2021 Women Film Critics Circle winners: ‘Passing,’ Jane Campion, Kristen Stewart

The Women Film Critics Circle has named Passing 2021’s Best Movie About Women and the film’s stars Ruth Negga and Tessa Thompson the year’s Best Screen Couple. The film also won the Karen Morley Award for best exemplifying a woman’s place in history or society, and a courageous search for identity and the Josephine Baker for best expressing the woman of color experience in America.

Jane Campion was named Best Woman Storyteller, a screenwriting award, as well as Best Movie By a Woman, for The Power of the Dog. Kristen Stewart was named Best Actress for Spencer and Will Smith won Best Actor for King Richard.

Founded in 2004, the WFCC believes in the recognition of women’s voices within film criticism and was the first women critics organization formed in the United States. Now, the group has approximately 75 members internationally.

Here is the full list of winners, runners-up and nominees.

BEST MOVIE ABOUT WOMEN

WINNER: Passing
RUNNER-UP: The Lost Daughter
Being the Ricardos
CODA

BEST MOVIE BY A WOMAN

WINNER: Jane Campion – The Power of the Dog
RUNNER-UP: Sian Heder – CODA
Nora Fingscheidt – The Unforgivable
Rebecca Hall – Passing

BEST WOMAN STORYTELLER (Screenwriting Award)

WINNER: Jane Campion – The Power of the Dog
RUNNER-UP: Rebecca Hall – Passing
Charlene Favier, Antoine Lacomblez and Marie Talon – Slalom
Sian Heder – CODA

BEST ACTRESS

WINNER: Kristen Stewart – Spencer
RUNNER-UP: Nicole Kidman – Being the Ricardos
Sandra Bullock – The Unforgivable
Virginie Efira – Benedetta

BEST ACTOR

WINNER: Will Smith – King Richard
RUNNER-UP: Benedict Cumberbatch – The Power of the Dog
Andrew Garfield – tick, tick… BOOM!
Nicolas Cage – Pig

BEST FOREIGN FILM BY OR ABOUT WOMEN

WINNER: Titane
RUNNER-UP: Drive My Car
Benedetta
I’m Your Man

BEST DOCUMENTARY BY OR ABOUT WOMEN

WINNER: Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It
RUNNER-UP: Introducing, Selma Blair
Gunda
Lady Buds

BEST EQUALITY OF THE SEXES

WINNER: King Richard
RUNNER-UP (TIE): Being the Ricardos
RUNNER-UP (TIE): The Harder They Fall
Gunpowder Milkshake

BEST ANIMATED FEMALE

WINNER: Mirabel –Encanto
RUNNER-UP: Raya – Raya and the Last Dragon
Abuela Alma – Encanto
Gabi – Vivo

BEST SCREEN COUPLE

WINNER: Ruth Negga and Tessa Thompson – Passing
RUNNER-UP (TIE): Marlee Matlin and Troy Kotsur – CODA
RUNNER-UP (TIE): Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem – Being the Ricardos
Anthony Ramos and Melissa Barrera – In The Heights

ADRIENNE SHELLY AWARD – For a film that most passionately opposes violence against women

ADRIENNE SHELLY AWARD: Adrienne Shelly was a promising actress and filmmaker who was brutally strangled in her apartment in 2006 at the age of forty by a construction worker in the building, after she complained about noise. Her killer tried to cover up his crime by hanging her from a shower rack in her bathroom, to make it look like suicide. He later confessed that he was having a “bad day.” Shelly, who left behind a baby daughter, had just completed her film Waitress, which she also starred in, and which was honored at Sundance after her death.

WINNER: Last Night in Soho
RUNNER-UP: Adrienne

JOSEPHINE BAKER AWARD – For best expressing the woman of color experience in America

JOSEPHINE BAKER AWARD: The daughter of a laundress and a musician, Baker overcame being born black, female and poor, and marriage at age fifteen, to become an internationally acclaimed legendary performer, starring in the films Princess Tam Tam, Moulin Rouge and Zou Zou. She also survived the race riots in East St. Louis, Illinois as a child, and later expatriated to France to escape US racism. After participating heroically in the underground French Resistance during WWII, Baker returned to the US where she was a crusader for racial equality. Her activism led to attacks against her by reporter Walter Winchell who denounced her as a communist, leading her to wage a battle against him. Baker was instrumental in ending segregation in many theaters and clubs, where she refused to perform unless integration was implemented.

WINNER: Passing
RUNNER-UP: Respect
Bruised
Test Pattern

KAREN MORLEY AWARD – For best exemplifying a woman’s place in history or society, and a courageous search for identity

KAREN MORLEY AWARD: Karen Morley was a promising Hollywood star in the 1930s, in such films as Mata Hari and Our Daily Bread. She was driven out of Hollywood for her leftist political convictions by the Blacklist and for refusing to testify against other actors, while Robert Taylor and Sterling Hayden were informants against her. And also for daring to have a child and become a mother, unacceptable for female stars in those days. Morley maintained her militant political activism for the rest of her life, running for Lieutenant Governor on the American Labor Party ticket in 1954. She passed away in 2003, unrepentant to the end, at the age of 93.

WINNER: Passing
RUNNER-UP: Being the Ricardos
Benedetta
Spencer

ACTING AND ACTIVISM AWARD: Dolly Parton

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD: Betty White

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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