The Los Angeles Film Critics Association aka LAFCA gathered over the weekend to name their award winners for 2024. This year, they chose Palme d’Or winner Anora as Best Picture, with The Brutalist coming in as the runner-up. Anora fared quite well overall with LAFCA, also taking home Lead Performance for Mikey Madison and runner-up recognition for Sean Baker’s direction and screenplay.
Check out LAFCA’s winners below:
Best Picture: Anora
Runner-Up: The Brutalist
Best Director: Mohammad Rasoulof – The Seed of the Sacred Fig
Runner-Up: Sean Baker – Anora
Best Lead Performance: Marianne Jean-Baptiste – Truths / Mikey Madison – Anora
Runners-Up: Demi Moore – The Substance / Fernanda Torres – I’m Still Here
Best Supporting Performance: Yura Borisov – Anora / Kieran Culkin – A Real Pain
Runners-Up: Clarence Maclin – Sing Sing / Adam Pearson – A Different Man
Best Screenplay: A Real Pain – Jesse Eisenberg
Runner-Up: Anora – Sean Baker
Best Cinematography: Nickel Boys – Jomo Fray
Runner-Up: The Brutalist – Lol Crawley
Best Production Design: The Brutalist – Judy Becker
Runner-Up: Blitz – Adam Stockhausen
Best Editing: Nickel Boys – Nicholas Monsour
Runner-Up: September 5 – Hansjörg Weißbrich
Best Music Score: Challengers – Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross
Runner-Up: Evil Does Not Exist – Eiko Ishibashi
Best Film Not in the English Language: All We Imagine as Light
Runner-Up: The Seed of the Sacred Pig
Best Documentary/Non-Fiction Film: No Other Land
Runner-Up: Dahomey
Best Animation: Flow
Runner-Up: Chicken for Linda
In addition to these annual awards, LAFCA – which is comprised of approximately 60 members – also gave out honorary ones and special recognitions. For their New Generation Award, they went with Vera Drew’s The People’s Joker, while on the other side for Career Achievement they went with legendary genre director John Carpenter.
While LAFCA’s Best Picture winner rarely lines up with the actual Best Picture winner at the Academy Awards (it has only happened five times this century), Anora is in a good position to chalk up another match for LAFCA. Meanwhile, Keiran Culkin has been gaining traction for A Real Pain, while we’re all rooting for Demi Moore to land a much-deserved nomination for The Substance, which would be her first in a career that has spanned more than four decades.
Joining LAFCA with announcements this week will be the Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association, Chicago Film Critics Association, the New York Film Critics Online and more.
What do you think of this year’s LAFCA winners? Which do you see being major contenders at the Oscars?