“Moonlight” has been named the best picture of the year by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. Damien Chazelle’s “La La Land” was counted as a runner-up.
Korea’s “The Handmaiden,” from director Park Chan Wook took best foreign language film.
Votes were counted and shared to Twitter on Sunday, which saw Adam Driver take best best actor of 2016 for his role in Jim Jarmusch’s “Paterson.” Casey Affleck was runner-up for his performance in “Manchester by the Sea,” for which he is considered an Oscar frontrunner.
Isabelle Huppert was named best actress for her performances in “Elle” and “Things to Come,” with Rebecca Hall the runner-up for “Christine.”
Mahershala Ali from “Moonlight” and Lily Gladstone from “Certain Women” won the supporting actor and actress awards.
Barry Jenkins won the best director award for “Moonlight,” with Damien Chazelle the runner-up for “La La Land.”
“Moonlight” also won for its cinematography by James Laxton, while composer Justin Hurwitz and lyricists Benj Pasek and Justin Paul won for their music in “La La Land.”
“The Handmaiden” was also honored for its production design, while LAFCA was adventurous in its pick for editing, opting for ESPN’s “O.J.: Made in America,” which had a brief qualifying run as a seven-and-a-half-hour theatrical movie before airing on the network’s “30 for 30” in miniseries form.
“O.J.: Made in America” finished as the runner-up in the documentary/non-fiction category, losing to another movie that focuses on race in America, Raoul Peck’s “I Am Not Your Negro.”
In the animated-feature category, the Japanese film “Your Name” was a surprising winner over “Zootopia” and “Kubo and the Two Strings,” with another small film, “The Red Turtle,” finishing second.
Particularly in the acting categories, the LAFCA is known to make more idiosyncratic choices than most awards bodies, and the selection of Gladstone from Kelly Reichardt’s little-seen “Certain Women” is the latest example of that tendency. The supporting actress runner up was Michelle Williams, an Oscar favorite for “Manchester by the Sea”; Williams is also in “Certain Women,” as the New York Film Critics Circle noted when they gave her the supporting prize earlier in the week.
In a number of other categories, the critics also gave the runner-up prize to a presumed Oscar favorite, and then went with an artier film for the top prize: Driver over Affleck for actor, “The Lobster” over “Manchester by the Sea” for screenplay, “O.J.” over “La La Land” for editing, “The Handmaiden” over “La La Land” for production design.
The LAFCA best film winner has gone on to win the Oscar for Best Picture only twice in the last 20 years, though one of those was last year with “Spotlight.” (The other was “The Hurt Locker” in 2009.) Other recent winners include “Boyhood,” “Amour,” “The Descendants,” “The Social Network” and “WALL-E.”
But despite the lack of overlap in the top category, about a half-dozen of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association winners typically go on to win the Oscar in other categories.
The LAFCA previously voted a Career Achievement Award to Shirley MacLaine. All the awards will be handed out at the LAFCA’s annual awards dinner on Jan. 14, 2017.
The winners:
Best Film: “Moonlight”
Runner-up: “La La Land”
Best Foreign Language Film: “The Handmaiden”
Best Director: Barry Jenkins, “Moonlight”
Runner-up: Damien Chazelle, “La La Land”
Best Actor: Adam Driver, “Paterson”
Runner-up: Casey Affleck, “Manchester by the Sea”
Best Actress: Isabelle Huppert, “Elle” and “Things to Come”
Runner-up: Rebecca Hall, “Christine”
Best Supporting Actor: Mahershala Ali, “Moonlight”
Runner-up: Issey Ogata, “Silence”
Best Supporting Actress: Lily Gladstone, “Certain Women”
Runner-up: Michelle Williams, “Manchester by the Sea”
Best Documentary: “I Am Not Your Negro”
Runner-up: “O.J.: Made in America”
Best Animated Film: “Your Name”
Runner-up: “The Red Turtle”
Best Foreign Language Film:
Runner-up:
Best Screenplay: Efthymis Filippou and Yorgos Lanthimos, “The Lobster”
Runner-up: Kenneth Lonergan, “Manchester by the Sea”
Best Cinematography: James Laxton, “Moonlight”
Runner-up: Linus Sandgren, “La La Land”
Best Editing: Ben Granato, Maya Mumma, Ben Sozanski, “O.J.: Made in America”
Runner-up: David Wasco, “La La Land”
Best Music/Score: Justin Hurwitz, Benj Pasek, Justin Paul, “La La Land”
Runner-up: Mica Levi, “Jackie”
Best Production Design: Ryu Seong-hee, “The Handmaiden”
Runner-up: David Wasco, “La La Land”