2014 New York Film Critics Circle Award Winners

The current awards season gains momentum when the first critics' group announces their awards winners and the so-called "harbingers of the Oscar nominations" have some interesting news for us especially in those categories where favorites did not win, like Best Actress.

Perhaps pundits are right and this year the awards race is open as if we check the few independent cinema groups plus this critics group we notice that the wealth has been spread among many films and perhaps the much expected race between Boyhood and Birdman will happen, but until this moment it seems that Boyhood has more possibilities than the second.

These are the award winners as listed at the group official site.

Best Feature Film: Boyhood

Best Director: Richard Linklater for Boyhood

Best Actress: Marion Cotillard in The Immigrant and Two Days, One Night
Best Supporting Actress: Patricia Arquette in Boyhood

Best Actor: Timothy Spall in Mr. Turner
Best Supporting Actor: J. K. Simmons in Whiplash

Best Cinematography: Darius Khondji for The Immigrant
Best Screenplay: Wes Anderson for The Grand Budapest Hotel

Best First Feature: Jennifer Kent for The Babadook
Best Nonfiction Film (documentary): Citizenfour
Best Animated Film: The Lego Movie
Best Foreign Language Film: Ida

Special Award: Adrienne Mancia

The most pleasant surprise is the award given to Marion Cotillard for two great performances in two out of the ordinary films; it is surprising especially because pundits have been vociferous about Julianne Moore sweeping the awards this year. Also surprising is that Palme d'Or winner for Best Actor Timothy Spall was honored by this group as the Best Actor, let's hope that Spall continues to collect honors in both side of the oceans as he highly deserve them. No doubt that these two awards clearly exemplify quality, world cinema quality (and yes both are from 2014 Cannes).

Believe that Boyhood is good movie as grabs your attention because story but more for certain production values; but I am with the very few that believe that film will be honored more for the production techniques (12 years in the making) than for whatever other values that usually are considered more to give awards top honor.

To check announcement at official site go here.