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 reinterpretationWest 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 Maudtaking 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