Steven Spielberg’s new feature takes home prestigious awards.
The National Board of Review (NBR) has announced its 2017 winners in film, and the results are about as expected. The NBR has a history of going crazy over films no one has even seen yet (as they did when they announced A Most Violent Year as their film of the year in 2014). This year, their top winner was the perfect movie that arrived at the perfect time: Steven Spielberg’s The Post walked away with the most awards, including Best Film, Best Actress (Meryl Streep) and Best Actor (Tom Hanks). The Post focuses on the role The Washington Post played in getting the Pentagon Papers published, even as they were being sued by the government. It’s not hard to draw comparisons with the current political climate here, given that the current President has had several well-publicized grudges against mainstream publications after questioning their credentials. While The Post will likely take home the lion’s share of awards due to preferential ballots, it does feel like somewhat of a knee-jerk reaction to praise something that is fresh and political.
The other winners were largely in line with what we’ve been hearing all along: Laurie Metcalf won Best Supporting Actress for her role in Lady Bird, and Willem Dafoe won Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Florida Project. Greta Gerwig won Best Director for her work on Lady Bird, and Coco won Best Animated Feature. Get Out continues to prove it is awards-worthy, too: it picked up Best Cast Ensemble of the year, and was also named amongst the top ten films of 2017.
This list was where the biggest drama actually occurred. Besides Get Out, the top ten films of the year included: Baby Driver, Call Me by Your Name, The Disaster Artist, Downsizing, Dunkirk, The Florida Project, Lady Bird, Logan, and Phantom Thread. No one could have predicted the inclusion of Baby Driver, Disaster Artist, Downsizing, or Logan, films which could easily have been replaced by movies such as The Shape of Water, Darkest Hour, Mudbound, or Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Their inclusion is surprising, to say the least, and there will likely be some discussions going on at Fox Searchlight tonight about how both of their big awards players went home empty-handed here. What other films failed to garner big attention?
The full list of awards is provided below:
Best Film
The Post
Best Director
Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird
Best Directorial Debut
Jordan Peele, Get Out
Best Cast Ensemble
Get Out
Best Actor
Tom Hanks, The Post
Best Actress
Meryl Streep, The Post
Best Supporting Actor
Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project
Best Supporting Actress
Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird
Best Animated Feature
Coco
Breakthrough Performance
Timothée Chalamet, Call Me by Your Name
Best Original Screenplay
Phantom Thread, Paul Thomas Anderson
Best Adapted Screenplay
The Disaster Artist, Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber
Best Foreign Language Film
Foxtrot
Top Foreign Films
A Fantastic Woman
Frantz
Loveless
Summer 1993
The Square
Spotlight Award
Wonder Woman, Patty Jenkins and Gal Gadot
Freedom of Expression
John Ridley’s Let It Fall: Los Angeles, 1982–1992
Angelina Jolie’s First They Killed My Father
Best Documentary
Jane
Top Five Documentaries
Abacus: Small Enough to Jail
Brimstone & Glory
Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars
Faces Places
Hell on Earth: The Fall of Syria and the Rise of ISIS
Top 10 Movies
Baby Driver
Call Me by Your Name
The Disaster Artist
Downsizing
Dunkirk
The Florida Project
Get Out
Lady Bird
Logan
Phantom Thread
Top 10 Independent Movies
Beatriz at Dinner
Brigsby Bear
A Ghost Story
Lady Macbeth
Logan Lucky
Loving Vincent
Menashe
Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer
Patti Cake$
Wind River
Related Topics: National Board of Review, The Post
