The Golden Globes and SAG Awards announced their nominees last week.
On Monday, the Washington Area Film Critics Association announced its winners.
“Nomadland” won five awards: Best Picture, Best Director (Chloe Zhao), Best Actress (Frances McDormand), Best Adapted Screenplay (Zhao) and Best Cinematography (Joshua James Richards) for a pandemic-relevant premise of traveling van dwellers.
The film premiered locally at the Middleburg Film Festival in October and had a super-limited virtual release on Dec. 11, but ironically, most viewers haven’t even seen it yet. That will change when “Nomadland” hits Hulu on Feb. 19. See my review here.
Chadwick Boseman posthumously won Best Actor for his brash trumpet player in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” challenging God with intense monologues asking, “Why me?”
Best Supporting Actor went to Leslie Odom Jr. in “One Night in Miami,” in which Regina King cast him as Sam Cooke across Malcolm X, Jim Brown and Cassius Clay.
Best Supporting Actress went to Yuh-Jung Youn as the wise-cracking grandmother in “Minari,” while the film’s child actor Alan Kim won Best Youth Performance.
Best Original Screenplay went to Emerald Fennell for “Promising Young Woman.”
Best Documentary went to “Boys State” for its youth microcosm of national politics.
Best Foreign-Language Film went to the Danish drinking comedy “Another Round.”
Best Animated Film went to Pixar’s “Soul,” which also won Best Voice Performance for Jamie Foxx and Best Original Score for Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross and Jon Batiste.
As for the technical categories, Best Production Design went to David Fincher’s recreation of Golden Age Hollywood in “Mank,” while Best Editing went to Christopher Nolan’s time-bending backward and forward edits in the sci-fi action flick “Tenet.”
Finally, “Wonder Woman 1984” won Best Portrayal of Washington D.C., a special memorial award named after the late WTOP alum Joe Barber, who died in 2011.
NOTE: Jason Fraley is a voting member of WAFCA, Critics Choice and SAG Awards.
