The winners for the 19th Annual OFTA Film Awards have been announced.
The Online Film & Television Association has selected Birdman as 2014’s best film. In addition, it was presented five other prizes. Alejandros Gonzalez Inarritu’s single-take-simulated film follows the story of a washed-up actor, star of a huge superhero franchise, looking to rediscover his artistic roots by adapting a play on Broadway. The film was also honored for Best Actor (Michael Keaton), Best Ensemble, Best Casting, Best Original Score and Best Cinematography. Richard Linklater received the award for Boyhood. Filmed over a 12-year period, the film chronicled the coming of age of a young boy in a broken family. Linklater’s film received a total of four awards including the Best Director trophy.
Boyhood also received awards for Best Supporting Actress (Patricia Arquette), Best Youth Performance (Ellar Coltrane) and Best Film Editing. Guardians of the Galaxy tied for first place in overall awards with six, winning for Best Breakthrough Performance: Male (Chris Pratt), Best Voice-Over Performance (Bradley Cooper), Best Makeup and Hair, Best Sound Effects, Best Visual Effects and Best Stunt Coordination.
Warner Bros. Animation won the Best Animated Feature award for The Lego Movie, which also won the awards for Best Original Song and Best Titles Sequence. Best Actress was awarded to Julianne Moore for Still Alice playing a woman diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and her slow decay. This marks Julianne Moore’s fourth award from the OFTA putting her in a tie with Cate Blanchett as the most honored actor in the organizations history. J.K. Simmons won the Best Supporting Actor prize for Whiplash and Carrie Coon took the award for Best Breakthrough Performance: Female.
Citizenfour was named Best Documentary Feature of the year while Sweden’s Force Majeure won the award for Best Foreign Language Film.
For the full list of winners, go here.
Hall of Fame
In addition to awarding the best films of the past year, the members of the Online Film & Television Association annually select ten films, four actors, three creative talents and three other technicians to be inducted into their Hall of Fame. These recipients are judged based on their historical and cultural significance as well as their quality of achievement. Below are this year’s recipients:
Films
- Bambi (1942)
- Cinema Paradiso (1988)
- Dead Poets Society (1989)
- Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
- Fargo (1996)
- Finding Nemo (2003)
- The Lion King (1994)
- The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
- Platoon (1986)
- Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Acting
- Judi Dench (1934-)
- Robert Duvall (1931-)
- Jodie Foster (1962-)
- Tom Hanks (1956-)
Creative
- Cecil B. DeMille (1881-1959)
- George Stevens (1904-1975)
- Oliver Stone (1946-)
Other Technicians
- Erich Wolfgang Korngold (Music) (1897-1957)
- Ernest Laszlo (Cinematography) (1898-1984)
- Gene Siskel (Cricitism) (1946-1999)
Best batch of nominations/winners out of all other organizations this awards season. I still think Whiplash was a bit left out (particularly in the editing and sound fields), and Under the Skin deserved to be mentioned in at least one category, but otherwise a lot of recognition for some of the best movies of the year (a year for great movies too!).
Also forgot to mention Obvious Child, which I sincerely believe deserved to be at least mentioned in both the feature debut and breakthrough female performance categories. But again, that’s just my two cents. All in all I’m pleasantly surprised I saw so eye-to-eye with your voters.