Oscars 2025: NYFCC Endorses ‘The Brutalist’ With NBR Waiting In the Wings

So the New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC) broke the 2025 Oscar awards season’s cherry and tapped The Brutalist as the best film of the year. Well, technically the Gotham Awards came first, but their correlation to the Oscars isn’t exactly a tight one.

NYFCC selecting The Brutalist isn’t exactly a shocking turn of events. In my mind, their Best Film award would either go to Brady Corbet’s epic or to RaMell Ross’s Nickel Boys. Many New York critics I know and follow loved and championed both films. Imagining them going in any other direction seemed illogical. And if anyone questioned its placement within Oscar’s Best Picture list, The Brutalist is all but cemented. Look at the trajectory of NYFCC’s Best Film winner when forecasting an eventual Oscar nomination over the last 10 years:

• 2023: Killers of the Flower Moon (Best Picture nominee)
• 2022: Tár (Best Picture nominee)
• 2021: Drive My Car (Best Picture nominee)
• 2020: First Cow
• 2019: The Irishman (Best Picture nominee)
• 2018: Roma (Best Picture nominee)
• 2017: Lady Bird (Best Picture nominee)
• 2016: La La Land (Best Picture nominee)
• 2015: Carol 
• 2014: Boyhood (Best Picture nominee)

Clearly, there’s a strong, although not infallible, correlation between the NYFCC’s Best Film and a Best Picture nominee. Not that we ever really had a doubt. The Brutalist is the kind of sprawling, prestige epic that, on the surface, feels like a very traditional Best Picture nominee. They also predictably gave Best Actor to Adrien Brody, solidifying his status in many minds as the next 2-time Academy Award winner. That’s entirely possible, of course, but I’m still holding out for Ralph Fiennes (0 Oscars) in the far more audience-friendly Conclave, which was never going to be a critics’ awards darling.

Perhaps more impactful is the NYFCC following Monday’s Gotham Awards in honoring RaMell Ross for his acclaimed Nickel Boys direction. It’s early days yet, but a narrative is starting to form that Ross could emerge as the “critics’ darling” director nod. We need more information, though, as the correlation between director at the NYFCC and the Oscars is more uneven than Best Picture. For every Jane Campion (The Power of the Dog) or Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer) or Chloé Zhao (Nomadland), there’s a Sean Baker (The Florida Project) or Todd Haynes (Carol) or Safdie Brothers (Uncut Gems) that are left off Oscar’s Best Director five. Ross would be a worthy nominee as, if you like Nickel Boys, then you’re going to love the scope and adventurous nature of his direction. We could see critics lining up behind him, giving Ross enough momentum to make the Best Director five.

In the other three major races, the NYFCC predictably chose Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Hard Truths) as Best Actress. I say “predictably” because they have a history rewarding Mike Leigh films in ways other critics’ groups do not. Although, I was slightly surprised they went that route and opted out of endorsing a Demi Moore campaign for The Subtance, a film they completely omitted. They did, however, solidify not only Kieran Culkin’s Oscar nomination for A Real Pain, but they may have started what I’ll call the inevitability train. We’ll see when other groups start weighing in. And they threw us a left-field curve ball by justly recognizing Carol Kane’s supporting performance for Between the Temples. This is actually the kind of move that we should see more of from critics’ awards. They absolutely should endorse quiet, under the radar, great performances that don’t have publicist or studio backing pushing them forward. Now, should we rewrite the Best Supporting Actress list because of this award? Likely not. They do have a history of recognizing at least one left-of-field performance that goes nowhere for the remainder of the season.

But good for Carol Kane. I’m sure she’s incredibly honored for the recognition.

Now, tomorrow, the real fun begins as the National Board of Review (NBR) drops their yearly nominations. How do you anticipate what to expect with this unruly bunch? Their Best Film choices have recently been more in line with Oscar’s eventual Best Picture nominees. We’ve certainly come a long way from the days of Quills, although looking back across multiple decades of their Best Film recipients, they have traditionally gone very populist. Yes, Quills was a random eccentric year. They’re given to have a few of those (A Most Violent Year, Da 5 Bloods), but they can absolutely kick-start the campaign for an eventual Best Picture nominee that was perhaps initially seen as an unlikely choice (Moulin Rouge!, Top Gun: Maverick, Mad Max: Fury Road).

So what do I think they’ll pick as Best Film this year?

For some reason, I have this impression that they’re a literary-leaning group, but that’s not really true. Maybe back in the 1990s and early 2000s it was when nearly every winner was based on some sort of adaptation. They aren’t beholden to any trend, recently, with the possible exception of a Scorsese obsession, rewarding Hugo, The Irishman, and Killers of the Flower Moon all within the last 13 years. They have a populist streak (Green Book, Mad Max: Fury Road, Top Gun: Maverick), but they can also support indie-leaning films (Licorice Pizza, Manchester By the Sea, Her).

So, what I’m essentially saying is that your guess is as good as mine. If they’re indie minded this year, then they’ll go for Anora. If they’re populist, then they’ll go for Conclave. If they want to upset the apple cart as they can do, then they’ll go for Wicked or Dune: Part Two. I’m making my best guess predictions below in the major categories just to laughably see how very wrong I am tomorrow afternoon after they announce.

Until then, you can find our latest 2025 Oscar predictions here. We’ll be updating next week following this week’s major announcements.

National Board of Review Predictions (Clarence’s Folly)

Best Film: Anora
Best Director: Brady Corbet, The Brutalist
Best Actor: Timothée Chalamet, A Complete Unknown
Best Actress: Angelina Jolie, Maria
Best Supporting Actor: Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain
Best Supporting Actress: Danielle Deadwyler, The Piano Lesson
Best Acting By An Ensemble: Conclave
Best Adapted Screenplay: Nickel Boys
Best Original Screenplay: A Real Pain