Over the past few days, Awards Season has been proceeding in full swing, as we received the nominations for the Critics Choice Awards, got the AFI Top 10, and found out the LAFCA winners. Check out our full coverage below.
CRITICS CHOICE AWARDS
The first major televised awards body of the season, the Critics Choice Awards, announced their nomination, offering our clearest snapshot yet of which films are likely to break into the Best Picture race at the Oscars. Although they’re a critics organization, the Critics Choice Awards traditionally lean toward big, splashy studio fare over international or smaller films, and this year was no exception. Ryan Coogler’s Sinners dominated the nominations with a massive total of 17, coming within one of Barbie’s all-time record. The film showed extraordinary across-the-board strength, and looks especially likely to sweep in tech and music categories. Many pundits were eager to see which cast members from Sinners Critics Choice would nominate. Delroy Lindo and Hailee Steinfeld missed, but Michael B. Jordan and Wunmi Mosaku scored nominations in Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress, while Miles Caton landed a Best Young Actor nomination. The second-most nominated film was another Warner Bros. contender: Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, earning 14 nominations. It has been steamrolling through this season so far and is my current pick to win both Best Picture and Best Director here. It also broke the record for the most acting nominations in Critics Choice history, with five of its cast members recognized, everyone in the principal cast receiving a nomination except Regina Hall. While on the topic of Warner Bros, Weapons failed to crack the Best Picture lineup but still earned key nominations in Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress (Amy Madigan). If it was going to emerge as a serious threat to break into the Best Picture race at the Oscars, it would have begun here, but four nominations is still nothing to scoff at.
Netflix had an especially strong showing here, landing three Best Picture nominees. Frankenstein tied Hamnet for the third-most nominations with 11, dominating below-the-line categories as expected but also proving competitive above the line with nods for Guillermo del Toro (Director), Jacob Elordi (Supporting Actor), and Adapted Screenplay. Train Dreams, which has been surging with critics, earned five nominations, including Best Actor for Joel Edgerton, who may finally be heading toward the awards recognition long overdue for him. Jay Kelly also broke into Best Picture, continuing its consistent run after making AFI and NBR’s top tens, though George Clooney curiously missed in Best Actor. Elsewhere, Netflix picked up nominations for K-Pop: Demon Hunters (Original Song, Animated Feature) and Left-Handed Girl (Best Foreign Language Film and Best Young Actress for Nina Ye). In a surprise, Wake Up Dead Man was completely shut out despite the strong Critics Choice pedigree of the previous two Knives Out films, but Kathryn Bigelow’s disappointing comeback A House of Dynamite managed to squeeze out a Best Editing nomination.
After an unexpectedly soft week with critics groups, Hamnet rebounded with 11 nominations, proving that major awards bodies remain firmly behind it. Focus Features also secured a Best Picture nomination for Bugonia, which received only three nominations overall. Jesse Plemons was surprisingly left out of Best Actor, even though his co-star Emma Stone broke through in the Best Actress field. Marty Supreme scored eight nominations, with Josh Safdie breaking into the Best Director lineup, although neither Gwyneth Paltrow nor Odetta A’Zion made it in Supporting Actress. Benny Safdie’s film, by contrast, managed to nab only a single nomination (Best Hair and Makeup).
The Critics Choice Awards have long carried an unfortunate reputation for overlooking international cinema, and this year’s nominations largely reinforced that pattern. Although Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value broke through with seven nominations, including Best Director, Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident was almost entirely shut out. Despite unanimous acclaim, strong momentum, and high visibility throughout the season, the film managed only a single nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. No Other Choice and The Secret Agent fared slightly better, each breaking outside the international category with one additional nomination. No Other Choice earned a spot in Best Adapted Screenplay for Park Chan-wook, while Wagner Moura secured a Best Actor nomination for The Secret Agent.
Among the year’s major blockbuster sequels, Wicked: For Good performed significantly better than Avatar: Fire & Ash. The former landed seven nominations, though it showed a few points of vulnerability by missing out on Best Actress for Cynthia Erivo and Best Director for Jon M. Chu, especially notable since Chu won the directing prize here last year. Avatar: Fire & Ash screened only a day before voting closed, so it was likely a victim of timing and wound up with just a single nomination for Best Visual Effects. Elsewhere in blockbuster filmmaking, F1 had a very strong showing with seven nominations, even if it ultimately fell short of cracking the Best Picture lineup.
LAFCA
The Los Angeles Film Critics Association announced their winners on December 7, and while LAFCA typically positions itself in contrast to the New York Film Critics Circle, this year proved to be a rare exception where LAFCA joined NYFCC and the National Board of Review shared the same top film of the year: One Battle After Another. Paul Thomas Anderson’s film is showing a level of dominance that makes it feel continuously unstoppable as the season progresses. The film’s strength extended beyond the top prize, with Anderson taking Best Director and Teyana Taylor earning her first major critics award for Best Supporting Performance, prevailing over her co-star Benicio del Toro who has been sweeping at the critics groups in this category. LAFCA also aligned with NYFCC in the Lead Performance category, awarding one of its two top prizes to Rose Byrne, who looks like she could pull off a clean sweep across the major critics groups for If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.
The second Lead Performance honor went to Ethan Hawke for Blue Moon, a distinctly New York–centric film that was surprisingly overlooked by NYFCC. Hawke has been highly visible on the press circuit in recent weeks, and the film has gained more momentum than initially expected, especially in nominations. In Supporting Performance, LAFCA’s other winner was Stellan Skarsgård for Sentimental Value, marking his first win of the season. Best Screenplay went to Jafar Panahi for It Was Just an Accident, which NYFCC awarded with the Best Director prize. Train Dreams picked up Best Cinematography for Adolpho Veloso, which is a particularly inspired choice and in line with the group’s love for naturalistic cinematography. Meanwhile, Best Editing went to Ronald Bronstein and Josh Safdie for Marty Supreme.
In the music category, Kangding Ray’s score for Sirāt was recognized with Best Music Score for his thumping EDM soundtrack, which is looking more and more likely for at least a shortlist mention at the Oscars. While Sinners got a runner-up mention in both score and cinematography, it managed to take home the win for Best Production Design. The Secret Agent took Best Foreign Language Film over some heavy-hitters like Sentimental Value and It Was Just An Accident. It also was the runner-up in the Best Film category. My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow continues its dominant win streak in the Best Documentary category, after also taking home that prize at the Gotham Awards and NYFCC
Best Animated Feature went in a different direction with Little Amélie or the Character of Rain taking home the award over K-Pop: Demon Hunters, which has been an absolute juggernaut thus far. Finally, the New Generation Award went to Eva Victor for Sorry, Baby, who is having a big week after also getting a Best Actress nomination at the Golden Globe Awards.
AFI
AFI has unveiled its annual list of the ten best films of the year, and as usual, it offers an early snapshot of what the eventual Best Picture lineup may look like. Historically, AFI overlaps heavily with the Oscars, so it’s likely that seven or even eight of these titles will ultimately land Best Picture nominations. Because AFI only recognizes American productions, foreign-language films were ineligible for the list, though It Was Just an Accident still received AFI’s annual Special Mention. Hamnet also managed to make the cut despite missing the National Board of Review and being a predominantly British production.
The rest of the lineup largely consists of expected heavy hitters, including One Battle After Another, Sinners, Marty Supreme, and Frankenstein. Both major blockbuster sequels: Avatar: Fire & Ash and Wicked: For Good, also earned spots on the list, even after somewhat shaky performances elsewhere so far this season.
Perhaps the most encouraging inclusion is Train Dreams, whose appearance gives it some much needed momentum. While it missed at the Golden Globes, the film has otherwise performed strongly with critics and groups, despite being a relatively small scale production compared to many of its competitors this year. Rounding out the list are more fringe contenders, notably Yorgos Lanthimos’s Bugonia and Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly, both of which remain on the periphery of the awards conversation but are clearly still in play.
Stay tuned to keithlovesmovies for the latest Awards Season news and analysis, leading up to the 98th Academy Awards on March 15th, 2026.
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