We’re not sure how the National Board of Review is already bestowing its end-of-the-year accolades considering Yogi Bear isn’t even out yet, but the long-running non-profit organization is once again the first critical body to announce what films it liked the most in 2010. It’s also the first to bestow lavish praise on The Social Network, with the Facebook drama sweeping the Best Film, Director, Actor, and Adapted Screenplay categories. The NBR hasn’t always been the best precursor to what will win the Oscar—last year it similarly fell in love with Up In The Air, for instance—but it is usually a reliable indicator of what will be nominated, as if you had any doubt that The Social Network, Toy Story 3, and Waiting For ‘Superman’ all had a pretty good chance of that.
In fact, the only real surprises here—other than a Best Screenplay win for the Ryan-Reynolds-trapped-in-a-coffin thriller Buried over films like Inception and The King’s Speech—are that other odds-on Oscar favorites like Black Swan, 127 Hours, The Kids Are All Right, Rabbit Hole, and Blue Valentine were completely absent from any of the NBR’s lists. They preferred Hereafter and Shutter Island, thanks. Anyway, cut-and-paste week continues with the full list of winners below.
Best Film: The Social Network
Best Director: David Fincher, The Social Network
Best Actor: Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network
Best Actress: Lesley Manville, Another Year
Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale, The Fighter
Best Supporting Actress: Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom
Best Foreign Film: Of Gods And Men
Best Documentary: Waiting For “Superman”
Best Animated Feature: Toy Story 3
Best Ensemble Cast: The Town
Breakthrough Performance: Jennifer Lawrence, Winter’s Bone
Spotlight Award for Best Directorial Debut: Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington, Restrepo
Best Original Screenplay: Chris Sparling, Buried
Best Adapted Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network
Special Filmmaking Achievement Award: Sofia Coppola, for writing, directing, and producing Somewhere
William K. Everson Film History Award: Leonard Maltin
NBR Freedom of Expression: Fair Game, Conviction, Howl
Top Eleven Films (In alphabetical order):
Another Year
The Fighter
Hereafter
Inception
The King’s Speech
Shutter Island
The Social Network
The Town
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter’s Bone
Top Ten Independent Films (In alphabetical order):
Animal Kingdom
Buried
Fish Tank
The Ghost Writer
Greenberg
Let Me In
Monsters
Please Give
Somewhere
Youth in Revolt
Top Six Foreign Films (In alphabetical order):
I Am Love
Incendies
Life, Above All
Of Gods And Men
Soul Kitchen
White Material
Top Six Documentary Films (In alphabetical order):
A Film Unfinished
Inside Job
Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
Restrepo
The Tillman Story
Waiting For “Superman”