NATIONAL SOCIETY OF FILM CRITICS ANNOUNCE

Best Picture

1.    Melancholia (29)

2.       The Tree of Life (28)

3.       A Separation (20)

Best Director

1.    Terrence Malick (The Tree of Life) (31)

2.       Martin Scorsese (Hugo) (29)

3.       Lars von Trier (Melancholia) (23)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role

1.    Brad Pitt (Moneyball / The Tree of Life) (35)

2.       Gary Oldman (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) (22)

3.       Jean Dujardin (The Artist) (19)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role

1.    Kirsten Dunst (Melancholia) (39)

2.       Yun Jeong-Hie (Poetry) (25)

3.       Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady) (20)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role

1.    Albert Brooks (Drive) (38)

2.       Christopher Plummer (Beginners) (24)

3.       Patton Oswalt (Young Adult) (19)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role

1.    Jessica Chastain (The Help / Take Shelter / The Tree of Life) (30)

2.       Jeannie Berlin (Margaret) (19)

3.       Shailene Woodley (The Descendants) (17)

Best Screenplay

1.    Asghar Farhadi (A Separation) (39)

2.       Aaron Sorkin and Steven Zaillian (Moneyball) (22)

3.       Woody Allen (Midnight in Paris) (16)

Best Cinematography

1.    Emmanuel Lubezki (The Tree of Life) (76)

2.       Manuel Alberto Claro (Melancholia) (41)

3.       Robert Richardson (Hugo) (33)

Best Documentary

1.    Cave of Forgotten Dreams (35)

2.       The Interrupters (26)

3.       Into the Abyss (18)

Best Foreign Language Film

1.    A Separation (67)

2.       Mysteries of Lisbon (28)

3.       Le Havre (22)

Experimental Award

                Ken Jacobs (Seeking the Monkey King)

Film Heritage Awards

1.    BAMcinématek for its complete Vincente Minnelli retrospective with all titles shown on 16 mm. or 35 mm. film

2.       Lobster Films, Groupama Gan Foundation for Cinema and the Technicolor Foundation for Cinema for the restoration of the color version of George Méliès’s “A Trip to the Moon”

3.       New York’s Museum of Modern Art for its extensive retrospective of Weimar Cinema

4.       Flicker Alley for their box set “Landmarks of Early Soviet Film”

5.       Criterion Collecton for its 2-disc DVD package “The Complete Jean Vigo”

The NSFC regularly throw us a curveball with their results; yet, the most surprising thing about this year's crop of winners is how mainstream they are. Despite A Separation's (predictable (and deserved)) success, foreign language films are few and far between this year. Sure, there's a film by Lars von Trier and a black-and-white French silent film in attendance, but usually the NSFC skews a little stranger than this. All the same, this would be a rather brave selection for almost any other critics' group.

A few points of interest: The Tree of Life has pretty much cleaned up. It may not have claimed the top award, but it has placed 1st in every other category in which it has been mentioned, and was only one point off Melancholia's lead in Best Picture. In Best Director, look at how well Martin Scorsese has done! I don't mean to sound patronising there...Despite Hugo not featuring in the Top 3 films, he was only two points away from beating Terrence Malick. I still think a similar thing might happen at the Oscars - Scorsese wins Best Director, another film wins Best Picture. Predicting splits is rarely wise, but it seems like a likely scenario. Also, Jessica Chastain now has awards from LAFCA, NSFC and NYFCC. That's three of the top four groups. She's tied with herself in all of course, between three films with NSFC and NYFCC and between six (six!) with LAFCA, but it's pretty certain now - Oscar cannot ignore her. They can't allow her to tie - they can't even allow her to be nominated more than once - but she's looking very strong for a nomination for The Help anyway. All the same, Sally Hawkins won these three awards and wasn't even tied with herself (or anyone else, for that matter) and failed to score an Oscar nomination. That was a very strong category, of course, but so is Supporting Actress this year, and look how low the scores were for that category, indicating that there were many other contenders who fell just shy of making the top three.