National Society of Film Critics (NSFC) Awards: ‘Past Lives’ Wins Best Picture, Jonathan Glazer Receives Best Director

The National Society of Film Critics (NSFC) has announced its 2023 award winners for achievement in film. Celine Song’s Past Lives takes home the top prize, with Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer showing up as the runners-up. Glazer didn’t go home empty handed as he was rewarded the Best Director honors. Andrew Scott (All of Us Strangers) and Sandra Hüller (Anatomy of a Fall) won the Best Actor and Best Actress prizes, while Charles Melton (May December) and Da’Vine Joy Randolph (The Holdovers) received the Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress from the NSFC. Joining Melton in the win column for the May December team was the film’s screenwriter Samy Burch for Best Screenplay, while Fallen Leaves took the Best Film Not in the English Language category.

Voting is conducted via a weighted ballot system. On the first ballot, members vote for their top three choices (first choice = 3 points, second choice = 2 points, third choice = 1 point). The nominee that receives the most points and appears on a majority of ballots wins.

If no winner is declared on the first ballot, the category goes to a second ballot, this time without the proxies. Voting continues with as many rounds as needed until a nominee receives the most points and appears on a majority of ballots.

Here is the complete list of winners and runner-ups.

Best Picture: PAST LIVES (51 points)

Runners-up: THE ZONE OF INTEREST (49 points) OPPENHEIMER (44 points)

Best Director: Jonathan Glazer, THE ZONE OF INTEREST (65 points)

Runners-up: Todd Haynes, MAY DECEMBER (42 points) Christopher Nolan, OPPENHEIMER (41 points)

Best Actress: Sandra Hüller, ANATOMY OF A FALL and THE ZONE OF INTEREST (61 points)

Runners-up: Emma Stone, POOR THINGS (56 points) Lily Gladstone, KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON (44 points)

Best Actor: Andrew Scott, ALL OF US STRANGERS (52 points)

Runners-up: Jeffrey Wright, AMERICAN FICTION (39 points) Cillian Murphy, OPPENHEIMER (29 points)

Best Supporting Actress: Da’Vine Joy Randolph, THE HOLDOVERS (58 points)

Runners-up: Penélope Cruz, FERRARI (32 points) Rachel McAdams, ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT’S ME, MARGARET. (23 points)

Best Supporting Actor: Charles Melton, MAY DECEMBER (51 points)

Runners-up: Robert Downey, Jr., OPPENHEIMER, and Ryan Gosling, BARBIE (31 points, tie)

Best Screenplay: Samy Burch, MAY DECEMBER (53 points)

Runners-up: Celine Song, PAST LIVES (50 points) David Hemingson, THE HOLDOVERS (36 points)

Best Film Not in the English Language: FALLEN LEAVES (65 points)

Runners-up: THE ZONE OF INTEREST (51 points) ANATOMY OF A FALL (44 points)

Best Nonfiction Film: MENUS-PLAISIRS — LES TROISGROS (64 points)

Runners-up: 20 DAYS IN MARIUPOL (25 points) KOKOMO CITY (19 points)

Best Cinematography: Rodrigo Prieto, KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON (55 points)

Runners-up: Łukasz Żal, THE ZONE OF INTEREST (45 points) Hoyte van Hoytema, OPPENHEIMER (44 points)

Best Experimental Film: Jean Luc-Godard’s TRAILER OF A FILM THAT WILL NEVER EXIST: PHONY WARS

Special Citation for a Film Awaiting U.S. Distribution: Víctor Erice’s CLOSE YOUR EYES

Film Heritage Award: Criterion Channel, for an adventurous, wide-ranging, finely curated selection of films, ranging from American independents to world cinema to short films to classic Hollywood, making readily available the kind of repertory cinema that every city should have.

Film Heritage Award: Facets, Kim’s Video, Scarecrow Video and Vidiots, for maintaining wide-reaching libraries of films on disc and tape and making those libraries available to the general public.

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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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