National Board of Review Names “Manchester By The Sea” Best Film, Barry Jenkins Best Director

After winning big at last night’s Gotham Awards, Moonlight picked up two more wins with the National Board of Review for director Barry Jenkins and Naomie Harris’ supporting performance.

The big winner here was Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester By The Sea, which won big in the Best Film, Actor, Original Screenplay and Breakthrough Performance (Male) categories. Other winners include Jeff Bridges from Hell or High Water in Supporting Actor (which remains an extremely wide-open race) and Amy Adams for her outstanding performance in Arrival. With the Actress race so extremely competitive, any sort of precursor award helps those contenders who are on the bubble for those fourth and fifth slots (Adams, Ruth Negga, Isabelle Huppert, Taraji P. Henson and Meryl Streep).

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Hidden Figures, which opens in limited release Christmas Day, grabbed the Best Ensemble Award, Kubo and the Two Strings won in Animated Feature and the largely unseen Silence won an Adapted Screenplay award.

The NBR is known for their sometimes out of left field choices; they’re famous for choosing to vote for what they like rather than consensus favorites. And while many of the films/performances they choose to honor do go on to at the very least be nominated for the Oscars, they don’t have the accuracy in being “predictive” that other non-industry groups like the Broadcast Film Critics do. So take these wins with a grain of salt as we start reading the tea leaves and hearing from more groups this weekend.

Read the full list of winners below.

Best Film: Manchester By The Sea

Best Director: Barry Jenkins, Moonlight

Best Actor: Casey Affleck, Manchester By The Sea

Best Actress: Amy Adams, Arrival

Best Supporting Actor: Jeff Bridges, Hell or High Water

Best Supporting Actress: Naomie Harris, Moonlight

Best Original Screenplay: Kenneth Longernan, Manchester By The Sea

Best Adapted Screenplay: Jay Cocks & Martin Scorsese, Silence 

Best Breakthrough Performance (Male): Lucas Hedges, Manchester By The Sea

Best Breakthrough Performance (Female): Royalty Hightower, The Fits

Best Directorial Debut: Trey Edward Shults, Krisha 

Best Foreign Language Film: The Salesman 

Best Documentary: O.J.: Made In America 

Best Ensemble: Hidden Figures

Spotlight Award: Creative Collaboration of Peter Berg & Mark Wahlberg

NBR Freedom of Expression Award: Cameraperson

Top Films

Arrival 

Hacksaw Ridge 

Hail, Caesar! 

Hidden Figures 

La La Land 

Moonlight 

Patriot’s Day

Silence 

Sully

Top 5 Foreign Language Films:

Elle 

The Handmaiden

Julietta 

Land of Mine

Neruda 

Top 5 Documentaries

De Palma

The Eagle Huntress

Gleason

Life, Animated

Miss Sharon Jones!

Top 10 Independent Films

20th Century Women

Captain Fantastic 

Creative Control 

Eye in the Sky

The Fits

Green Room

Hello, My Name Is Doris

Krisha 

Morris From America 

Sing Street

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