Category: Academy Awards

Apart from Boyhood, Toronto spread its love among several films, few of which were new selections among precursors. The Lunchbox was a surprising first feature selection while The Overnighters beat out one of the Oscar frontrunners. They will announce their Best Canadian Film award on December 14 and this year, they have a surprisingly dense…

Keira Knightley secures her first precursor win for The Imitation Game, the lone true surprise among the more recognizable categories. Documentary Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me is a bit unusual for a selection, but not one that has me scratching my head. Award Tallies (6) Birdman (3) Gone Girl, The Grand Budapest Hotel (2) Edge…

For the second year running, San Francisco announced their nominations at the same time as their awards, making things look more favorable to Birdman in nomination count, but giving Boyhood more prizes. As precursor season wears on, the number of unique selections dwindle, but they are one of the few groups that have given quite…

Indiana couldn’t find any new ground to break, so they introduced a new award for motion capture/vocal performance and gave it to Andy Serkis (because who else are you going to give it to or nominate?). Their selections were mostly in line with what other groups have done with Locke and St. Vincent doing better…

San Diego loves Nightcrawler, which nearly swept every category in which it was nominated, taking home a precursor-dominant seven awards, including Best Picture, Director and Actor (Jake Gyllenhaal) with additional praise for long-shot Oscar contender Rene Russo. Award Tallies (7) Nightcrawler The Awards Best Picture Nightcrawler Best Animated Film

Boyhood takes Best Picture, but secures fewer awards than Birdman which doubled its tally. Gone Girl performed well, as did Guardians of the Galaxy. Jake Gyllenhaal gets some precursor love. Nominations Tallies (4) birdman (2) Boyhood, Gone Girl, Guardians of the Galaxy The Awards Best Film Boyhood Best Animated Film

After a couple of years of being one of the top predictors of Oscar winners, the OFCS has scaled back recognizing smaller fare. While there are still lots of chances for overlap with Oscar, Best Picture will probably not be one of them. They’ve also gone a different direction for Best Actress than the vast…

The Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics have a unique method of announcing winners among all other precursors. They announce the winners in a ranked order. Much of what’s been discussed this year made it onto their various lists. The big surprises are Reese Witherspoon’s Best Actress win for Wild, Alfred Molina making it into Best Supporting…

The Broadcast Film Critics Association has announced their annual list of the best of 2014. There aren’t a lot of glaring omissions. The group lists 6 nominees in many categories, which enable them to include a lot of different Oscar contenders. This is the second big group to ignore Laura Dern for Wild. Steve Carell…

Another dynamic shift in the awards race as Birdman seems to be picking up steam while Boyhood continues to win Best Director prizes and awards for Patricia Arquette. Nothing else particularly inspired here. Award Tallies (4) Birdman (2) Boyhood The Awards Best Picture Birdman Best Animated Feature