National Board of Review Results! Oscar Season Officially Begins!!

The National Board of Review Awards is the first important precursor of the Oscars. The winner of the Best Film Award has been nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars over the last 20 years with the exceptions of “Quills” in 2000 and “Gods and Monsters” in 1998.

This year’s Best Film winner was Danny Boyle’s crowd-pleasing masterpiece “Slumdog Millionaire”. Based on the book “Q&A”, “Slumdog Millionaire” is a flamboyant story about a poor young man in India who gets the chance to participate in the “Who wants to be a millionaire?” contest. He tries to impress the love of his life by doing this because she is an ardent fan of the show.

“Slumdog” has been one of the most successful films this year. It was the winner of the Audience Award at the Toronto Film Festival this year and critics have been praising the film.

The NBR awards had various surprises this year though. Heath Ledger, this year’s frontrunner for the best supporting actor statuette as the Joker in “The Dark Knight” was surprisingly snubbed. The winner in this category was Josh Brolin in “Milk”.

Other than that, “Revolutionary Road” was completely ignored by the NBR. While this is certainly surprising, it doesn’t mean anything because “There Will Be Blood” didn’t receive any nominations at the NBR either and look how it did at the Oscars.

The National Board of Review Awards were announced today, December 6th.

Best Film
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE

Top Ten Films(In alphabetical order)
BURN AFTER READING,
CHANGELING,
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON,
THE DARK KNIGHT,
DEFIANCE,
FROST/NIXON,
GRAN TORINO,
MILK,
WALL-E,
THE WRESTLER

Best Foreign Language Film
MONGOL

Top Five Foreign Films(In alphabetical order)
THE EDGE OF HEAVEN,
LET THE RIGHT ONE IN,
ROMAN DE GARE,
A SECRET,
WALTZ WITH BASHIR

Best Documentary
MAN ON WIRE

Top Five Documentaries(In alphabetical order)
AMERICAN TEEN,
THE BETRAYAL (NERAKHOON),
DEAR ZACHARY,
ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD,
ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED

Top Independent Films(In alphabetical order)
FROZEN RIVER,
IN BRUGES,
IN SEARCH OF A MIDNIGHT KISS,
MR. FOE,
RACHEL GETTING MARRIED,
SNOW ANGELS,
SON OF RAMBOW,
WENDY AND LUCY,
VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA,
THE VISITOR

Best Actor
CLINT EASTWOOD, Gran Torino

Best Actress
ANNE HATHAWAY, Rachel Getting Married

Best Supporting Actor
JOSH BROLIN, Milk

Best Supporting Actress
PENELOPE CRUZ, Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Best Ensemble Cast
DOUBT

Breakthrough Performance by an Actor
DEV PATEL, Slumdog Millionaire

Breakthrough Performance by an Actress
VIOLA DAVIS, Doubt

Best Director
DAVID FINCHER, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Best Directorial Debut
COURTNEY HUNT, Frozen River

Best Adapted Screenplay
SIMON BEAUFOY, Slumdog Millionaire and ERIC ROTH, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Spotlight Award
MELISSA LEO, Frozen River and RICHARD JENKINS, The Visitor

Best Original Screenplay
NICK SCHENK, Gran Torino

Best Animated Feature
WALL-E

William K. Everson Award For Film History
MOLLY HASKELL and ANDREW SARRIS

The BVLGARI Award for NBR Freedom of Expression
TRUMBO