‘Cyrano’ tops Detroit Critics Film Society with Best Picture, Best Actor wins

The Joe Wright musical Cyrano was named Best Picture of 2021 by the Detroit Film Critics Society, with titular star Peter Dinklage winning Best Actor.

The film was not nominated for Best Director or Best Adapted Screenplay, which were won by Lin-Manuel Miranda for tick, tick…BOOM! and Jane Campion for The Power of the Dog, respectively.

Jessica Chastain was named Best Actress for The Eyes of Tammy Faye, Jon Bernthal was named Best Supporting Actor for King Richard and Ariana DeBose won Best Supporting Actress for West Side Story.

The group found itself with two ties: in Breakthrough for Woody Norman, Actor (C’mon C’mon) & Emma Seligman, Writer/Director (Shiva Baby) and in Documentary where both Flee and Summer of Soul prevailed.

Here is the full list of nominees and winners.

BEST PICTURE

• Belfast
• CODA
• Cyrano – WINNER
• Don’t Look Up
• King Richard

BEST DIRECTOR

• Sean Baker, Red Rocket
• Kenneth Branagh, Belfast
• David Lowery, The Green Knight
• Adam McKay, Don’t Look Up
• Lin-Manuel Miranda, tick, tick…BOOM! – WINNER

BEST ACTOR

• Nicolas Cage, Pig
• Peter Dinklage, Cyrano – WINNER
• Andrew Garfield, tick, tick…BOOM!
• Oscar Isaac, The Card Counter
• Will Smith, King Richard

BEST ACTRESS

• Jessica Chastain, The Eyes of Tammy Faye – WINNER
• Alana Haim, Licorice Pizza
• Jennifer Hudson, Respect
• Nicole Kidman, Being the Ricardos
• Kristen Stewart, Spencer

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

• Jon Bernthal, King Richard – WINNER
• Troy Kotsur, CODA
• Jared Leto, House of Gucci
• Ray Liotta, The Many Saints of Newark
• Kodi Smith-McPhee, The Power of the Dog

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

• Ariana DeBose, West Side Story – WINNER
• Kirsten Dunst, The Power of the Dog
• Aunjanue Ellis, King Richard
• Rita Moreno, West Side Story
• Diana Rigg, Last Night in Soho

 BEST ENSEMBLE

• CODA
• Don’t Look Up
• The French Dispatch – WINNER
• The Harder They Fall
• House of Gucci

BREAKTHROUGH

• Alana Haim, Actress (Licorice Pizza)
• Emilia Jones, Actress (CODA)
• Woody Norman, Actor (C’Mon C’Mon) – WINNER
• Agathe Rouselle, Actress (Titane)
• Emma Seligman, Writer/Director (Shiva Baby) – WINNER

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

• Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog – WINNER
• Sian Heder, CODA
• Quira Alegria Hudes, In the Heights
• Steven Levenson, tick, tick…BOOM!
• David Lowery, The Green Knight

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

• Pedro Almodóvar, Parallel Mothers
• Paul Thomas Anderson, Licorice Pizza
• Wes Anderson, The French Dispatch
• Adam McKay, Don’t Look Up – WINNER
• Jeymes Samuel, Boaz Yakin, The Harder They Fall

BEST DOCUMENTARY

• Flee – WINNER
• Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain
• The Sparks Brothers
• Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street
• Summer of Soul – WINNER

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

• Belle
• Cryptozoo
• Encanto
• Flee
• Luca
• The Mitchells vs. the Machines – WINNER

BEST USE OF MUSIC/SOUND

• Cyrano
• In the Heights
• Last Night in Soho – WINNER
• tick, tick…BOOM!
• West Side Story

The Detroit Film Critics Society members for the 2021-2022 season, in alphabetical order, are: Nate Adams – The Clinton Local, George Elkind – Metro Times, Between the Lines; Becky Fixel – Week99er; Michelle Kisner – spoilerfreemoviesleuth.com; Greg Russell – WDIV-TV Detroit and Movie Show Plus; Tom Santilli – WXYZ and Movie Show Plus; Perry Seibert – WLBY-The Lucy Ann Lance show; John Serba – Decider; MontiLee Stormer – moviereelist.com; Lee Thomas – Critic Lee Speaking and Fox 2; Mike Tyrkus – CinemaNerdz.com;  Carl Wheeler – thereelgodfather.com.

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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), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) 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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