Debra Granik, Steven Yeun, ‘ROMA’ are Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA) winners

After a heated battle, Alfonso Cuarón’s ROMA is the best film of 2018, according to the Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA). Lee-Chang Dong’s Burning was the group’s runner-up and in fact, three of the top five contender for Best Picture were foreign language films. Burning then tied with Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Shoplifters as Best Foreign Language Film.

Debra Granik (Leave No Trace) became the first female Best Director winner from a major critics’ group this season and Ben Foster was the org’s Best Actor runner-up (to Ethan Hawke, of course) by a razor-thin margin, according to member Jon Frosch. 

Another heated battle, one that took nearly an hour for the group to decide upon was Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress – namely some category placement decisions involving Olivia Colman (The Favourite) and Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie (Leave No Trace). In the end Colman won Best Actress with Toni Collette (Hereditary) as runner-up. McKenzie did not end up placing in Lead or Supporting Actress.

Minding the Gap, the skateboarding doc from Bing Liu, was a surprise win in Best Film Editing.

B. Barton-Shaw was the recipient of the 2018 LAFCA Ruth Batchelor Scholarship. Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson and Guy Maddin were the winners of the Douglas Edwards award Independent/Experimental Film/Video for The Green Fog and Chloé Zhao (The Rider) was the New Generation Award winner.

Hayao Miyazaki was the previously announced Career Achievement recipient.

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

Best Picture – ROMA
Runner up: Burning

Best Director – Debra Granik (Leave No Trace)
Runner up: Alfonso Cuarón (ROMA)

Best Actor – Ethan Hawke (First Reformed)
Runner up: Ben Foster (Leave No Trace)

Best Actress – Olivia Colman (The Favourite)
Runner up: Toni Collette (Hereditary)

Best Supporting Actor – Steven Yeun (Burning)
Runner up: Hugh Grant (Paddington 2)

Best Supporting Actress – Regina King (If Beale Street Could Talk)
Runner up: Elizabeth Debicki (Widows)

Best Screenplay – Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty (Can You Ever Forgive Me?)
Runner up: Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara (The Favourite)

Best Production Design – Hannah Beachler (Black Panther)
Runner up: Fiona Crombie (The Favourite)

Best Editing –  Joshua Altman and Bing Liu (Minding the Gap)
Runner up: Alfonso Cuarón and Adam Gough (ROMA)

Best Cinematography – Alfonso Cuarón (ROMA)
Runner up: James Laxton (If Beale Street Could Talk)

Best Music Score – Nicholas Britell (If Beale Street Could Talk)
Runner up: Justin Hurwitz (First Man)

Best Foreign Language Film – Burning and Shoplifters (tie)

Best Documentary/Non-Fiction Film – Shirkers
Runner up: Minding the Gap

Best Animation – Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse
Runner up: Incredibles 2

New Generation – Chloé Zhao (The Rider)

Special Citation – The Other Side of the Wind

Douglas Edwards Independent/Experimental Film/Video – Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson and Guy Maddin (The Green Fog)

Career Achievement (previously announced) – Hayao Miyazaki

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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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