National Board of Review (NBR) winners: ‘Da 5 Bloods’ is Best Film, Spike Lee is Best Director

The National Board of Review (NBR), the oldest organization to hand out film awards, has named Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods the Best Film of 2020, with Lee as Best Director. Lee is only the second Black filmmaker to win Best Director from the group (after Barry Jenkins for 2016’s Moonlight), which was established in 1909.

Only three times in the last 30 years has the NBR Best Film winner missed out on a Best Picture Oscar nomination: 2014’s A Most Violent Year, 2000’s Quills and 1998’s Gods and Monsters.

The group’s top ten films were First Cow, The Forty-Year Old Version, Judas and the Black Messiah, The Midnight Sky, Minari, News of the World, Nomadland, Promising Young Woman, Soul and Sound of Metal.

Riz Ahmed (Sound of Metal), Carey Mulligan (Promising Young Woman), Paul Raci (Sound of Metal) and Youn Yuh-jung (Minari) continued their dominance in the critics’ acting races by repeating here.

The Freedom of Expression Award went One Night in Miami while the Spotlight Award went to Radha Blank for writing, directing, producing and starring in The Forty-Year-Old Version and Channing Godfrey Peoples won Best Directorial Debut for Miss Juneteenth.

Here is the full list of winners of the National Board of Review.

Best Film: “Da 5 Bloods” (Netflix)
Best Director: Spike Lee, “Da 5 Bloods” (Netflix)
Best Actor: Riz Ahmed, “Sound of Metal” (Amazon Studios)
Best Actress: Carey Mulligan, “Promising Young Woman” (Focus Features)
Best Supporting Actor: Paul Raci, “Sound of Metal” (Amazon Studios)
Best Supporting Actress: Youn Yuh-jung, “Minari” (A24)
Best Adapted Screenplay: Paul Greengrass, Luke Davies, “News of the World” (Universal Pictures)
Best Original Screenplay: Lee Isaac Chung, “Minari” (A24)
Breakthrough Performance: Sidney Flanigan, “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” (Focus Features)
Best Directorial Debut: Channing Godfrey Peoples, “Miss Juneteenth” (Vertical Entertainment)
Best Animated Feature: “Soul” (Pixar)
Best Foreign Language Film: “La Llorona” (Guatemala)
Best Documentary: “Time” (Amazon Studios)
NBR Icon Award: Chadwick Boseman
NBR Freedom of Expression Award: “One Night in Miami”
NBR Spotlight Award: Radha Blank for writing, directing, producing and starring in “The Forty-Year-Old Version” (Netflix)
Best Ensemble: “Da 5 Bloods” (Netflix)
Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography: Joshua James Richards, “Nomadland” (Searchlight Pictures)

Top Films (in alphabetical order):

• First Cow (A24)
• The Forty-Year-Old Version (Netflix)
• Judas and the Black Messiah (Warner Bros.)
• The Midnight Sky (Netflix)
• Minari (A24)
• News of the World (Universal Pictures)
• Nomadland (Searchlight Pictures)
• Promising Young Woman (Focus Features)
• Soul (Pixar)
• Sound of Metal (Amazon Studios)

Top 5 Foreign Language Films (in alphabetical order):

• Apples
• Collective
• Dear Comrades
• The Mole Agent
• Night of the Kings

Top 5 Documentaries (in alphabetical order):

• All In: The Fight for Democracy
• Boys State
• Dick Johnson is Dead
• Miss Americana
• The Truffle Hunters

Top 10 Independent Films (in alphabetical order):

• The Climb
• Driveways
• Farewell Amor
• Miss Juneteenth
• The Nest
• Never Rarely Sometimes Always
• The Outpost
• Relic
• Saint Frances
• Wolfwalkers

Image courtesy of Netflix

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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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