2024 New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC): ‘The Brutalist’ Wins Best Film, Carol Kane Surprises in Supporting Actress

The New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC), the oldest film critics group in the U.S., have named Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist the best film of 2024.

Corbet’s three and a half hour magnum opus of a Jewish architect escaping the Nazis in World War II Hungary to start a new life living the American dream in New York City also won Adrien Brody the group’s Best Actor award for portraying the fictional László Toth.

Nickel Boys picked up two wins, Best Director for RaMell Ross and Best Cinematography for Jomo Fray. Ross won the Gotham Award for his direction last night at that ceremony.

Elsewhere, New York critics spread the wealth with no other film winning more than one award. Marianne Jean-Baptiste triumphed in Best Actress for her curmudgeonly turn in Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths and Kieran Culkin, also playing an unlikeable but compelling lout, won Best Supporting Actor for Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain.

The big surprise of the morning came with Carol Kane’s win for Supporting Actress in Between the Temples for her work as a grade school music teacher who re-enters the life of a former student (played by Jason Schwartzman) as his new adult Bat Mitzvah student. The out of the box choice – she wasn’t on any predictions radars – becomes Kane’s first major critics prize of her 50+ year career. Fun fact: If Kane is Oscar-nominated, it will be 49 years since her lead nomination for 1976’s Hester Street, which would eclipse Judd Hirsch’s record (42 years) for longest gap between acting nominations.

Sean Baker’s Anora was named Best Screenplay, while Annie Baker was awarded the Best First Film honor for Janet Planet. Flow, No Other Land and All We Imagine as Light were the animated, documentary and international feature film winners, respectively.

Since the Oscars’ expansion to 10 nominees in 2009, only Carol (2015) and First Cow (2020) have missed out on a Best Picture nomination, with First Cow becoming the first film in the organization’s 90-year history to fail to garner a single Oscar nomination. Last year, the group selected Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon as their top pick, which went on to be nominated for 10 Oscars. Christopher Nolan was named Best Director for Oppenheimer, a feat he repeated at the Oscars where his film also won Best Picture.

Founded in 1935, the Circle’s membership includes critics from daily newspapers, weekly newspapers, magazines, and qualifying online general-interest publications. Every year in December the organization meets in New York to vote on awards for the previous calendar year’s films. The Atlantic’s David Sims will serve as the NYFCC chair in 2024, and Stephen Garrett will continue as the group’s general manager. The NYFCC annual awards gala will be held on January 8, 2025, at TAO Downtown in New York.

Here is the complete list of winners.

BEST FILM: The Brutalist

BEST DIRECTOR: RaMell Ross, Nickel Boys

BEST ACTOR: Adrien Brody, The Brutalist

BEST ACTRESS: Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Hard Truths

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Carol Kane, Between the Temples

BEST SCREENPLAY: Sean Baker, Anora

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: Jomo Fray, Nickel Boys

BEST FIRST FILM: Janet Planet

BEST ANIMATED FILM: Flow

BEST NON-FICTION FILM: No Other Land

BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM: All We Imagine as Light

SPECIAL AWARD: To Save and Project: The MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation

STUDENT PRIZES: Alexander Swift (Undergraduate, Vassar) and Drew Smith (Graduate, NYU)