{"id":237633,"date":"2026-01-14T14:33:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T14:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/237633\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T14:33:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T14:33:09","slug":"emotional-speeches-by-ryan-coogler-and-jafar-panahi-stir-the-national-board-of-review-awards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/237633\/","title":{"rendered":"Emotional speeches by Ryan Coogler and Jafar Panahi stir the National Board of Review Awards"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 An emotional plea by Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi<\/a> and moving words from Ryan Coogler<\/a> on the violence in Minneapolis stirred a National Board of Review Awards ceremony Tuesday in which Paul Thomas Anderson\u2019s \u201cOne Battle After Another\u201d was again crowned the best film of the year. <\/p>\n

Coming two days after Sunday\u2019s Golden Globes<\/a>, the annual, untelevised New York gala, held in the cavernous midtown banquet all Cipriani 42nd Street and hosted by Willie Geist, played out as a more intimate and frank-spoken alternative.<\/p>\n

The winners themselves were already announced<\/a>, so the night was always going to belong to \u201cOne Battle After Another.\u201d The National Board of review, a group that is made up of film enthusiasts and dates to 1909, not only named it 2025\u2019s best film but awarded the best actor prize to Leonardo DiCaprio, best director to Anderson, best supporting actor to Benicio Del Toro and breakthrough performer to Chase Infiniti. <\/p>\n

Yet in an ongoing parade of awards for \u201cOne Battle After Another,\u201d its night at the NBRs still stood out. The surprise presenter of the movie\u2019s best film award was Martin Scorsese<\/a>, who praised \u201cthe audacity\u201d of Anderson\u2019s narratives and the accomplishment of his latest.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike all great films, it can\u2019t really be compared to anything else,\u201d Scorsese said. \u201cIt stands alone. It\u2019s a great American film.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anderson, trying to take in the wealth of honors, attempted to describe what \u201c One Battle After Another<\/a>,\u201d his father-daughter tale of revolution, might represent. His answer came in pointing out his own daughter, sitting at his table.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what our movie is about, but I do know it\u2019s about loving your kids,\u201d Anderson said.<\/p>\n

For many of the honorees, the world outside the starry banquet weighed heavily. Coogler\u2019s speech was among the night\u2019s most poignant. The \u201cSinners\u201d director was honored for his screenplay for the vampire thriller and was introduced by the film\u2019s star, longtime collaborator Michael B. Jordan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Both were honored 13 years earlier by the board for their first movie together, \u201c Fruitvale Station<\/a>.\u201d Recalling that film, based on the true story of the 2009 killing of Oscar Grant by a Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer in Oakland, California, Coogler turned to the recent fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good<\/a> by an immigration enforcement agent in Minneapolis. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was young and naive, and I thought the movie was going to change the world and make it so you didn\u2019t see people executed by civil service on camera anymore,\u201d Coogler said. \u201cI was proven wrong again and again. And it\u2019s tough to be here and not think about Minnesota.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t be here and not think about Renee,\u201d Coogler added.<\/p>\n

Still, the ceremony\u2019s most powerful words came from Panahi, the dissident Iranian filmmaker<\/a> who for nearly two decades worked clandestinely in his native country while being placed under house arrest and jailed. Panahi\u2019s latest, \u201c It Was Just an Accident<\/a>,\u201d was awarded best international film.<\/p>\n

The movie, inspired by Panahi\u2019s own imprisonment, is a revenge drama about stopping the cycle of violence and oppression in Iran. On Tuesday the death toll from a nationwide crackdown on demonstrators<\/a> in that country surpassed 2,500, according to activists.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we stand here, the state of Iran is gunning down protesters and a savage massacre continues blatantly on the streets of Iran,\u201d Panahi said. \u201cToday the real scene is not on screens but on the streets of Iran. The Islamic Republic has caused a bloodbath to delay its collapse.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is no longer a metaphor,\u201d he continued. \u201cThis is not a story. This is not a film. This is a reality written with bullets day after day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Panahi called on the film community to speak out and \u201cuse any voice and any platform you have.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, cinema has the power to stand by defenseless people,\u201d Panahi said. \u201cLet\u2019s stand by them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Panahi\u2019s remarks, delivered through an interpreter, shook the audience. And when the next award went to Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar<\/a>, for adapted screenplay for their plaintive Pacific Northwest period drama \u201cTrain Dreams,\u201d the filmmakers seemed to cut short their speech, which was partially about how making the movie and then promoting it through awards season meant sacrificing time with their young children. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the world is kind of burning down, it can feel frivolous at times,\u201d Bentley said. \u201cI just want to say thank you most of all to Mr. Panahi for reminding us for what we can do with the medium and why it can be worth doing.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 An emotional plea by Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi and moving words from Ryan Coogler…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[20434,458,19814,78552,146,122,93619,128114,85,87,46,53081,5433,83176,7643,4178,64424,60630,397,1886,5708,128496,5435,126105,59954,917,128495],"class_list":["post-237633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-benicio-del-toro","tag-celebrities","tag-chase-infiniti","tag-clint-bentley","tag-entertainment","tag-general-news","tag-golden-globe-awards","tag-greg-kwedar","tag-il","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-jafar-panahi","tag-leonardo-dicaprio","tag-local-news-for-apple","tag-martin-scorsese","tag-media","tag-michael-b-jordan","tag-minneapolis","tag-movies","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-oscar-grant","tag-paul-thomas-anderson","tag-renee-nicole-good","tag-ryan-coogler","tag-u-s-news","tag-willie-geist"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}