The Atlanta Film Critics Circle (AFCC) has announced the winners for its 7th annual awards celebrating the best films of 2023.
The big winner of the year is Christopher Nolan’s astounding biographical feature Oppenheimer, which won a staggering eight awards including Best Picture, Best Director (Christopher Nolan), Best Actor (Cillian Murphy), Best Supporting Actor (Robert Downey Jr.), Best Cinematography (Hoyte van Hoytema), Best Ensemble, Best Screenplay (Christopher Nolan), and Best Score (Ludwig Göransson). Based on the novel American Prometheus by Kai Bird, the film follows the life of physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and the invention of the atomic bomb, which would go on to change the world and society forever.
Other winners include Lily Gladstone, who took home both the Best Lead Actress award and AFCC Special Award for Best Breakthrough Performer for her performance in Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon. “Lily Gladstone, the AFCC’s choice for both Best Actress and Breakthrough Performer, is the heart and soul of Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon,” said AFCC member Curt Holman, film columnist for Creative Loafing. “As the film documents a murderous conspiracy striking the Osage nation in the 1920s, Gladstone infuses her character with dignity and a complicated emotional life that transcends potential clichés as a victim.” The film would fall at #2 on AFCC’s Top 10 Films of 2023, right behind Oppenheimer.
Celine Song’s Past Lives made a strong impression with Atlanta film critics as well, appearing at #4 in the Top 10 list. It also earned the AFCC Special Award for Best First Feature Film for Song’s directorial debut. And while Oppenheimer swept the majority of categories, a fitting tie in Best Supporting Actor between Robert Downey Jr. and Ryan Gosling for Barbie brought back memories of the “Barbenheimer” craze that took over July.
The full list of Atlanta Film Critics Circle 2023 Awards winners is below. Co-founded by longtime Atlanta film critics Felicia Feaster and Michael Clark in 2017, the Atlanta Film Critics Circle is an attempt to fill a void in the local film community, and in the representation of Atlanta’s media on the national stage. Composed of a dynamic mix of 34 Atlanta-based critics working in newspaper, magazine, and online journalism, the AFCC’s mission is to establish a national presence for a film critics group in Atlanta and to foster a vibrant film culture in Atlanta, already home to an exploding film industry production presence.
BEST FILM: Oppenheimer
TOP 10 FILMS (ranked from first place to tenth place)
1. Oppenheimer
2. Killers of the Flower Moon
3. The Holdovers
4. Past Lives
5. Barbie
6. May December
7. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
8. American Fiction
9. Anatomy of a Fall
10. Poor Things
BEST LEAD ACTOR:
Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer
BEST LEAD ACTRESS:
Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:
TIE – Robert Downey Jr., Oppenheimer; Ryan Gosling, Barbie
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:
Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers
BEST ENSEMBLE CAST:
Oppenheimer
BEST DIRECTOR:
Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
BEST SCREENPLAY:
Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
BEST DOCUMENTARY:
Still: A Michael J. Fox Story
BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE:
Anatomy of a Fall (France)
BEST ANIMATED FILM:
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY:
Hoyte van Hoytema, Oppenheimer
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE:
Ludwig Göransson, Oppenheimer
BEST STUNT WORK:
John Wick: Chapter 4
AFCC Special Award for BEST BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMER:
Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon
AFCC Special Award for BEST FIRST FEATURE FILM:
Celine Song, Past Lives
