On Saturday, my National Society of Film Critics brethren and I presided over the 59th edition of our awards ceremony. Unlike other major awards, we reveal second and third place along with our winners. Not even the pope pickers in “Conclave” do that!
The group cofounded by the late Pauline Kael matched my choices in several categories — actor, actress, supporting actor, screenplay, and picture. I was thrilled!
For the first time in my four-year tenure, several awards were decided in the fourth or fifth round of ballot tallying. We were taking so long that I imagined Pansy, the cranky protagonist of Mike Leigh’s “Hard Truths,” yelling “JUST PICK A WINNER ALREADY! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!”
Had she done that, we could have given her portrayer, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, our best actress award in person. She won handily and quickly. “Anora”’s Mikey Madison placed second. In third place was Ilinca Manolache, the star of Radu Jude’s explosive Romanian satire, “Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World.”
Jude’s film also placed second in the screenplay category behind our winner, Jesse Eisenberg’s road trip dramedy, “A Real Pain,” and ahead of Sean Baker’s script for “Anora.” One point separated all three, making this our closest race.
“A Real Pain” received a second award, best supporting actor for Kieran Culkin. He beat out Guy Pearce’s rich baddie from “The Brutalist” and Edward Norton’s Pete Seeger in the Dylan debacle, “A Complete Unknown.”
Jean-Baptiste’s equally impressive co-star, Michele Austin, won best supporting actress. In a second place tie were two great performances, Natasha Lyonne from “His Three Daughters” (my number-one choice), and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor in “Nickel Boys.”
“Nickel Boys” fared better elsewhere; it won our best picture award, for starters. Jomo Fray’s superb point-of-view lensing was also a runaway winner for best cinematography. Director RaMell Ross placed second for best director behind our biggest surprise win, Payal Kapadia for the lyrical Indian drama “All We Imagine As Light.” Her lovely drama, about a nurse and her younger roommate’s experiences in Mumbai also won best film not in the English language.
Colman Domingo took our best actor award for his excellent work in the prison drama, “Sing Sing,” beating Adrien Brody’s architect from “The Brutalist” and Ralph Fiennes’s exasperated cardinal from “Conclave.”
The harrowing, important Israel-Palestine documentary, “No Other Land,” won two awards: best nonfiction film and best undistributed film. Best experimental film went to “The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire,” about an actress preparing to perform excerpts from the French surrealist author’s work.
Lastly, our heritage awards went to author Scott Eyman, the indie film preservation company, IndieCollect, and To Save and Project: The MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation.
Odie Henderson is the Boston Globe’s film critic.
