The Atlanta Film Critics Circle is the only Atlanta-specific film critics organization among the nation’s hundreds of regional and national critics groups. The 38-member AFCC is also one of only a handful of critic groups that votes in early December for its annual awards, making their picks some of the earliest in the annual awards race.
In its lengthy list of awards, the AFCC selected director Sean Baker’s “Anora” as its top film of the year. The raucous comedy-drama (now playing) centers on a Brighton Beach stripper who views the son of a Russian oligarch as her ticket out of a dead-end reality. Mikey Madison stars as Ani, a woman equal parts dreamy and pragmatic who somehow retains an aura of innocence despite her sleazy milieu. The wide-eyed Ani embarks on a whirlwind drug and sex-fueled adventure with Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), a spoiled, hedonistic heir to a fortune who whisks Ani away to his modern mansion on the water (the one-time home of a real Russian captain of industry and Putin crony) and then to Las Vegas.
A winner of the Cannes Film Festival’s highest honor, the Palme d’Or, “Anora” has the feel of a modern fairy tale with its young lovers trying to foil the Russian and Armenian wiseguys sent to keep Ivan in check. “Anora” also nabbed a Best Original Screenplay prize in the Atlanta awards, and its star Madison won for both Best Lead Actress and Best Breakthrough Performer for her magnetic portrait of a rough-and-tumble Cinderella.
Credit: Photo courtesy of A24/Lol Crawley
Credit: Photo courtesy of A24/Lol Crawley
The number 10 film on the AFCC’s best film roundup, the coming-of-age fantasy “I Saw the TV Glow” (now streaming) was shot in New Jersey but features Atlanta-based actor Danielle Deadwyler. Deadwyler also stars in Malcolm Washington’s (son of Denzel) 2024 feature “The Piano Lesson” (now streaming), an adaptation of August Wilson’s play shot in Atlanta, Macon and Canton.
The annual AFCC awards are an idiosyncratic mix of nods to performers, directors, animated and documentary films but also some utterly bespoke categories. This year’s award for Best Stunt Work went to the fifth film in Australian director George Miller’s “Mad Max” post-apocalyptic action series, “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” (now streaming) featuring Miller’s balletic, spectacularly choreographed action scenes. “What shocked no one was Miller’s ability to craft big screen spectacle with real people and real machines barreling down apocalyptic pavement. Anarchy has never looked as beautiful as it does when George Miller is creating it,” said AFCC member Spencer Perry.
Credit: Photo courtesy of DreamWorks
Credit: Photo courtesy of DreamWorks
The AFCC also added two awards this year: Best Voice Performance and Best Dog, honors that give the Atlanta Film Critics Circle a distinctive voice within the annual deluge of critics’ awards. Lupita Nyong’o won the first Best Voice Performance award for Chris Sanders’ charming animated fantasy “The Wild Robot” (now playing), which also won Best Animated Film. Nyong’o plays Roz, a task-driven domestic robot stranded on a desert island who directs her help-giving mission to the furry creatures she encounters.
The AFCC’s first-ever Best Dog award went to a dog with a tuft of spiky white hair cresting a largely hairless body and an outrageously lolling red tongue. Deemed the ugliest dog in Britain, “Peggy,” a pug and Chinese Crested mix, won a worldwide search to play Dogpool, a new character in the Marvel cinematic universe’s latest feature “Deadpool & Wolverine” (now streaming).
This year, the AFCC also divided the Best Screenplay award into Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Screenplay. RaMell Ross and Joslyn Barnes won the Best Adapted Screenplay prize for their adaptation of “Nickel Boys” (opening Jan. 10) from Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about young Black boys suffering abuse in a Florida reform school.
This year’s was an especially tight race, says AFCC advisory board member Jason Evans. Adrien Brody, who stars in “The Brutalist” (opening Dec. 20) as a Jewish architect who starts a new life in America after fleeing the Holocaust, won a Best Actor award by just one point over second place winner Coleman Domingo. Domingo plays an inmate finding inspiration and healing in a prison theater group in the drama “Sing Sing” (scheduled for rerelease Jan. 17). And RaMell Moss and Sean Baker tied for second place in the Best Director category but lost to Brady Corbet, director of the masterful American odyssey “The Brutalist,” which premieres in Atlanta on Dec. 20.
Founded in 2017, the Atlanta Film Critics Circle is an attempt to fill a void in the city’s film community, and in the representation of Atlanta’s media on the national stage. Representing a dynamic mix of 38 Atlanta-based critics working in newspaper, magazine and online journalism, the AFCC takes as its mission to establish a national presence for a film critics group in Atlanta and to foster a vibrant film culture in the city, already home to an exploding film industry production presence.
Credit: Photo courtesy of A24/Dominic Leo
Credit: Photo courtesy of A24/Dominic Leo
TOP 10 FILMS (ranked)
1. WINNER: “Anora”
2. “Challengers”
3. “Nickel Boys”
4. “The Brutalist”
5. “Conclave”
6. “Dune: Part Two”
7. “Sing Sing”
8. “Wicked: Part One”
9. “The Wild Robot”
10. “I Saw the TV Glow”
BEST LEAD ACTOR
Adrien Brody, “The Brutalist”
BEST LEAD ACTRESS
Mikey Madison, “Anora”
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:
Kieran Culkin, “A Real Pain”
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Ariana Grande, “Wicked”
BEST ENSEMBLE CAST
“Sing Sing”
BEST DIRECTOR
Brady Corbet, “The Brutalist”
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Sean Baker, “Anora”
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
RaMell Ross and Joslyn Barnes, “Nickel Boys”
BEST DOCUMENTARY
“Sugarcane”
BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE
“Kneecap” (Ireland)
BEST ANIMATED FILM
“The Wild Robot”
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
“Nickel Boys”
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, “Challengers”
BEST STUNT WORK
“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga”
AFCC Special Award for BEST BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMER
Mikey Madison, “Anora”
AFCC Special Award for BEST FIRST FEATURE FILM
Josh Margolin, “Thelma”
BEST VOICE PERFORMANCE
Lupita Nyong’o, “The Wild Robot”
BEST DOG
Peggy, “Deadpool & Wolverine”
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