Hey there, my prediction came true, and perhaps this gut feeling I have about Jason Reitman's Up In the Air is accurate as the National Board of Review just named the Paramount pic the best film of 2009.
Continuing its reign, George Clooney also won Best Actor in a shared prize with Morgan Freeman who stars in Invictus as Nelson Mandela, and my current pic to win the Oscar Best Actress, Carey Mulligan, took top honors in the Best Actress category for An Education.
Anna Kendrick continued the Up In the Air love with a Best Supporting Actress win and Reitman was also recognized for Best Adapted Screenplay.
However, Eastwood maintained his NBR presence with a Best Director win as well as seeing Invictus get listed as one of the top ten films of the year alongside the likes of Star Trek, Where the Wild Things Are, Inglourious Basterds and 500 Days of Summer.
The most notable absence, easily, is Precious not being listed as one of the year's best films.
The complete list is directly below.
Best Film: UP IN THE AIR
Best Director: CLINT EASTWOOD, Invictus
Best Actor(s):
- GEORGE CLOONEY, Up In The Air
- MORGAN FREEMAN, Invictus
Best Actress: CAREY MULLIGAN, An Education
Best Supporting Actor: WOODY HARRELSON, The Messenger
Best Supporting Actress: ANNA KENDRICK, Up In The Air
Best Foreign Language Film: A PROPHET
Best Documentary: THE COVE
Best Animated Feature: UP
Best Ensemble Cast: IT'S COMPLICATED
Breakthrough Performance by an Actor: JEREMY RENNER, The Hurt Locker
Breakthrough Performance by an Actress: GABOUREY SIDIBE, Precious
Spotlight Award for Best Directorial Debut:
- DUNCAN JONES, Moon
- OREN MOVERMAN, The Messenger
- MARC WEBB, (500) Days of Summer
Best Original Screenplay: JOEL AND ETHAN COEN, A Serious Man
Best Adapted Screenplay: JASON REITMAN and SHELDON TURNER, Up In The Air
Special Filmmaking Achievement Award: WES ANDERSON, The Fantastic Mr. Fox
William K. Everson Film History Award: JEAN PICKER FIRSTENBERG
NBR Freedom of Expression:
- BURMA VJ: REPORTING FROM A CLOSED COUNTRY
- INVICTUS
- THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA: DANIEL ELLSEBERG AND THE PENTAGON PAPERS
Ten Best Films (in alphabetical order)
- AN EDUCATION
- (500) DAYS OF SUMMER
- THE HURT LOCKER
- INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS
- INVICTUS
- THE MESSENGER
- A SERIOUS MAN
- STAR TREK
- UP
- WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE
Five Best Foreign-Language Films (in alphabetical order)
- THE MAID
- REVANCHE
- SONG OF SPARROWS
- THREE MONKEYS
- THE WHITE RIBBON
Five Best Documentaries (in alphabetical order)
- BURMA VJ: REPORTING FROM A CLOSED COUNTRY
- CRUDE
- FOOD, INC.
- GOOD HAIR
- THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA: DANIEL ELLSBERG AND THE PENTAGON PAPERS
Top Ten Independent Films: (in alphabetical order)
- AMREEKA
- DISTRICT 9
- GOODBYE SOLO
- HUMPDAY
- IN THE LOOP
- JULIA
- ME AND ORSON WELLES
- MOON
- SUGAR
- TWO LOVERS
The list of winners is also the first to be added to my tracking of end of season top tens at "The Contenders". Check out that page here.
Not too many surprises, but where is Precious?
Do you think this may increase 500 days of summer's oscar chances?
Inglourious Basterds is now a serious contender, Where the Wild Things Are is a nice suprise
Precious,Nine,Lovely Bones completely shafted
Oh wow Precious got left out completley. Suprised by Harrleson and the tie for best actor. I still think Bridges will take the best actor statue this spring. Oh I almost forgot, Hell yeah Star Trek!
No Precious or Nine in the Top 10 but they put Where the Wild Things Are and fricking overrated Star Trek?!?! REALLY? This list lost credibility in my eyes because of that.
urm first point where did woody harrelson come from??
and it's complicated ensemble? surely this means things for Meryl Streep & Alec Baldwin Golden globes noms wise?
same with (500) days of summer for gg nom?
Precious was either going to be everywhere or nowhere?
Im really glad to see Star Trek, Inglourious Basterds and Where the wild things are… However… Where is Precious? The Lovely Bones? Nine? And if talk about Blockbusters, I think Half-Blood Prince deserves the same recognition than Star Trek… Anyway, Potter films are always left out…..
Im really curious about Avatar too… No word about it. I thoght it would become one of the first "For your consideration" films… Let´s see what happen!!!
@Marsnake: The first reviewers who will get to see Avatar will be the foriegn press on Dec. 8th. Apparently Cameron still isn't quite finished with it yet. I so excited!
Woody is amazing in The Messenger. Glad he's getting some love.
I'm pretty surprised that Avatar, Nine and Precious were all left out, as well as Mo'Nique not winning Best Supporting Actress and Christoph Waltz not winning Best Supporting Actor.
Then again, NBR also named The Bucket List as one of the 10 best films of 2007 a couple years back, so I guess this can all be taken with a grain of salt.
Three Monkeys was fantastic. Happy to see it make the Foreign Language list
Last year's NBR's had very little correlation to the Oscars. I don't think 2009 will be any exception. Don't expect much of this to carry over.
Wow… Star Trek was one of the top ten films this year, from a critical standpoint? I thought it was a lot of fun with a good cast, but the basic plot was utter nonsense. When I learned that it had the same writers as "Transformers 2", I wasn't terribly surprised. I'm pretty shocked that it beat out other, better-written efforts.