Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) chooses ‘ROMA’ as Best Picture of 2018
The diverse members of the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) have spoken, and their votes have allowed the best cinematic effort of 2018 to surface.
“It was a tight and tense race for sure, and after tallying the votes we have found the brightest among 2018’s gems,” said Nguyen Le, who alongside Bavner Donaldo and Wesley Lovell, forms the organization’s Governing Committee.
“Roma,” director Alfonso Cuarón’s reportedly autobiographical film, produced by Participant Media and Esperanto Filmoj, is going home with the Best Picture award, winning over other potent nominees such as the heartfelt “If Beale Street Could Talk” adaptation, topical “First Reformed,” and dynamite period piece “The Favourite.” The film follows a middle-class family’s maid named Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio) through one year of her life.
On top of this, “Roma” also wins the following awards: Best Film Not in the English Language, Best Director, and Best Cinematography.
The film is warmly received by OFCS members. Writing for DC Filmdom, Eddie Pasa said “Aparicio is a revelation;” CineSnob’s film writer Kiko Martinez said the film is “as close to cinematic poetry as you can get;” for Culturess, Kristen Lopez said it was “beautifully composed and aesthetically brilliant;” and Susan Granger considers Cuarón’s feature “sensitively written, insightfully directed and vibrantly photographed.”
Among other notable wins are three for “If Beale Street Could Talk” (for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Score); two for “Mission: Impossible – Fallout” (for Best Editing and a Technical Achievement Award for Best Stunt Coordination); and one for “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” (for Best Animated Feature).
Members of the OFCS also handed out Lifetime Achievement Awards to five candidates, among them actress Rita Moreno and director Spike Lee, and two Special Achievement Awards.
“With another successful year in the history books, our members have clearly stepped up to the task of selecting the year’s best,” Lovell said. “The diverse selections our membership has made reflect the bountiful and broad-ranging experiences of our members and that will always be our biggest and brightest victory.”
The Online Film Critics Society, composed of 283 film critics whose work appears mainly on the internet, was founded in 1997 to support online critics and provide them a unified voice in the dominant culture of print journalism.
BEST PICTURE
Roma
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
BEST DIRECTOR
Alfonso Cuarón – Roma
BEST LEAD ACTOR
Ethan Hawke – First Reformed
BEST LEAD ACTRESS
Toni Collette – Hereditary
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Michael B. Jordan – Black Panther
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Regina King – If Beale Street Could Talk
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Paul Schrader – First Reformed
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Barry Jenkins – If Beale Street Could Talk
BEST EDITING
Eddie Hamilton – Mission: Impossible – Fallout
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Alfonso Cuarón – Roma
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Nicholas Britell – If Beale Street Could Talk
BEST DEBUT FEATURE
Ari Aster – Hereditary
BEST FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Roma
BEST DOCUMENTARY
Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
TECHNICAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS
Annihilation – Best Visual Effects
Black Panther – Best Costume Design
Mission: Impossible – Fallout – Best Stunt Coordination
A Quiet Place – Best Sound Design
A Star Is Born – Best Original Songs
ONLINE FILM CRITICS SOCIETY’S BEST OF THE YEAR
1. Roma
2. BlacKkKlansman
3. If Beale Street Could Talk
4. First Reformed
5. The Favourite
6. You Were Never Really Here
7. Annihilation
8. Eighth Grade
9. Hereditary
10. A Star Is Born
11. Suspiria
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS
Roger Deakins
Spike Lee
Rita Moreno
Robert Redford
Agnès Varda
SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS
To Ryan Coogler, for Black Panther’s distinctive critical and box office appeal.
To the city of Oakland, CA, for hosting 2018’s most socially and artistically compelling films about racism, “Sorry to Bother You” and “Blindspotting.”
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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