50th Annual Los Angeles Fim Critics Association Awards

Yesterday the so-called "most powerful" group of American film critics voted their 2024 awards and unlike their east coast counterparts who chose The Brutalist, their top award went to Cannes Palm d'Or winner Anora. Worth mention that The Brutalist was their runner-up and consequently it's becoming clearer that according to critics, The Brutalist and Anora could (or should) become Oscar contenders.

Group opted for performance neutral categories but then gave 2 awards in both lead and supporting performances, including the runners-up. Lead performance has 2 female winners and two female runners-up while supporting performance and runners-up had 2 males each. Sorry, but for these type of results think I prefer gender clarification as tends to give more opportunities to women and men in their own crafts; so please stop, there should be Best Actress and Best Actor in lead and supporting performances. Sigh.

Anora leads the pack by winning 3 awards, one being the top award and two performances, followed by A Real Pain with 2 awards, screenplay and one performance, and Nickel Boys with 2 trade awards, Cinematography and Editing,  East coast film critics group (NYTFC) are a bit different from west coast (LAFCA) with exceptions of Best Actress, Supporting Actor, International, Animation, Documentary and Cinematography where they coincide. If these two groups are the predictors of the Oscars, then I should say Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Kieran Culkin and films Flow plus No Other Land have good changes to get an Oscar nomination.

Winners will be honored at the awards ceremony to be held on Saturday, January 11, 2025 at the Biltmore Hotel.

The 2024 Winners

Best Picture: Anora, Sean Baker, USA
Runner-up: The Brutalist, Brady Corbet, UK, USA and Hungary

Best Film Not In The English Language: All We Imagine as Light, Payal Kapadia, France, India, Netherlands, and Luxembourg
Runner-Up; دانه‌ی انجیر معابد Daneh Anjeer Moghadas (The Seed of the Sacred Fig), Mohammad Rasoulof,  Germany and France

Best Documentary/Non-Fiction Film: No Other Land, Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, and Rachel Szor, Palestine and Norway
Runner-Up: Dahomey, Mati Diop, France, Senegal, Benin and Singapore

Best Animation: Straume (Flow), Gints Zilbalodis, Latvia, France and Belgium
Runner-up: Linda veut du poulet! (Chicken for Linda!), Sébastien Laudenbach and Chiara Malta, France and Italy

Best Director: Mohammad Rasoulof for دانه‌ی انجیر معابد Daneh Anjeer Moghadas (The Seed of the Sacred Fig), Mohammad Rasoulof,  Germany and France
Runner-up: Sean Baker for Anora, Sean Baker, USA

New Generation Award: Vera Drew for The People's Joker, Vera Drew, USA

Best Screenplay: Jesse Eisenberg for A Real Pain, Jesse Eisenberg, USA and Poland
Runner-up: Sean Baker for Anora, Sean Baker, USA

Best Lead Performance (tie)
Marianne Jean-Baptiste in Hard Truths, Mike Leigh, UK and Spain
Mikey Madison in Anora, Sean Baker, USA
Runners-Up
Demi Moore in The Substance, Coralie Fargeat, UK, France and USA
Fernanda Torres in I'm Still Here, Walter Salles, Brazil and France

Best Supporting Performance (tie)
Yura Borisov in Anora, Sean Baker, USA
Kieran Culkin in A Real Pain, Jesse Eisenberg, USA and Poland
Runners-Up
Clarence Maclin in Sing Sing, Greg Kwedar, USA
Adam Pearson in A Different Man, Aaron Schimberg, USA

Best Cinematography: Jomo Fray for Nickel Boys, RaMell Ross, USA
Runner-Up: Lol Crawley for The Brutalist, Brady Corbet, UK, USA and Hungary

Best Production Design: Judy Becker for The Brutalist, Brady Corbet, UK, USA and Hungary
Runner-Up: Adam Stockhausen for Blitz, Steve McQueen, UK and USA

Best Editing: (tie)
Nicholas Monsour for Nickel Boys, RaMell Ross, USA
Hansjörg Weißbrich for September 5, Tim Fehlbaum, Germany 5

Best Music Score: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for Challengers, Luca Guadagnino,  Italy and USA
Runner-up: Eiko Ishibashi for Aku wa sonzai shinai (Evil Does Not Exists), Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Japan

Career Achievement: John Carpenter

Special Citation: Adam Hyman for decades of curating, programming and administrating the screenings and other events of Los Angeles Filmfourm

The Douglas Edwards Experimental Film Award: The Human Surge 3, Eduardo Williams, Argentina, Portugal, Netherlands, Brazil, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka and Peru

To check winners at official site go here.