“The First Cow” was named Best Film of 2020 by New York Film Critics

NEW YORK (AP) – The New York Film Critics Circle voted Kelly Reichardt’s Western Fable “The First Cow” the best film of 2020 on Friday, while honoring Spike Lee and art distributor Kino Lorber for their roles in a film year deeply affected by the pandemic.

Film critics, practically gathering, gave him the top prize for “The First Cow,” a delicate story about friendship and capitalism in the mid-1800s, Oregon.. Reichardt’s film, released in theaters in March just days before the release of COVID-19 forced cinemas to close nationwide, has not been widely seen, but remains one of the most popular films of the year. The Associated Press also named his film no. 1.

Critics also awarded co-stars “Borat Subsequent Movie Film” Maria Bakalova for Best Supporting Actress and Chadwick Boseman for Best Supporting Actor for her final performance in the August Wilson adaptation. “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” Boseman died in August.

The best actor went to Delroy Lindo for his portrayal of the Vietnam War veteran in Spike Lee’s “Yes Five Bloods.” The best actress was awarded to Sidney Flanigan, who plays a Pennsylvania teenager who travels to New York for an abortion in “Never Rarely Sometimes Always Always.” Eliza Hittman, who wrote and directed “Never Rarely Sometimes Always Always,” won Best Screenplay. Chloe Zhao, the director of the film “Nomadland”, took the best director.

Spike Lee released two features in 2020 – “Yes Five Bloods” and “David Byrne’s American Utopia” – but received a special award for a three-minute short film he launched on Instagram: “New York New York” a short documentary tribute to his hometown, made during the first wave of the pandemic.

The other special citation of the group went to Kino Lorber for the creation of the virtual cinema service Kino Marquee, which shares the revenues with independent theaters closed by COVID-19. Critics have made it clear that the honor is for a service “designed to support cinemas, not destroy them.”

The New York Film Critics Circle Awards are usually part of a wave of honors from critical groups that can occasionally influence the awards season. Such awards would usually be a drum beat at this time of year, but little is normal in terms of this year’s awards season.. Oscars and Golden Globes, along with many other awards, postponed by about two months.

Other NYFCC options include: “Time” for the best non-fiction film; “Bacurau” for best foreign language film; “Forty Years Version” for best first film; “Wolfwalkers” for best animated film; and the five-film anthology “Little Ax” for Best Cinematography.