Voting for the 2025 New York Film Critics Circle Awards has ended and the full winners list is here. True cinephiles everywhere eagerly awaited the results, which constitute an early bellwether for awards season to come — but also very much follow the distinctive proclivities of the group’s members. Cinephilia, not merely awards prognostication, is the guiding principle of the NYFCC, which counts IndieWire’s own Kate Erbland, David Ehrlich, and Ryan Lattanzio among its members.
The 2025 NYFCC winners list is no exception. While an expected winner like Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” took Best Film, some unexpected choices appeared elsewhere, such as Amy Madigan as Best Supporting Actress for her villain turn in “Weapons.” Benicio Del Toro also won Best Supporting Actor for his work in “One Battle After Another.”
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“The Secret Agent” was the other film with two prizes: For Best International Feature, and Best Actor for Wagner Moura. Best Actress went to Rose Byrne for “If I Had Legs, I’d Kick You,” Best Director went to Jafar Panahi for “It Was Just an Accident” and Best Screenplay went to “Marty Supreme,” while IndieWire honoree Autumn Durald Arkapaw won Best Cinematography for “Sinners.”
In 2024, Best Film at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards went to Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist.” And though NYFCC Awards also went to eventual Oscar winners “Flow” (for Animated Feature), Kieran Culkin (Best Supporting Actor for “A Real Pain”), Adrien Brody (Best Actor for “The Brutalist”), and Sean Baker (Best Screenplay for Sean Baker), there were also very deserving winners that didn’t factor into the Oscar Race such as NYFCC Best Actress winner Marianne Jean-Baptiste, as well as Best Director (RaMell Ross) and Best Cinematography winner “Nickel Boys” — which IndieWire declared to be the best film of 2024.
In short, the New York Film Critics Circle Awards are about more than the awards hype machine. These are awards for people who care about movies. And as I’ve mentioned before when writing up these awards, a marker of that is how John Ford made a personal point of attending the New York Film Critics Circle Awards dinner in January 1942 to pick up his Best Director award for “How Green Was My Valley,” when he blew off every other awards ceremony that year, including the Oscars, to instead focus on his Navy work. But he knew that if there was one ceremony to attend for that entire awards season, it was the NYFCC Awards dinner. This year’s will take place on January 6, 2026.
Best First Film: “Eephus”
Best Animated Feature: “KPop Demon Hunters”
Best Non-Fiction Feature: “My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow”
Best Supporting Actor: Benicio Del Toro, “One Battle After Another”
Best Supporting Actress: Amy Madigan, “Weapons”
Best Cinematography: “Sinners”
Best International Film: “The Secret Agent”
Best Screenplay: “Marty Supreme”
Best Actor: Wagner Moura, “The Secret Agent”
Best Actress: Rose Byrne, “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You”
Best Director: Jafar Panahi, “It Was Just an Accident”
Best Film: “One Battle After Another”
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