Close to four hours after closing the doors to vote, the New York Film Critics Circle gave their top prize, Best Film to Warner Bros’ One Battle After Another from director Paul Thomas Anderson.

Voting began around 9:16AM EST in what is historically a lengthy voting huddle for the 50 member-plus critics org; the group unveiling winners as they’re selected.

The oldest critics group in the U.S. is good about being a bellwether for Oscar nominees, and sometimes winners, however, they haven’t been in sync with the Academy on Best Picture since 2011’s The Artist.

Last year’s 50-plus critics group bestowed Best Picture to Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist. The movie also won Best Actor for Adrien Brody. Of the NYFCC winners that Oscars saw eye to eye with were Brody for Best Actor, Kieran Culkin for Best Supporting Actor for Searchlight’s Real Pain, Best Screenplay for Anora, Best Animated Feature Film for Flow, and Best Documentary for No Other Land.

Best Director went to Iranian director Jafar Panahi for his Cannes Palme d’Or winning, It Was Just an Accident. The filmmaker was sentenced to one year in prison and a two-year travel ban in absentia by the Branch 26 of the Tehran Islamic Revolutionary Court. This is all going down while Panahi is on the awards season trailer for France’s International Film Oscar submission. Last night the director won Best Screenplay at The Gothams, dedicating the award to filmmakers “deprived of the right see and be seen.” Panahi was also banned from membership of political and social groups due to “propaganda activities against the system.”

First award announced at 10:25 AM EST was First Film for Carson Lund’s Eephus about a grown men’s recreational baseball game which stretches to extra innings on their beloved field’s final day before demolition. The movie played Cannes Directors Fortnight in 2024. Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent, which won Best Director, Best Actor (Wagner Moura), the FIPRESCI Prize, and AFCAE prize at Cannes, was named Best International Film.

Benicio Del Toro gets his second New York Film Critics award after winning Best Actor in 2000 for Traffic, but in the Best Supporting Actor category this time for One Battle After Another. Del Toro wound up winning the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Traffic back in 2001.

Winners:

Film: One Battle After Another

Director: Jafar Panahi, It Was Just an Accident

Actor: Wagner Moura, The Secret Agent.

Actress: Rose Byrne, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

Supporting Actor: Benicio Del Toro, One Battle After Another

Supporting Actress: Amy Madigan, Weapons

Screenplay: Marty Supreme by Josh Safdie and Ronald Bronstein

Animated Film: KPop Demon Hunters

Cinematography: Autumn Durald Arkapaw for Sinners.

Non-Fiction Film: My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow

International Film: The Secret Agent

First Film: Carson Lund’s Eephus.

Student Prizes: London Xhudo (Undergraduate, NYU) and Tan Zhiyuan (Graduate, The New School)

Special Prizes: Museum of Moving Image, Screen Slate