International Film: The Secret Agent
First Film: Carson Lund’s Eephus
Student Prizes: London Xhudo (Undergraduate, NYU) and Tan Zhiyuan (Graduate, The New School)
Special Prizes: Museum of Moving Image, Screen Slate
