Christopher Nolan wins director and Killers of the Flower Moon wins best film at the New York Film Critics Awards.

Martin Scorsese Killers of the Flower Moon has a great chance of winning an Oscar after the New York Film Critics Circle named the Western epic best film and named Lily Gladstone best actress.

With Paramount Pictures handling theatrical distribution, Apple Original Films is distributing the movie, which is the streaming service’s first NYFCC-approved acquisition.

The best picture winner at the Academy Awards has always been closely correlated with the NYFCC’s best film award. Just two films, Carol (2015) and First Cow (2020), have failed to secure a best picture nomination since the field was expanded to ten in 2009. In the latter’s lengthy history, it was the only movie to not receive even one Oscar nomination. The NYFCC and the Academy have matched 43 percent of the time since 1935.

Having won two top honors from the NYFCC in 1990 and 2019 with Goodfellas and The Irishman, Scorsese now holds three. His accomplishment puts him in the elite group of directors; the only other directors to have won three best picture awards before are Fred Zinnemann and William Wyler. Gladstone won the Gotham Award for best lead performance in the independent film , The Unknown Country, and then went on to win the first major critics award for her depiction of Mollie Burkhart in Killers.

Gladstone’s choice to run in the lead actress race, defying previous rumors that she would prefer supporting actress. Similar issues were raised by Michelle Williams’s The Fogelman’s marketing change from the previous year. But Gladstone appears to have allayed any worries (for the time being), despite early arguments about whether her candidacy for best actress should go with supporting instead of best actress.

Supporting candidate Da’Vante Joy Randolph, who won praise for her outstanding portrayal of Mary Lamb, a cafeteria worker grieving the death of her son, was significantly impacted by this decision. She won the supporting actress medal for her performance in the Focus Features comedy, possibly indicating that she may be a strong competitor for future honors alongside Emily Blunt, star of Oppenheimer.

Notable omissions and shutouts include Bradley Cooper’s Maestro, a writer, director, producer, and star on Netflix, which did not receive a single mention. Greta Greig’s Barbie, Oppenheimer’s summer rival, also left empty-handed.