The onslaught of movie awards continues, and it’s more explosive than usual. The National Board of Review has announced their annual award winners, but instead of rallying behind Spotlight or Carol – the features which earned the most nominations from the Independent Spirit Awards – they gave most of their honors to crowd pleasers like Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian, The Hateful Eight and Creed.
Mad Max: Fury Road even took the top honors as The National Board of Review’s best film of the year, after a year’s worth of almost universal acclaim. George Miller’s fourth Mad Max movie is an almost non-stop car chase that seems likely to wind up on a lot of Best of 2015 lists.
Meanwhile, The Martian is cementing its place as the ambitious space epic of the Oscar season, earning Ridley Scott an award for Best Director, Matt Damon the award for Best Actor, and Drew Goddard the award for Best Supporting Actor. Mad Max may be too rough-and-tumble for the Oscar voters, who tend to skew older, but The Martian combines realism with its science fiction, and emerges as a more inspirational motion picture. Will it have legs this awards season? We’re guessing the answer is “yes.”
Related: These Six Movies Deserve a LOT More Oscar Buzz
The Hateful Eight also makes its debut in the awards season landscape. Quentin Tarantino’s latest western (after the Oscar-winning Django Unchained) has only just started screening in earnest, and may wind up being a major contender as the season continues. Particularly for Jennifer Jason Leigh, who won Best Supporting Actress from The National Board of Review, a category that doesn’t necessarily have any frontrunners yet.
Brie Larson also won Best Actress for Room, but that’s looking more and more like a foregone conclusion this year.
The final award of note, Best Supporting Actor, went to Sylvester Stallone for Creed. It’s his seventh performance as boxer Rocky Balboa, and at this rate it seems likely to earn him his second Oscar nomination for playing the part he originally wrote for himself in the original Rocky. (He lost the Best Actor Oscar in 1977 to Peter Finch, who also gave an iconic performance in Network.)
Here are the complete list of winners from The National Board of Review!
Best Film: Mad Max: Fury Road
Best Director: Ridley Scott – The Martian
Best Actor: Matt Damon – The Martian
Best Actress: Brie Larson – Room
Best Supporting Actor: Sylvester Stallone – Creed
Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Jason Leigh – The Hateful Eight
Best Original Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino – The Hateful Eight
Best Adapted Screenplay: Drew Goddard – The Martian
Best Animated Feature: Inside Out
Breakthrough Performance: Abraham Attah – Beasts of No Nation & Jacob Tremblay – Room
Best Directorial Debut: Jonas Carpignano – Mediterranea
Best Foreign Language Film: Son of Saul
Best Documentary: Amy
William K. Everson Film History Award: Cecilia De Mille Presley
Best Ensemble: The Big Short
Spotlight Award: Sicario for Outstanding Collaborative Vision
NBR Freedom of Expression Award: Beasts of No Nation & Mustang
TOP FILMS
Bridge of Spies
Creed
The Hateful Eight
Inside Out
The Martian
Room
Sicario
Spotlight
Straight Outta Compton
TOP 5 FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILMS
Goodnight Mommy
Mediterranea
Phoenix
The Second Mother
The Tribe
TOP 5 DOCUMENTARIES
Best of Enemies
The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution
The Diplomat
Listen to Me Marlon
The Look of Silence
TOP 10 INDEPENDENT FILMS
‘71
45 Years
Cop Car
Ex Machina
Grandma
It Follows
James White
Mississippi Grind
Welcome to Me
While We’re Young
William Bibbiani (everyone calls him ‘Bibbs’) is Crave’s film content editor and critic. You can hear him every week on The B-Movies Podcast and watch him on the weekly YouTube series Most Craved and What the Flick. Follow his rantings on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
Ten Bizarre Oscar Nominees:
Ten Utterly Baffling Academy Award Nominees
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Norbit (Best Makeup, 2008)
Norbit was reviled by critics and audiences for being shrill and unfunny, as well as further proof that Eddie Murphy has lost his groove. Murphy played both lead roles in Norbit, thanks to some rather impressive makeup. Too bad that incredible fat-woman getup was in the service of such an awful film.
Image: Paramount
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Click (Best Makeup, 2007)
Click was an Adam Sandler film about a father who finds a magical remote control that lets him control reality; he can “pause” life, and fast-forward through undesirable sections. Sandler appears in old-age makeup in it. I guess that was enough in 2007 to get a nomination.
Image: Columbia
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The Time Machine (Best Makeup, 2003)
H.G. Wells' timeless time travel caper is a great novel, and has made for at least one great film. The 2003 version wasn't it, featuring, as it did, a white-faced S&M-flavored future monster played by Jeremy Irons. WTF?
Image: DreamWorks
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Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (Best Animated Feature, 2001)
2001 was the first year the Academy decided to enlist a Best Animated Feature award, and the three nominees were the mediocre Shrek, the pretty good Monsters, Inc., and this low-fi, totally middle-of-the-road kiddie comedy. Why Waking Life was not nominated is beyond me.
Image: Paramount
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The Godfather Part III (Best Picture, 1990)
I think after The Godfather and The Godfather Part II were both Oscar winners, the Academy felt obligated to at least nominate Part III.
Image: Paramount
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Doctor Dolittle (Best Picture, 1967)
I've seen this silly and fun musical about a man who can talk to animals. It's colorful, adventurous and enjoyable, and represents a boldly bright form of filmmaking one no longer sees. But Best Picture?
Image: 20th Century Fox
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Babe (Best Picture, 1995)
This one caught everyone off-guard. Babe was a live-action film about a talking pig who learns to herd sheep through his innate politeness. It was up against hefty dramas like Braveheart and Apollo 13. It's a sweet and innocent film that certainly deserved recognition. It's just odd that it did.
Image: Universal
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Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (Best Screenplay, 2006)
From what I understand, the bulk of Borat, a faux documentary comedy about a pidgin Kazakhstani man interacting with America's underbelly, was mostly improvised, and little was staged. Can improv be considered a great screenplay? I guess so.
Image: 20th Century Fox
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Hamlet (Best Adapted Screenplay, 1996)
My favorite screenwriter was William Shakespeare. Oh wait. He was a playwright. Kenneth Branagh got a nomination for, essentially, leaving everything in, and not altering any dialogue from the oldest known folio of Hamlet. Can I turn in my Folger edition of Macbeth and also get a nom?
Image: Columbia
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The Swarm (Best Costumes, 1978)
The Swarm is a lesser-known Irwin Allen disaster flick about killer bees. Few have seen it, and it's reported to be dumb. It also, evidently, has some amazing costumes!
Image: Warner Bros.
