National Board of Review (NBR) announces late November awards date for 2021 honors

The National Board of Review (NBR), the oldest organization in the United States to give out film awards, has announced that November 30, 2021 will be the date for their 2021 honors, just one day after the Gotham Awards.

The National Board of Review, made up of critics, journalists, film enthusiasts, professionals and academics, has been handing out film awards since 1929. NBR winners will be honored at the group’s awards gala on January 11, 2022 in a ceremony hosted by NBC News’ Willie Geist.

Last season, the NBR held its awards on January 26, 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic that altered every awards group and pushed the season out a full two months later than usual. Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods was named Best Film with Lee also winning Best Director.

After adjusting its eligibility requirements last year because of COVID, moving eligibility to the end of February 2021, the NBR said today that 2021 films will be eligible if screened either in a theater or digitally on or before Sunday, November 28.

The NBR critics select winners in categories including Best Film (plus a top 10), Best Director, Best Actor and Actress, Best Original and Adapted Screenplay, Best Foreign Language Film (plus a top 5), Best Animated Feature, Best Documentary (plus a top 5), Breakthrough Performance, a 10 Best Independent Films list and Directorial Debut. It also traditionally bestows the Spotlight Award, Freedom of Expression, the William K. Everson Film History Award and the NBR Icon Award.

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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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