The Online Film Critics Society (of which I am a member) has announced their awards for films released in 2014, and although the nominees – released last week – included such unexpected honorees as Snowpiercer, Under the Skin and We Are the Best!, the winners mostly followed the trends we are already seeing throughout the awards season so far.
Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel and Richard Linklater’s Boyhood are both big winners with the Online Film Critics Society awards. Anderson’s comedy won Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay and Best Cinematography, and Linklater’s experimental coming-of-age drama won Best Director, Best Editing and Best Supporting Actress for co-star Patricia Arquette.
Birdman also continues to make a big impression on critics this year, earning Best Actor for Michael Keaton and Best Supporting Actor for Edward Norton. Birdman, The Grand Budapest Hotel and Boyhood are expected to be among the major contenders throughout the whole awards season, right up until the Oscars, but pundits continue to hold out for Selma, Ava DuVernay’s biopic of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., to come around from behind at the last minute. (CraveOnline recently declared Selma one of the best movies of 2014.)
The biggest surprise of the Online Film Critics Society awards this year is the strong showing for David Fincher’s Gone Girl, which won two awards: Best Adapted Screenply and Best Actress for Rosamund Pike. The adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s best-seller was expected to make a bigger showing this awards season, and the OFCS awards may be able to put it back on the map for Oscar pundits and voters.
The complete list of Online Film Critics Society awards winners is below:
Best Picture: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Best Director: Richard Linklater, Boyhood
Best Actor: Michael Keaton, Birdman
Best Actress: Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl
Best Supporting Actor: Edward Norton, Birdman
Best Supporting Actor: Patricia Arquette, Boyhood
Best Original Screenplay: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Best Adapted Screenplay: Gone Girl
Best Cinematography: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Best Editing: Boyhood
Best Animated Feature: The LEGO Movie
Best Film Not in the English Language: Two Days, One Night
Best Documentary: Life Itself
Best Non-U.S. Release (non-competitive category):
71
10,000 km
Entre Nos
Han Gong-ju
Hard to Be a God
The Look of Silence
The Salt of the Earth
What We Do in the Shadows
Timbuktu
The Tribe
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and the host of The B-Movies Podcast and The Blue Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
