La La Land awarded best film by New York Critics Circle

The award season has begun in earnest this week with the winners of the New York Critics’ Circle awards being announced yesterday and it was Damien Chazelle’s La La Land that scooped the biggest prize for Best Film. The musical, which opens next week in select US cities before its January bow in the UK, beat out Moonlight and Manchester by the Sea for the honour (via Deadline).

The NYCC has around a 40% success rate in having their film of the year go on to win the big prize at the Academy Awards, so it seems that the Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling-starrer could be a big winner this year. But with lots of momentum behind the aforementioned “rivals”, its going to be an interesting race once more.

Manchester and Moonlight were successful on the night however, with both films winning three awards each: Casey Affleck and Michelle Williams won Best Actor and Supporting Actress respectively for the former, while director Lonergan took the best screenplay award. And it was Mahershala Ali who won in the acting stakes for the latter, winning best supporting actor, while Barry Jenkins took home best director and its DoP James Laxton also won in his category.

Elsewhere, Isabelle Huppert won Best Actress for her performance in Paul Verhoeven’s Elle; Disney’s Zootopia (Zootropolis) took the best animation award while Toni Erdmann won Best Foreign Film.

You can see the list of all the winners below:

Best film: La La Land
Best director: Berry Jenkins, Moonlight 
Best actor: Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea
Best actress: Isabelle Huppert, Elle
Best supporting actor: Mahershala Ali, Moonlight
Best supporting actress: Michelle Williams, Manchester by the Sea and Certain Women
Best screenplay: Manchester by the Sea, Kenneth Lonergan
Best animated film: Zootopia
Best cinematography: Moonlight, James Laxton
Best first film: (tie) Kelly Fremon Craig’s The Edge of Seventeen and Trey Edwards Shults Krisha 
Best foreign film: Toni Erdmann (Germany)
Best non-fiction film (documentary): O.J.: Made in America
Special Awards: Editor Thelma Schoonmaker, the other for Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust 25th Anniversary Restoration