Houston Film Critics Society Nominations: 'Marriage Story,' 'Once Upon a Time…' lead

Marriage Story, Noah Baumbach’s intimate dissection of marital disappointment, joins Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino’s epic exploration of exaggerated egos, to lead the nominees for the 13th annual awards of the Houston Film Critics Society.

Both films are nominated for six awards including Best Picture, with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood also receiving a seventh nomination for Best Movie Poster Art.  The prestigious film journalists annually honor the movie industry’s best work with winners to be announced January 2 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Closely following the nomination leaders are 1917, The Farewell, The Irishman and Parasite, each nominated for five awards including Best Picture. Other contenders for this top award are Knives Out, Jojo Rabbit, Joker and Uncut Gems.

“We’re a passionate, adventurous group,” says Doug Harris, President of the organization. “This list of nominees represents the thousands of screening hours our members have devoted to uncovering the year’s most distinctive films so that we can bring the best of cinema from around the world to the audiences we serve.”

Because of the close voting for nominations, six actresses will compete for Best Actress for the first time, including Charlize Theron in Bombshell, Awkwafina in The Farewell, Renée Zellweger in Judy, Scarlett Johansson in Marriage Story, Saoirse Ronan in Little Women, and Lupita Nyong’o in Us.

Here is the full list of nominations.

Best Picture
1917; The Farewell; The Irishman; Jojo Rabbit; Joker; Knives Out; Marriage
Story; Once Upon a Time in Hollywood; Parasite; Uncut Gems

Best Director
Bong Joon Ho, Parasite; Sam Mendes, 1917; Martin Scorsese, The Irishman;
Quentin Tarantino, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood; Lulu Wang, The Farewell

Best Actor
Leonardo DiCaprio, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood; Adam Driver, Marriage
Story; Eddie Murphy, Dolemite is My Name; Joaquin Phoenix, Joker; Adam Sandler, Uncut Gems

Best Actress
Awkwafina, The Farewell; Scarlett Johansson, Marriage Story; Lupita Nyong’o, Us; Saoirse Ronan, Little Women; Charlize Theron, Bombshell; Renée Zellweger, Judy

Best Supporting Actor
Willem Dafoe, The Lighthouse; Anthony Hopkins, The Two Popes; Al Pacino, The
Irishman; Joe Pesci, The Irishman; Brad Pitt, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Best Supporting Actress
Kathy Bates, Richard Jewell; Laura Dern, Marriage Story; Scarlett Johansson,
Jojo Rabbit; Florence Pugh, Little Women; Margot Robbie, Bombshell; Zhao Shuzhen, The Farewell

Best Screenplay
Knives Out; Marriage Story; Once Upon a Time in Hollywood; Parasite; The Farewell

Best Cinematography
1917; The Irishman; The Joker; Once Upon a Time in Hollywood; Parasite

Best Animated Feature
Frozen II; How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World; I Lost My Body; Missing Link; Toy Story 4

Best Original Score
1917; Joker; Little Women; Marriage Story; Us

Best Original Song
“Glasgow,” Wild Rose; “Home to You,” The Aeronauts; “I Punched Keanu Reeves,” Always Be My Maybe; “(I’m Gonna) Love Me Again,” Rocketman; “Into the Unknown,” Frozen II; “Stand Up,” Harriet

Best Foreign Language Film
Atlantics; Corpus Christi; Les Misérables; Monos; Pain and Glory; Parasite

Best Documentary Feature
American Factory; Apollo 11; Biggest Little Farm; For Sama; Hail Satan; They Shall Not Grow Old

Texas Independent Film Award
Bull; Building the American Dream; Nothing Stays the Same: The Story of the Saxon Bar; Seadrift; Sleeping in Plastic

Visual Effects
1917; Ad Astra; Avengers: Endgame

Best Stunt Coordination Team
Crawl; Ford v Ferrari; Furie; John Wick: Chapter 3 Parabellum; Shadow

Best Movie Poster Art
Birds of Passage; John Wick: Chapter 3 Parabellum; Once Upon a Time in Hollywood; Parasite; Portrait of a Lady on Fire; The Last Black Man in San Francisco