Oscars 2020: BFCA Nominations
And it’s BFCA day. Which means that, for the acting categories, we now have 3/4 of all the major precursor help we’re gonna get (and partially the fourth, since BAFTA released longlists for all the categories). So, if one were so inclined (which I am definitely not), you could start lobbing category predictions a month early. But anyone who reads this site knows I’m not inclined to spurious speculation before it’s time to make guesses and abhor clickbait articles, so go somewhere else for that nonsense.
The importance these nominations to me is twofold: BFCA is usually a broad smorgasbord for everything that’s roundly in contention and usually is a catch-all that helps uncover some of the ‘false’ nominees that come from elsewhere. And also, this is our first look at what some of the tech categories might look like. Since guilds won’t start announcing nominations until at least a week from now. So this is where things start to take shape in a nice way.
The one thing you have to keep in mind, though — these are critics. They’re going to hit a lot of populist narratives are both something to listen to (because you do get to see some of the broad ‘narratives’ that will be taking place and do influence some of the voting, because publicity departments use that to get people to vote certain ways) and also ignore, because, again… critics. So, helpful, but grain of salt.
Here are your 2020 Critics Choice nominees: (more…)
Oscars 2019: BFCA Awards
BFCA announced their awards tonight. I spent the whole day writing up my Nominations Ballot, so I’ve paid zero attention to this. Fortunately, though, the night before nominations, we get some precursor winners, which already has helped sway me in at least one category, and that was just me glancing at stuff. So let’s go down all the categories and see if the winners help change my opinion on stuff or further solidify how I feel about nominees / what’s probably going to win.
Here are your BFCA winners: (more…)
Oscars 2019: BFCA Nominations
The Critics Choice Award nominations were announced today. Somehow I thought they were mid-week, but I’ll take them now. I wonder if they wanted to get a jump on the Golden Globes, which are getting announced tomorrow. BFCA is usually the first to announce winners and always sort of sets the pace for everything else, even if the others feel slightly more important, results-wise. Either way, I’m happy to see them.
This is our first step to Oscar season. After tomorrow, we’re gonna basically have half the puzzle. After tomorrow, we’re just waiting on each of the individual guilds (which includes SAG and PGA) and BAFTA. But, today we’ve got the critics, so let’s see what they nominated.
Here are your 2019 Critics Choice nominees: (more…)
Oscars 2018: BFCA (Critics Choice) Awards
The Critics Choice Awards were tonight.
They don’t mean a whole lot to me now, since I’m in the middle of figuring out what’ll get nominated for the Oscars. Sure, this helps a little bit, but winners really only matter after we get nominees. So some of it will factor into my decision-making, but I suspect a lot of this will confirm what I already suspected to be the prevailing winds.
Generally what I’m looking for here is to see if some things win that I think may potentially be left off the Oscar list, which could help shore up a nomination (at least spiritually). Otherwise, I expect this all to be confirmation bias.
Here are your Critics Choice winners: (more…)
Oscars 2018: BFCA (Critics Choice) Nominations
Critics Choice time.
After the Globes, which pretty much told me this is a wide open race, BFCA is here to give us a little more clarity. They’re generally pretty populist, but do tend to hit a good deal more than not. They feel like they get most of the Best Picture nominees a lot of the time, and they always have six-to-seven acting nominees in a category, which gives us the broad lay of the land.
Usually a fair amount of where the Academy is going is laid out on this table, and it’s just a matter of which ones are gonna end up being extraneous. So I’m interested to see what they’ve done.
Here are your Critics Choice nominees for 2018: (more…)
Oscars 2017: BFCA (Critics Choice) Awards
The Critics Choice Awards were last Thursday night. Gonna be honest, I had more important shit to do, so I paid no attention to them whatsoever. (I’m nothing if not up front about stuff.) My way of thinking about it is, you come here for the quality* (*rambling) than the news. So I haven’t been able to look at any of this until now.
BFCA is generally helpful in figuring out how things are gonna go. Oftentimes when something ‘surprising’ happens at the Oscars that seem to not have been prefaced by the major precursors, chances are BFCA had it. I like them. They have way too many categories, but I generally like looking at them. They are a bit more mainstream than the Academy, but they definitely are a good weather vane to see which way the winds are blowing.
So, without further ado (and because I really only know like, three winners on this whole list and I wanna know who won), here are the winners: (more…)
Oscars 2017: BFCA (Critics Choice) Nominations
We have our Critics Choice nominations. My general perception of them is — I usually like hearing their opinion, there are far too many categories, and they’re generally fairly helpful in seeing how the Oscars are gonna turn out. They always announce early, so they become the de facto signpost of where things are headed, more so than the Golden Globes, who are gonna announce next week.
Generally, BFCA gets most, if not all of the Best Picture nominees on their list. Last year, all they missed was Hidden Figures and had the rest. Typically they only miss one, if that. Which is pretty cool, especially since in recent years the Oscars have generally had solid taste.
Anyway, let’s get into it. The Critics Choice nominations for 2017: (more…)
Oscars 2016: BFCA Awards
The Critics Choice Awards were tonight. This is our first look at what the major awards are gonna look like.
The winner of BFCA’s Best Picture has gone on to win Best Picture at the Oscars 8 out of the past 10 years. Same for Best Actor. 8 out of 10. Best Actress is 6 out of 10 (with a technicality). Supporting Actor is 7 out of 10. Supporting Actress is 8 out of 10 (with a technicality). Best Director is 6 out of 10.
The point is — you should listen to them when they vote for something. We have to take this alongside the rest of the precursors, but for now, this will be interesting to use as a measuring stick to set the pace.
Here are your winners for the 2016 Critics Choice Awards: (more…)
Oscars 2016: BFCA Nominations
The Critics Choice nominations were announced today, and this is one of the big four signposts for how the Oscars will turn out. So this is exciting. Something relatively real I can look at until the Golden Globe nominations come out in two weeks.
For quick reference, last year all eight Best Picture nominees were nominated by BFCA. 2014, 7 of 8. 2013, 8 of 9. 2012, 8 of 9. 2011, 9 of 9. Get my point? These are the movies you’re gonna see all season long, so start getting used to it.
Here are your BFCA nominations for 2016: (more…)
Oscars 2015: 21st BFCA Critics Choice Awards
The BFCA announced their winners last night. They like to announce just after Oscar nominations are out.
They don’t always match 100% with the Oscars, but they usually are a good prognosticator of one of two things: the film that is going to win Best Picture, or the film that everyone thinks should win Best Picture.
Otherwise there are a lot of awards, and they tend to be pretty populist throughout.
Here are your BFCA winners for 2015: (more…)
Oscars 2015: Critics Choice Nominations
The BFCA announced their nominations today, and I’m really interested to see which way they go. They’re quietly one of the more helpful precursors out there.
They tend to also be somewhat populist, but you can see when they are. And you can also get a sense of what the sneaky contenders are going to be (or if there are going to be any. It’s hard to tell this year).
It’s very early in the game, so I’m curious to see how much their nominees fit with what seems to be the same group of films that are out there.
Here are your BFCA nominations for 2015: (more…)
Oscars 2014: BFCA Awards
The Critics Choice Awards were last night. Typically they’re a fairly good barometer for what’s going to win at the Oscars. You have to view it all in context, but they are very helpful.
Interesting that they waited to have the ceremony until the day Oscar nominations were announced, as if to plant the flag of, “We’re gonna be the one that sets the tone for the rest of the season.”
Anyway, here are your BFCA Award winners: (more…)
Oscars 2014: BFCA (Critics Choice) Nominations
The Critics Choice nominations are out. At first glance, these don’t sound like anything important, but they’ve proven to be a sneaky relevant awards show. Actually more so than the Golden Globes.
Sometimes they’re populist, but overall, you can really see where the tastes lie, and you can sometimes pick up on what the sneaky choices are all around. I’ll get into it it as we go along.
Here are the 2014 Critics Choice nominations.
(more…)
Oscars 2013 Update: BFCA Awards
The Broadcast Film Critics Association announced their awards last night.
I don’t even think I wrote up the nominations this year. Not sure how I missed that one.
I also didn’t write these winners up immediately because I just discovered the show Orphan Black. So I guess we can say some good actually did come out of the Golden Globes.
Anyway, here are the BFCA winners. I’ll try to go over if they mean anything or not: (more…)
Oscars 2013 Update: Critics Choice Nominations
The Broadcast Film Critics Society have announced their nominations.
Most people will tell you that this is the most accurate depiction of what the best films and performances are, since the BFCS seems to hit that perfect sweet spot between critical acclaim and general objectiveness. That is to say — you’d find yourself hard-pressed to disagree with a lot of their choices. Even if you disliked certain films, very rarely will they throw something on their list for the sake of it being something that seemed like it belonged there (looking at you, The Butler…). And, I’m pretty sure, they’re also a pretty good predictor for what’ll actually happen at the Oscars.
So, without much ado, let’s get into their nominations: (more…)
Oscars 2012 Update: BFC (Broadcast Film Critics Association) Awards
The BFCA Awards (aka Critic’s Choice Awards) were last night. This is quietly one of the best groups at predicting the Oscars. We’ll get into that specifically with each of the individual categories, but for now – it is.
So they were announced last night, and already we have some insight as to what’s gonna happen on Oscar night.
My guess is nobody really paid any attention to these awards, since they’re not very high profile, and I don’t think people are really onto these as a major Oscar prognosticator, so I’m gonna remind you of the nominees before I tell you what won, since I know you forgot them on top of all that other stuff.
Here are the winners of the 2012 BFCA Awards: (more…)
Oscars 2012 Update: BFCA Nominations
The Critics’ Choice Awards nominations came out the other day, and were pretty much overshadowed by the SAG nominations and the Golden Globes. But actually, I think these are even more accurate in gauging the Oscars than all those other ones are. Since SAG is really only helpful in gauging the acting ones, and BAFTA is helpful in solidifying acting nominations and maybe guessing a surprise nominee here or there, and the Globes are somewhat helpful, but up to a certain point. They tend to miss films all the time. There’s always a big film or two that hit at the Oscars and miss the Globes entirely. These, though — well, we’ll get to them in a second.
The Broadcast Film Critics Association is a group of about 250 TV, radio and online critics. And, as I’m gonna point out in a second — not only are they really helpful in gauging what’s gonna get nominated for Oscars, but the stuff that isn’t nominated for Oscars that’s on their lists of nominees — it’s often stuff that most people think should have been nominated for Oscars. It’s incredible.
Mostly it comes down to them getting all the stuff that’s either in the conversation or universally regarded nominated. They manage to strike a fine line between all the “Oscar” stuff and the stuff most moviegoers would like as well. That’s really the key to their success. They’re not necessarily stuck up on all the “classy” shit. They legitimately go for good stuff. (more…)
Oscars 2011 Update: BFCA Awards
The Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards were handed out tonight. Before I get into what won and what didn’t, let’s just take a moment to talk about how scarily accurate the BFCA is in predicting what will win the Oscar in most categories.
Last year, the BFCA coincided with the Oscars in 12 categories (13 if you split the one BFCA sound category into the two Oscar categories). Certain misses have to do with what was and what wasn’t nominated. The only real differences were in Best Picture & Best Director (BFCA gave it to The Social Network), Best Art Direction (they gave it to Inception), Best Editing (they went Inception) and Best Song (they went 127 Hours). Other than that, the misses were Makeup, which was much different from the Oscars category, and Foreign Language film and Documentary, both of which were also very different.
In 2009, they missed both screenplay categories (going with Tarantino and Reitman for Basterds and Up in the Air, when Hurt Locker and Precious won the Oscars), and Editing (Avatar over Hurt Locker), Sound (Avatar over Hurt Locker). Makeup was again wholly different.
In 2008, they missed Actress (since they gave it to Kate for The Reader in Supporting), Supporting Actress (obviously) and Song (since they rightfully gave it to Springsteen).
Notice anything about all the differences? Almost all the things that were different were relative surprises come Oscar night. (more…)
