“Drive My Car,” Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s intimate three-hour epic and Haruki Murakami’s short story adaption, was selected the finest film of the year by the New York Film Critics Circle on Friday.
Hamaguchi’s film, about a widowed actor played by Hidetoshi Nishijima, has received a lot of praise since its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, when it won best script. Japan’s submission to the Academy Awards is “Drive My Car,” which recently released in restricted theaters. It’s only the second time in the last four decades that a non-English-language film has won the critics’ prize. (Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma” from three years ago was the other.)
With three prizes, Jane Campion’s Montana gothic drama “The Power of the Dog” lead all films. Campion was named best director, Benedict Cumberbatch was named best actor, and Kodi Smit-McPhee was named best supporting actor.
The New York critics, as is customary, distribute the accolades among themselves. Lady Gaga won best actress for her portrayal of Patrizia Reggiani in Ridley Scott’s “House of Gucci.” Kathryn Hunter took home the award for her role as a ghostly witch in Joel Coen’s upcoming Shakespeare production “Macbeth: The Tragedy.” For his coming-of-age comedy “Licorice Pizza,” Paul Thomas Anderson won best script.
“The Mitchells vs. the Machines,” a robot apocalypse-family road trip comedy directed by Michael Rianda, awarded best animated picture. Janusz Kamisnki won best cinematography for Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story” reboot. “The Lost Daughter,” a Maggie Gyllenhaal adaptation of Elena Ferrante, won best first film. Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s animated refugee story “Flee” won best documentary. And Joachim Trier’s “The Worst Person in the World,” a film about youth and love in Oslo, Norway, took home the award for best foreign language film.
Maya Cade, for creating the Black Film Archive, an online archive of Black films from 1915 to 1979; the late Diane Weyermann, a film executive who helped produce social-issue documentaries like “An Inconvenient Truth” and “Citizenfour”; and Marshall Fine, film critic and general manager of the New York Film Critics Circle.
The New York Film Critics Circle, which was created in 1935, will present its 89th awards on Jan. 10. The organization chose Kelly Reichardt’s “First Cow” as their finest film last year. It had chosen Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman” the year before.