The New York Film Critics Circle kicked off the annual year-end deluge of critics’ honors by announcing their best of 2023 today and the big winner was Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of The Flower Moon” which took Best Film. Christopher Nolan won Best Director for “Oppenheimer” while Celine Song’s “Past Lives” won Best First Film.
READ MORE: “Past Lives,” “Anatomy of a Fall” and Ryan Gosling win big at 2023 Gotham Awards
This is the third Scorsese film to win the NYFCC’s top prize after “Goodfellas” in 1991 and “The Irishman” in 2020. The master filmmaker also took the Best Director prize for “Goodfellas” and for “The Departed” in 2006.
Out of the last 12 motion pictures selected as Best Film by NYCC, only one was not nominated by The Academy of Motion Picture Sciences for Best Picture, Kelly Reichardt’s “First Cow.” More notably, the last NYFCC to win Best Picture was Michel Hazanavicius’ “The Artist” 13 years ago. So, as many expect, “Killers” is clearly a Best Picture nominee. Winner? Too soon to tell.
In an inspired choice, the NYFFC chose Franz Rogowski for his work in “Passages” for Best Actor. Lilly Gladstone won Best Actress for “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Supporting Actress went to Da’Vine Joy Randolph for her performance in “The Holdovers.” Charles Melton won Supporting Actor for “May December” while Sammy Birch
The Animated Film award went to Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Boy and the Heron” while Non-Fiction Film was something of a surprise as Fredrick Wiseman’s “Menus-Plaisirs — Les Troisgros” beat out several more seriously framed docs in that category.
Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winner “Anatomy of a Fall” won Best International Film. As it was not submitted by France (or Austria), it is not eligible for the International Film Oscar.
The other two major year-end critics groups, the Los Angeles Film Critics Circle and the National Board of Review, will announce their year-end winners on Sunday, December 10, and Wednesday, December 6, respectively.
The complete list of this year’s winners are as follows:
BEST FILM: “Killers of the Flower Moon”
BEST DIRECTOR: Christopher Nolan, “Oppenheimer”
BEST ACTOR: Franz Rogowski, “Passages”
BEST ACTRESS: Lily Gladstone, “Killers of the Flower Moon”
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Da’Vine Joy Randolph, “The Holdovers”
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Charles Melton, “May December”
BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM: “Anatomy of a Fall”
BEST NON-FICTION FILM: “Menus-Plaisirs — Les Troisgros”
BEST ANIMATED FILM: “The Boy and the Heron”
BEST FIRST FILM: “Past Lives”
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: “Oppenheimer”