Female directors lead the way with Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daughter and Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir Part II close behind in the nomination count

The UK’s leading film critics have unveiled the nominations for the 42nd annual London Critics’ Circle Film Awards, with three films from female filmmakers coming out on top. Leading the field is veteran director Jane Campion’s psychological western The Power of the Dog, which scored nine nominations. Next, with six and five nominations respectively, are first-time director Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Elena Ferrante adaptation The Lost Daughter and British auteur Joanna Hogg’s cine-memoir The Souvenir Part II.

More than 180 critics across print, online and broadcast media voted for this year’s nominations, which were announced by British actors Joanna Vanderham and Gwilym Lee this afternoon at London’s May Fair Hotel. The May Fair will also host the Circle’s awards ceremony, where the winners will be announced on 6th February 2022.

After winning the Circle’s Film of the Year award 28 years ago for The Piano, Campion is up for Film, Director and Screenwriter of the Year, while her film’s stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Kodi Smit-McPhee and Jesse Plemons are all nominated. Hogg is another returning winner, having taken the British/Irish Film of the Year prize for the first part of The Souvenir two years ago.

Joining them and The Lost Daughter in a wide-ranging Film of the Year field are Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s complex character study Drive My Car, Kenneth Branagh’s autobiographical drama Belfast and Steven Spielberg’s musical reinterpretation West Side Story, which scored four nominations apiece, as well as Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi epic Dune, Paul Thomas Anderson’s coming-of-age tale Licorice Pizza, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s meditative Memoria and Julia Ducournau’s body-horror explosion Titane.

Actors with multiple nominations include Cumberbatch, Ruth Negga, Joanna Scanlan, Andrew Garfield and The Lost Daughter stars Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley — all cited in both the general and British/Irish acting races. Japanese writer-director Hamaguchi, meanwhile, is the year’s most-nominated individual, contending for Film, Director, Screenwriter and Foreign Language Film of the Year.

"Even though cinemas were closed for half of this year, our members were always watching films," says Rich Cline, chair of the Critics' Circle Film Section. "On the nominations ballots, voters named 204 feature films, with 51 of them making it onto the shortlists. Because our members see so many movies, our nominations tend to look a bit different from other groups, finding a diverse selection of worthy talent in studio blockbusters as well as low-budget indies."

Last year’s virtual Critics’ Circle Film Awards ceremony was also dominated by female filmmakers, with Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland and Rose Glass’ Saint Maud taking three awards apiece, including Film of the Year and British/Irish Film of the Year respectively.

 

The full list of nominees for the 42nd London Critics’ Circle Film Awards:

FILM OF THE YEAR

Belfast

Drive My Car

Dune

Licorice Pizza

The Lost Daughter

Memoria

The Power of the Dog

The Souvenir Part II

Titane

West Side Story

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM OF THE YEAR

Drive My Car

The Hand of God

Petite Maman

Titane

The Worst Person in the World

DOCUMENTARY OF THE YEAR

Flee

Gunda

The Most Beautiful Boy in the World

Summer of Soul

The Velvet Underground

The Attenborough Award

BRITISH/IRISH FILM OF THE YEAR

After Love

Belfast

The Green Knight

Limbo

The Souvenir Part II

DIRECTOR OF THE YEAR

Jane Campion - The Power of the Dog

Ryûsuke Hamaguchi - Drive My Car

Joanna Hogg - The Souvenir Part II

Céline Sciamma - Petite Maman

Denis Villeneuve - Dune

SCREENWRITER OF THE YEAR

Paul Thomas Anderson - Licorice Pizza

Wes Anderson - The French Dispatch

Jane Campion - The Power of the Dog

Maggie Gyllenhaal - The Lost Daughter

Ryûsuke Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe - Drive My Car

ACTRESS OF THE YEAR

Olivia Colman - The Lost Daughter

Penélope Cruz - Parallel Mothers

Renate Reinsve - The Worst Person in the World

Joanna Scanlan - After Love

Kristen Stewart - Spencer

ACTOR OF THE YEAR

Benedict Cumberbatch - The Power of the Dog

Adam Driver - Annette

Andrew Garfield - Tick, Tick... Boom!

Oscar Isaac - The Card Counter

Daniel Kaluuya - Judas and the Black Messiah

SUPPORTING ACTRESS OF THE YEAR

Jessie Buckley - The Lost Daughter

Ariana DeBose - West Side Story

Kirsten Dunst - The Power of the Dog

Rita Moreno - West Side Story

Ruth Negga - Passing

SUPPORTING ACTOR OF THE YEAR

Richard Ayoade - The Souvenir Part II

Ciarán Hinds - Belfast

Jesse Plemons - The Power of the Dog

Kodi Smit-McPhee - The Power of the Dog

Jeffrey Wright - The French Dispatch

BRITISH/IRISH ACTRESS OF THE YEAR (for body of work)

Jessie Buckley - The Lost Daughter

Olivia Colman - The Lost Daughter/Mothering Sunday/Ron’s Gone Wrong/

The Mitchells vs The Machines/The Electrical Life of Louis Wain

Ruth Negga - Passing/Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché

Joanna Scanlan - After Love

Tilda Swinton - Memoria/The Souvenir Part II/The French Dispatch

BRITISH/IRISH ACTOR OF THE YEAR (for body of work)

Riz Ahmed - Encounter

Adeel Akhtar - Ali & Ava/The Nest/The Electrical Life of Louis Wain/

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie

Benedict Cumberbatch - The Power of the Dog/

The Electrical Life of Louis Wain/The Courier

Andrew Garfield - Tick, Tick... Boom!/The Eyes of Tammy Faye/Mainstream

Stephen Graham - Boiling Point/Venom: Let There Be Carnage

The Philip French Award

BREAKTHROUGH BRITISH/IRISH FILMMAKER

Prano Bailey-Bond - Censor

Rebecca Hall - Passing

Aleem Khan - After Love

Marley Morrison - Sweetheart

Ben Sharrock - Limbo

YOUNG BRITISH/IRISH PERFORMER

Max Harwood - Everybody’s Talking About Jamie

Jude Hill - Belfast

Emilia Jones - Coda

Daniel Lamont - Nowhere Special

Woody Norman - C'mon C'mon

BRITISH/IRISH SHORT FILM

Diseased and Disorderly - dir. Andrew Kotting

Expensive Shit - dir. Adura Onashile

Know the Grass - dir. Sophie Littman

Play It Safe - dir. Mitch Kalisa

Precious Hair & Beauty - dir. John Ogunmuyiwa

TECHNICAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

Cruella - Jenny Beavan, costumes

Dune - Paul Lambert, Tristan Myles, Brian Connor and Gerd Nefzer, visual effects

Flee - Kenneth Ladekjær, animation

The French Dispatch - Adam Stockhausen, production design

The Green Knight - Andrew Droz Palermo, cinematography

The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmão - Hélène Louvart, cinematography

Martin Eden - Fabrizio Federico and Aline Hervé, film editing

No Time to Die - Olivier Schneider, stunts

The Power of the Dog - Jonny Greenwood, music

West Side Story - Justin Peck, choreography

 

NOMINATIONS BY FILM:

9: The Power of the Dog (Netflix)

6: The Lost Daughter (Netflix)

5: The Souvenir Part II (Picturehouse)

4:

After Love (BFI)

Belfast (Universal)

Drive My Car (Modern)

The French Dispatch (Searchlight)

West Side Story (20th Century)

3:

Dune (Warners)

The Electrical Life of Louis Wain (StudioCanal)

Passing (Netflix)

2:

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie (Amazon)

Flee (Curzon)

The Green Knight (Entertainment)

Licorice Pizza (Universal)

Limbo (Mubi)

Memoria (Sovereign)

Petite Maman (Mubi)

Tick, Tick… Boom! (Netflix)

Titane (Altitude)

The Worst Person in the World (Mubi)

1:

Ali & Ava (Altitude)

Annette (Mubi)

Boiling Point (Vertigo)

The Card Counter (Universal)

Censor (Vertigo)

C'mon C'mon (Entertainment)

Coda (Apple)

The Courier (Lionsgate)

Cruella (Disney)

Encounter (Amazon)

The Eyes of Tammy Faye (Searchlight)

Gunda (Altitude)

The Hand of God (Netflix)

The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmão (New Wave)

Mainstream (Universal)

Martin Eden (New Wave)

The Mitchells vs The Machines (Netflix)

The Most Beautiful Boy in the World (Dogwoof)

Mothering Sunday (Lionsgate)

The Nest (Picturehouse)

No Time to Die (Universal)

Nowhere Special (Curzon)

Parallel Mothers (Pathe)

Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliche (Modern)

Ron’s Gone Wrong (20th Century)

Spencer (STX)

Summer of Soul (Searchlight)

Sweetheart (Peccadillo)

The Velvet Underground (Apple)

Venom: Let There Be Carnage (Sony)

 

About The Critics' Circle:

Established in 1913, the Critics' Circle is the oldest organisation of its kind in the world, with more than 400 members who work in the UK media as critics of art and architecture, books, dance, drama, film, and music. Chaired by Rich Cline, the Film Section membership is made up of more than 160 UK film critics, broadcasters, and writers, including the BBC's Mark Kermode, Metro's Larushka Ivan-Zadeh, and Guardian critic Peter Bradshaw, and has presented its awards annually since 1980. www.criticscircle.org.uk

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