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)
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Click (Best Makeup, 2007)
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The Time Machine (Best Makeup, 2003)
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Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (Best Animated Feature, 2001)
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The Godfather Part III (Best Picture, 1990)
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Doctor Dolittle (Best Picture, 1967)
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Babe (Best Picture, 1995)
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Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (Best Screenplay, 2006)
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Hamlet (Best Adapted Screenplay, 1996)
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The Swarm (Best Costumes, 1978)