My Award Winners for 2016!

Here they be. Feel fee to share your own picks in the comments.

Best Picture: MOONLIGHT,

(Barry Jenkins, Adele Romanski, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner)

Runner-up: LA LA LAND,

(Damien Chazelle, Fred Berger, Gary Gilbert, Jordan Horowitz, Marc Platt)

Best Director: DAMIEN CHAZELLE, LA LA LAND

Runner-up: BARRY JENKINS, MOONLIGHT

Best Actor: CASEY AFFLECK, MANCHESTER BY THE SEA

Runner-up: VIGGO MORTENSEN, CAPTAIN FANTASTIC

Best Actress: HAILEE STEINFELD, THE EDGE OF SEVENTEEN

Runner-up: ANNETTE BENING, 20TH CENTURY WOMEN

Best Supporting Actor: MAHERSHALA ALI, MOONLIGHT

Runner-up: ALDEN EHRENREICH, HAIL, CAESAR!

Best Supporting Actor: NAOMIE HARRIS, MOONLIGHT

Runner-up: VIOLA DAVIS, FENCES

Best Ensemble: 20TH CENTURY WOMEN

Runner-up: MOONLIGHT

Best Original Screenplay: HELL OR HIGH WATER, (Taylor Sheridan)

Runner-up: 20TH CENTURY WOMEN, (Mike Mills)

Best Adapted Screenplay: ARRIVAL, (Eric Heisserer)

Runner-up: LOVE & FRIENDSHIP, (Whit Stillman)

Best Animated Feature: KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS,

(Travis Knight, Arianne Sutner)

Runner-up: ZOOTOPIA, (Rich Moore, Byron Howard, Clark Spencer)

Best Foreign Film: THE HANDMAIDEN, (Park Chan-wook, Lim Syd)

Runner-up: ELLE, (Paul Verhoeven, Saïd Ben Saïd, Michel Merkt)

Best Documentary: 13TH, (Ava DuVernay, Spencer Averick, Howard Barish)

Runner-up: WEINER, (Josh Kriegman, Elyse Steinberg)

Best Cinematography: LA LA LAND, (Linus Sandgren)

Runner-up: SILENCE, (Rodrigo Prieto)

Best Editing: ARRIVAL, (Joe Walker)

Runner-up: LA LA LAND, (Tom Cross)

Best Production Design: THE HANDMAIDEN, (Ryu Seong-hee)

Runner-up: HAIL, CAESAR!, (Joss Gonchor, Nancy Haigh, Dawn Swiderski)

Best Costume Design: ALLIED, (Joanna Johnston)

Runner-up: LIVE BY NIGHT, (Jacqueline West)

Best Original Score: LION, (Dustin O'Halloran, Hauschka)

Runner-up: JACKIE, (Mica Levi)

Best Adapted Score: LOVE & FRIENDSHIP, (Mark Suozzo)

Runner-up: TROLLS, (Justin Timberlake)

Best Original Song: "Audition" from LA LA LAND,

(Justin Hurwitz, Benj Pasek, Justin Paul)

Runner-up: "Drive It Like You Stole It" from SING STREET, (Gary Clark)

Best Sound Mixing: ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY,

(Christopher Scarabosio, David Parker, Stuart Wilson)

Runner-up: LION,
(Robert Mackenzie, Steve Burgess, Nakul Kamte, Andrew Ramage)

Best Sound Editing: ARRIVAL,
(Sylvain Bellemare, David Whitehead, Michelle Child)

Runner-up: DEEPWATER HORIZON, (Wylie Stateman, Renée Tondelli)

Best Visual Effects: KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS,

(Steve Emerson, Brad Schiff, Oliver Jones, Brian McLean)

Runner-up: THE JUNGLE BOOK,

(Rob Legatto, Adam Valdez, Dan Lemmon, Andrew R. Jones)

Best Makeup and Hair Styling: STAR TREK BEYOND,
(Joel Harlow, Khanh Trance, Richard Alonzo)

Runner-up: HACKSAW RIDGE, (Shane Thomas, Larry Van Duynhoven)

That makes three wins each for Moonlight, La La Land and Arrival, plus a pair apiece for Kubo and The Handmaiden.

Top Twenty Movies of 2016, Part 2 (#10-1)

And then there were ten. I've tried my best not to squawk about it too much over the course of the year, but I stand by the opinion that 2016 was not a vintage year for film. I do, however, think it may be the year wherein the importance of film (and our cultural sphere, in general) was clearer than ever.

Many might dismiss the pageantry of awards seasons and the minutia of 'Top Ten' lists as utterly frivolous in a year with so much noisy social and political unrest, with much larger (and disheartening) things happening outside the cinema bubble. But such tumultuous times are when we should cherish the movies even more.

The right movie at the right time can have tremendous power; It can soothe the vexed mind with magical escapism, it can educate by giving exposure to unseen people or issues, and it can provide connection to worlds we may never have known we could connect with. These ten movies do all that and then some. Congratulations to them, especially the top five, which represent my personal nominations for Best Picture of 2016.

One Category at a Time: Best Foreign Language Film

When the Academy changed its rules to allow the entire membership to vote on Best Foreign Language Film a few years ago, the process of predicting the winner has become somewhat streamlined. No more did pundits have to carefully assess each nominee for factors like subject matter and age appeal. All that needed to be rated was the film's critical hype and level of exposure, with reputation playing more than a trifling part. It's a bit of a shame, actually, because even though the winners from recent years have been a mostly respectable crop, nothing can top the now extinct satisfaction of pegging a surprise Best Foreign Language Film winner under the old system.

But this year we find ourselves in untested territory. How will the Academy respond to a roster from which the most critically revered imports of the year are missing? The Handmaiden wasn't even submitted by Korea and France's Elle failed to be saved by the branch's executive committee when deciding upon the nine semifinalists. These two subtitled phenoms were easily the most buzzed about in December, taking the bulk of regional critics prizes plus the Critics Choice and the Golden Globe respectively. Their absence creates a vacuum here.

So who wins?

One Category at a Time: Best Documentary

In the years since the Academy tweaked its rules to allow the entire voting membership to cast a ballot in this category, Best Documentary has gone from one of the trickiest calls to one of the easiest. Four years running now they've gone with the whichever nominee has received the most critical and guild attention. That trend will be put to the test this year as the title which fits that glove is a unique contender in the Oscar race.

My Award Nominations: Original Screenplay

The Academy's judgment that Moonlight and Loving be considered adaptations certainly thinned things out in this field (while I normally don't hold myself to taking Oscar's cues, it appears in both cases to be have been a reasonable decision), but on the plus side it freed me up to welcome a bubble contender or two into the fray. My five favourite Original Screenplays of the year are:

My Award Nominations: Animated Feature

I know, I know, only four nominees seems super lazy in a year which saw record submissions for the Oscar, but I promise if I eventually catch up with other 2016 toons that I like well enough I shall retroactively add them to the ballot.

My Award Nominations: Editing

All five of these movies that I've chalked up as having the Best Editing of the year all have one thing in common: Excellent pacing. And yet I'm fascinated at how incredibly diverse their tempos are, some finding rhythm in languid relaxation, others in frenetic montage. Check them out below.

My Award Nominations: Makeup and Hair

I'll be honest: There weren't a whole lot of makeup and hair jobs that really impressed me last year. Sure, there were plenty of films in which they played a key role, but nothing on the level with recent efforts that have won my personal prize. Nevertheless, these five movies feature transformative work good enough for a mention in Best Hair and Makeup (which I shall temporarily rename 'The Passion of Andrew Garfield Award'):

My Award Nominations: Costume Design

This might be 2016's strongest craft category if you ask me. So many projects positively dripping with sartorial taste, leaving us with an embarrassment of well-tailored riches. Choosing five Best Costume Design nominees was tough, but choosing a winner is going to be my biggest challenge.

My Award Nominations: Visual Effects

Tomorrow the VES will bestow a bunch of hardware on The Jungle Book (or so I presume), but there was a ton of other impressive work done out there worthy of Best Visual Effects consideration. And I have to hand it to the Academy's vfx branch too: This year, they got it exactly right.
Here are my top five:

My Award Nominations: Director

Tomorrow the DGA will bestow its yearly honours for the year's best direction in television and film. Barring some kind of earth-shaking upset, we can expect to see Damien Chazelle and Garth Davis take home prizes for Best Director and Best First-Time Director respectively. Best Documentary Direction is a bit more up in the air, but I'm betting it'll be Ezra Edelman for O.J.

My own ballot for Best Director follows:

My Award Nominations: Sound Mixing

Last week I gave the sound designers and editors their due, and today I look at those who best implemented their sounds into the acoustic machinery. As usual, there's often some overlap between my nominees for Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing (though not nearly as much overlap as the Academy's), so two movies are double-dipping as the best sounding film of the year for me. Find out which two they are, plus three other terrifically mixed projects after the jump.

My Award Nominations: Leading Actress

Yesterday I bit the bullet and committed to five nominees for Best Supporting Actress. Trying to do the same for the leading ladies was even more brutal. Forget five to ten Best Picture nominees... Let's apply that rule to Best Actress instead!

My Award Nominations: Supporting Actress

What a year for actresses in all roles, big or small. Even if you pulled Viola out and put her in an already crowded Best Actress race, you'd still have more than enough options to flesh out Best Supporting Actress. These are the five ladies I settled on, after much deliberation:

My Award Nominations: Cinematography

The best of 2016's photographic achievements basically came down to a six-horse race for me, and not so different from Oscar's final five. My 'just missed' selection still managed an Oscar nom, and I'm not complaining. I seriously considered allowing myself six Best Cinematography nominees this year, but rules are rules. My five finalists are:

My Award Nominations: Acting Ensemble

The Screen Actors Guild Awards are this weekend, and all eyes will be on the group's coveted Best Ensemble prize, as this is the biggest chance for Moonlight or Manchester (or possibly something else?) to gain momentum on La La Land, which of course is not up for this significant precursor. In light of that, I hereby announce my own preferences for the best acting rosters of 2016:

My Award Nominations: Sound Editing

Truth be told, there was only one film I saw (that is, heard) this year whose sound design is so embedded into the identity of the movie that it instantly became my defacto winner. That said, there were still plenty of other impressive aural accomplishments, so for now I'll let you guess which of these five Best Sound Editing showcases will take my esteemed prize:

My Awards: Adapted Screenplay

Competitive field this year, especially with previously assumed originals Moonlight and Loving being shifted (correctly, I believe) to the race for Best Adapted Screenplay. Here are the scribes who I feel did the best job at turning their non-cinematic source material into beautiful moving pictures:

My Award Nominations: Production Design

It'll be hard for the Academy's designers branch to come up with a bad nominee for Best Production Design this year, even if it doesn't match very closely with my own ballot (outlined after the cut). There's just so much good work out there.

My Award Nominations: Leading Actor

It wasn't as slim a year for Best Actor candidates as many pundits would have you believe. There were some sterling performances out there beyond Casey Affleck's slam dunk Oscar nod, if you knew were to look. Here are my five: