NYFCO names ‘Chico & Rita’ Best Animated Feature

One of the movie critic’s group I belong to is The New York Film Critics Online (NYFCO). We held our thirteenth annual meeting on December 9th, 2012 at the LGBT Center in New York City to select our annual best of movie awards.

Kathryn Bigelow’s “Zero Dark Thirty” gathered momentum as NYFCO voted the film about the hunt for Osama Bin Ladin as the Best Film of 2012, with Bigelow honored for her direction and Mark Boal for his screenplay.  Daniel Day-Lewis received honors for his performance as Abraham Lincoln in Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” while veteran French actress Emmanuelle Riva was esteemed for her performance in Michael Haneke’s drama “Amour,” which also received NYFCO’s award for Foreign Language film.

Tommy Lee Jones and Anne Hathaway received kudos for Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress respectively in Spielberg’s “Lincoln” and Tom Hooper’s “Les Misérables.” Ben Affleck’s “Argo” received an award for its Ensemble Cast

Benh Zeitlin’s “Beasts of the Southern Wild” was feted for a Breakthrough Performance by then five-year-old Quvenzhané Wallis, and Zeitlin was honored as Debut Director.  The Spanish language “Chico & Rita” was honored as Animated Feature while “The Central Park Five” was selected as Documentary.

These are the awards selected by the 35-member organization in fifteen categories:

A complete list of winners follows:

Best Picture:
 Zero Dark Thirty

Best Actor:
 Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln

Best Actress
: Emmanuelle Riva, Amour

Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow, Zero Dark Thirty

Best Supporting Actor
: Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln

Best Supporting Actress: 
Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables

Breakthrough Performer:
 Quvenzhane Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild

Debut Director: 
Benh Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild

Ensemble Cast
: Argo

Best Screenplay
: Zero Dark Thirty

Best Documentary: 
The Central Park Five

Best Foreign Language
: Amour

Best Animated Feature:
 Chico and Rita

Best Cinematography:
 Life of Pi

Best Use of Music: 
Django Unchained

NYFCO’s TOP TEN FILMS (alphabetical)

   Argo (Warner Bros)

   Beasts of the Southern Wild (Fox Searchlight)

   Django Unchained (The Weinstein Company)

   Les Misérables (Universal)

   Life of Pi (20th Century Fox)

   Lincoln (DreamWorks)

   The Master (The Weinstein Company)

   Moonrise Kingdom (Focus Features)

   Silver Linings Playbook (The Weinstein Company)

   Zero Dark Thirty (Columbia Pictures)