Atlanta Film Critics Circle (AFCC) Awards: ‘Oppenheimer’ Dominates with 8 Wins

The Atlanta Film Critics Circle (AFCC) has announced its 7^th annual awards celebrating the top film achievements of the year, where Oppenheimer, the biographical thriller portraying the life of nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb, was named best film. Written and directed by Christopher Nolan, the film swept the AFCC’s awards in eight categories, including Best Director (Christopher Nolan), Best Actor (Cillian Murphy), Best Supporting Actor (Robert Downey Jr.), Best Cinematography (Hoyte van Hoytema), Best Ensemble, Best Screenplay (Christopher Nolan), and Best Score (Ludwig Göransson).

Rounding out the best films of the year for the group in ranked order were: Killers of the Flower Moon, The Holdovers, Past Lives, Barbie, May December, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, American Fiction, Anatomy of a Fall and Poor Things.

“It’s always hard to narrow down our favorite films of the year, but this year felt particularly tough thanks to a plethora of incredible options,” said AFCC member Devindra Hardawar, Senior Editor at Engadget and co-host of The Filmcast. “In the same year we saw Barbie reckon with toxic masculinity and the limits of living in a patriarchal society, we also saw films explore the evil of building the atomic bomb and Native American genocide.”

The Best Supporting Actor race resulted in a tied vote between performances in the two films, with Ryan Gosling winning Best Supporting Actor for his role in Barbie as Ken and Robert Downey Jr. winning for his portrayal of politician Lewis Strauss in Oppenheimer.

AFCC advisory board member Josh Sewell said the committee counting votes required several rounds of tallying in some categories due to how tight the races were, including a near 3-way-tie in the Best Supporting Actor field. “Only a handful of votes separated the back half of our Top 10, which speaks to the overall quality of the filmmakers and performers,” he said. “That seems fitting in a year when actors and writers were forced to strike in order to prove how valuable their work is to the industry.”

Rather than splitting the vote, actress Lily Gladstone won it twice, securing both Best Lead Actress and Best Breakthrough Performer for her work in Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon.

“Lily Gladstone, the AFCC’s choice for both Best Actress and Breakthrough Performer, is the heart and soul of Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon,” said AFCC member Curt Holman, film columnist for Creative Loafing. “As the film documents a murderous conspiracy striking the Osage nation in the 1920s, Gladstone infuses her character with dignity and a complicated emotional life that transcends potential clichés as a victim.”

Other winner highlights this year include director Celine Song’s Past Lives, which won Best First Feature, Da’Vine Joy Randolph for Best Supporting Actress in The Holdovers, French film The Anatomy of a Fall for Best International Feature, and John Wick: Chapter 4 for the AFCC’s second-ever Best Stunt Work award.

Here is the full list of Atlanta Film Critics Circle (AFCC) winners.

BEST FILM: Oppenheimer  

TOP 10 FILMS (ranked from first place to tenth place)      

1. Oppenheimer 

2. Killers of the Flower Moon

3. The Holdovers

4. Past Lives

5. Barbie

6. May December

7. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

8. American Fiction

9. Anatomy of a Fall

10. Poor Things

BEST LEAD ACTOR: Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer

BEST LEAD ACTRESS: Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon                     

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: TIE – Robert Downey Jr., Oppenheimer; Ryan Gosling, Barbie 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers

BEST ENSEMBLE CAST: Oppenheimer

BEST DIRECTOR: Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer                        ​

BEST SCREENPLAY: Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer                        ​

BEST DOCUMENTARY: Still: A Michael J. Fox Story

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE: Anatomy of a Fall (France)

BEST ANIMATED FILM: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: Hoyte van Hoytema, Oppenheimer     ​

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE: Ludwig Göransson, Oppenheimer        

BEST STUNT WORK: John Wick: Chapter 4

AFCC Special Award for BEST BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMER: Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon                   

AFCC Special Award for BEST FIRST FEATURE FILM: Celine Song, Past Lives        ​

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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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