2024 National Society of Film Critics (NSFC): ‘Nickel Boys’ Wins Best Picture; Marianne Jean-Baptiste Named Best Actress

The National Society of Film Critics (NSFC) revealed its winners for the 59th edition of the best films, filmmakers and performances of the year where RaMell Ross’s Nickel Boys was named Best Picture. The film also won Best Cinematography for Jomo Fray and Ross was the runner-up for Best Director.

Winning Best Director was Payal Kapadia, whose All We Imagine as Light won the award for Best Film Not in the English Language. Colman Domingo took the Best Actor prize for Sing Sing, with Adrien Brody (The Brutalist) and Ralph Fiennes (Conclave) as runners-up. Kieran Culkin continued his dominance with a win in Best Supporting Actor for A Real Pain, with Guy Pearce (The Brutalist) right on his tail in the vote tallies, and Michele Austin was crowned Best Supporting Actress for Hard Truths.

Marianne Jean-Baptiste was named Best Actress for Hard Truths, in one of the largest margin wins in NSFC history, securing the third in the trifecta of major film critics groups that include the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the New York Film Critics Circle. This isn’t the first time an actress from a Mike Leigh film has won the trifecta; Sally Hawkins did it in 2008 with Happy-Go-Lucky but then became the first actress to hit the triple win and miss an Oscar nomination. With her win, Jean-Baptiste becomes only the second Black actress to win Best Actress at the NSFC in their 59-year history. Cicely Tyson had previously been the group’s only Black actress winner, for 1972’s Sounder.

The NSFC, which is made up of more than 60 of the country’s most prominent movie critics, voted at in-person gatherings in Los Angeles and New York, and also participated virtually from across the country. Founded in 1966, membership is by election. Members include the critics from major papers and outlets in Los Angeles, Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Chicago. Its members include critics of not just the Los Angeles Times, Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone and The New Yorker, but also Slate, Indiewire, Deadline, the Christian Science Monitor and NPR.

“It was a day of very close races in multiple categories, which speaks to the strength and the range of the movies our members saw and loved,” said Justin Chang, chair of the NSFC. “I’m thrilled to see the accolades for Nickel Boys, one of the great American films of recent years, as well as many world-cinema standouts, from All We Imagine as Light and Hard Truths to No Other Land.”

Best Picture: NICKEL BOYS (47 points) Runners-up: ANORA and ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT (34 points)

Best Director: Payal Kapadia, ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT (49 points) Runners-up: RaMell Ross, NICKEL BOYS (42 points) Sean Baker, ANORA (33 points)

Best Actor: Colman Domingo, SING SING (60 points) Runners-up: Adrien Brody, THE BRUTALIST (51 points) Ralph Fiennes, CONCLAVE (45 points)

Best Actress: Marianne Jean-Baptiste, HARD TRUTHS (79 points)

Runners-up: Mikey Madison, ANORA (35 points) and Ilinca Manolache, DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD (32 points)

Best Supporting Actor: Kieran Culkin, A REAL PAIN (52 points) Runners-up: Guy Pearce, THE BRUTALIST (50 points) Edward Norton, A COMPLETE UNKNOWN, and Adam Pearson, A DIFFERENT MAN (41 points)

Best Supporting Actress: Michele Austin, HARD TRUTHS (55 points) Runners-up: Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, NICKEL BOYS, and Natasha Lyonne, HIS THREE DAUGHTERS (39 points)

Best Screenplay: Jesse Eisenberg, A REAL PAIN (47 points) Runners-up: Radu Jude, DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD (46 points) Sean Baker, ANORA (45 points)

Best Cinematography: Jomo Fray, NICKEL BOYS (80 points) Runners-up: Lol Crawley, THE BRUTALIST (38 points) Jarin Blaschke, NOSFERATU (21 points)

Best Film Not in the English Language: ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT (44 points) Runners-up: DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD (41 points) THE SEED OF THE SACRED FIG (28 points)

Best Nonfiction Film: NO OTHER LAND (70 points) Runners-up: DAHOMEY (50 points) SOUNDTRACK TO A COUP D’ETAT (24 points)

Special Citation for a Film Awaiting U.S. Distribution: NO OTHER LAND

Best Experimental Film: THE BALLAD OF SUZANNE CÉSAIRE

Film Heritage Award: Scott Eyman, for his outstanding books on film artists and epochal shifts in moviemaking, most recently with “Charlie Chaplin vs. America: When Art, Sex, and Politics Collided,” a revelatory study of the nexus of American politics and American pop culture.

Film Heritage Award: IndieCollect, which, since its founding in 2010 by Sandra Schulberg, has met the challenge of preserving independent films with a rare sense of artistic responsibility.

Film Heritage Award: To Save and Project: The MoMa International Festival of Film Preservation, for more than two decades of superb restorations and diverse programming from all over the world, in collaboration with archives, foundations, studios and other organizations.