Washington DC Critics nominations: ‘Minari’ leads with 8

Erik Anderson February 6, 2021

The Washington DC Area Film Critics Association (WAFCA) have announced their nominations for the best in 2020 film and Lee Isaac Chung’s American Dream drama Minari led the field with eight mentions including Best Film, Director, Actor (Steven Yeun), Supporting Actress (Youn Yuh-jung) and Ensemble.

Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland was next with six while Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Mank and One Night in Miami earned five. Four of the fives Best Director nominees were women: Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman), Regina King (One Night in Miami…), Kelly Reichardt (First Cow) and Zhao.

Some more unique and left field nominations came in for Elisabeth Moss as Best Actress for The Invisible Man, who joins Viola Davis (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom), Vanessa Kirby (Pieces of a Woman), Frances McDormand (Nomadland) and Carey Mulligan (Promising Young Woman) in that category.

The 2020 WAFCA Award winners will be announced at 8AM ET on Monday, February 8, 2021.

Best Film
First Cow
Minari
Nomadland
One Night in Miami…
Promising Young Woman

Best Director
Lee Isaac Chung (Minari)
Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman)
Regina King (One Night in Miami…)
Kelly Reichardt (First Cow)
Chloé Zhao (Nomadland)

Best Actor
Riz Ahmed (Sound of Metal)
Chadwick Boseman (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom)
Anthony Hopkins (The Father)
Delroy Lindo (Da 5 Bloods)
Steven Yeun (Minari)

Best Actress
Viola Davis (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom)
Vanessa Kirby (Pieces of a Woman)
Frances McDormand (Nomadland)
Elisabeth Moss (The Invisible Man)
Carey Mulligan (Promising Young Woman)

Best Supporting Actor
Sacha Baron Cohen (The Trial of the Chicago 7)
Daniel Kaluuya (Judas and the Black Messiah)
Bill Murray (On the Rocks)
Leslie Odom, Jr. (One Night in Miami…)
Paul Raci (Sound of Metal)

Best Supporting Actress
Maria Bakalova (Borat Subsequent Moviefilm)
Olivia Colman (The Father)
Dominique Fishback (Judas and the Black Messiah)
Amanda Seyfried (Mank)
Yuh-Jung Youn (Minari)

Best Acting Ensemble
Da 5 Bloods
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Minari
One Night in Miami…
The Trial of the Chicago 7

Best Youth Performance
Millie Bobby Brown (Enola Holmes)
Sidney Flanigan (Never Rarely Sometimes Always)
Alan Kim (Minari)
Talia Ryder (Never Rarely Sometimes Always)
Helena Zengel (News of the World)

Best Voice Performance
Tina Fey (Soul)
Jamie Foxx (Soul)
Tom Holland (Onward)
Honor Kneafsey (Wolfwalkers)
Octavia Spencer (Onward)

Best Original Screenplay
Lee Isaac Chung (Minari)
Andy Siara (Palm Springs)
Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman)
Darius Marder & Abraham Marder [Story by Darius Marder & Derek Cianfrance] (Sound of Metal)
Aaron Sorkin (The Trial of the Chicago 7)

Best Adapted Screenplay
Jon Raymond & Kelly Reichardt (First Cow)
Charlie Kaufman (i’m thinking of ending things)
Ruben Santiago-Hudson (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom)
Chloé Zhao [Based on the Book by Jessica Bruder] (Nomadland)
Kemp Powers [Based on the Stage Play by Kemp Power] (One Night in Miami…)

Best Animated Feature
The Croods: A New Age
Onward
Over the Moon
Soul
Wolfwalkers

Best Documentary
Boys State
Collective
Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution
Dick Johnson Is Dead
Time

Best International/
Foreign Language Film
Another Round
Bacurau
La Llorona
Night of the Kings
The Mole Agent

Best Production Design
Production Designer: Kave Quinn; Set Decorator: Stella Fox (Emma.)
Production Designer: Donald Graham Burt; Set Decorator: Jan Pascale (Mank)
Production Designer: Mark Ricker; Set Decorator: Karen O’Hara (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom)
Production Designer: David Crank; Set Decorator: Elizabeth Keenan (News of the World)
Production Designer: Nathan Crowley; Set Decorator: Kathy Lucas (Tenet)

Best Cinematography
Newton Thomas Sigel, ASC (Da 5 Bloods)
Erik Messerschmidt, ASC (Mank)
Dariusz Wolski, ASC (News of the World)
Joshua James Richards, Director of Photography (Nomadland)
Hoyte van Hoytema, ASC, FSF, NSC (Tenet)

Best Editing
Kirk Baxter, ACE (Mank)
Chloé Zhao (Nomadland)
Mikkel E. G. Nielsen (Sound of Metal)
Jennifer Lame, ACE (Tenet)
Alan Baumgarten, ACE (The Trial of the Chicago 7)

Best Original Score
Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross (Mank)
Emile Mosseri (Minari)
James Newton Howard (News of the World)
Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, Jon Batiste (Soul)
Ludwig Göransson (Tenet)

The Joe Barber Award for Best Portrayal of Washington, DC
Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution
The Fight
Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President
John Lewis: Good Trouble
Wonder Woman 1984

Minari image courtesy of A24

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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.