While most of the winners and runners-up on this list weren’t particularly surprising, the National Society of Film Critics found a couple of ways to go different directions than almost anyone else and came up with one relatively big surprise. The atypical selections were Steven Yeun in Supporting Actor, The Death of Stalin in Screenplay, and Minding the Gap in Non-Fiction Film. The one shocker was The Rider taking Best Picture of the year.

Award Tallies

(3) Roma

The Awards

Best Picture

1. The Rider (44 points)
2. Roma (41 points)
3. Burning (27 points)

Best Director

1. Roma – Alfonso Cuaron (60 points)
2. Burning – Lee Chang-dong (22 points)
2. The Rider – Chloe Zhao (22 points)

Best Actor

1. Ethan Hawke – First Reformed (58 points)
2. Willem Dafoe – At Eternity’s Gate (30 points)
3. Ben Foster – Leave No Trace (25 points)
3. John C. Reilly – Stan & Ollie (25 points)

Best Actress

1. Olivia Colman – The Favourite (36 points)
2. Regina Hall – Support the Girls (33 points)
3. Melissa McCarthy – Can You Ever Forgive Me? (27 points)

Best Supporting Actor

1. Steven Yeun – Burning (40 points)
2. Richard E. Grant – Can You Ever Forgive Me? (35 points)
3. Brian Tyree Henry – If Beale Street Could Talk, Widows, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (32 points)

Best Supporting Actress

1. Regina King – If Beale Street Could Talk (47 points)
2. Elizabeth Debicki – Widows (37 points)
3. Emma Stone – The Favourite (24 points)

Best Screenplay

1. The Death of Stalin (47 points)
2. Can You Ever Forgive Me? (27 points)
3. The Favourite (24 points)

Best Cinematography

1. Roma (70 points)
2. If Beale Street Could Talk (26 points)
3. Cold War (24 points)

Best Foreign-Language Film

1. Roma (44 points)
2. Cold War (34 points)
3. Burning (30 points)
3. Shoplifters (30 points)

Best Non-Fiction Film

1. Minding the Gap (35 points)
2. Shirkers (31 points)
3. Amazing Grace (24 points)

Experimental Film

Film Heritage Award

To the team of producers, editors, restorers, technicians, and cineastes who labored for decades to bring Orson Welles’s The Other Side of the Wind to completion for a new generation of movie lovers.

To the Museum of Modern Art for restoring Ernst Lubitsch’s 1923 film Rosita, starring Mary Pickford.

Special citation for film awaiting American distribution

A Family Tour (Ying Liang, Taiwan/Hong Kong/Singapore/Malaysia)

National Society of Film Critics Data

Year Founded: 1966
First Awards: 1966 (53)