2021 National Society of Film Critics Awards

File:Ryusuke Hamaguchi (HKAFF2018) (cropped).png, Best Director winner and Best Screenplay co-winner]]

File:Nishijima Hidetoshi from "The House Where the Mermaid Sleeps" World Premiere Red Carpet of the Tokyo International Film Festival 2018 (45632820412).jpg, Best Actor winner]]

File:Premios Goya 2018 - Penélope Cruz.jpg, Best Actress winner]]

File:Ruth Negga (35373089553) (cropped).jpg, Best Supporting Actress winner]]

Winners are listed in boldface along with the runner-up positions and counts from the final round:

1. Drive My Car (48)
2. Petite Maman (25)
3. The Power of the Dog (23)

1. Ryusuke Hamaguchi – Drive My Car and Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (46)
2. Jane Campion – The Power of the Dog (36)
3. Céline Sciamma – Petite Maman (28)

1. Hidetoshi Nishijima – Drive My Car (63)
2. Benedict Cumberbatch – The Power of the Dog (44)
3. Simon Rex – Red Rocket (30)

1. Penélope Cruz – Parallel Mothers (55)
2. Renate Reinsve – The Worst Person in the World (42)
3. Alana Haim – Licorice Pizza (32)

1. Anders Danielsen Lie – The Worst Person in the World (54)
2. Vincent Lindon – Titane (33)
3. Mike Faist – West Side Story / Kodi Smit-McPhee – The Power of the Dog (26) (TIE)

1. Ruth Negga – Passing (46)
2. Ariana DeBose – West Side Story (22)
3. Jessie Buckley – The Lost Daughter (21)

1. Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe – Drive My Car (46)
2. Pedro Almodóvar – Parallel Mothers (22)
3. Paul Thomas Anderson – Licorice Pizza (20)

1. Andrew Droz Palermo – The Green Knight (52)
2. Ari Wegner – The Power of the Dog (40)
3. Sayombhu Mukdeeprom – Memoria (35)

Not awarded because the year's Best Picture was a foreign language film: Drive My Car (Japan)

1. Flee (41)
2. Procession / The Velvet Underground (28) (TIE)

• Maya Cade for founding the Black Film Archive, which expands knowledge of and access to Black films made between 1915 and 1979, and includes her critical essays that define the project and consider the films in relation to each other and to the cinema overall.
• The late Peter Bogdanovich and Bertrand Tavernier, distinguished critic-filmmakers who never lost their passion for other people's movies and film history. Both crowned their careers with invaluable chronicles of their engagement with the cinema: Tavernier with the documentary My Journey Through French Cinema, and the books "50 Years of American Cinema" and "American Friends". Bogdanovich with the books "Who the Devil Made It" and "Who the Hell's in It".

• Jean-Gabriel Périot's documentary Returning to Reims, which draws on Didier Eribon's 2009 memoir about his French hometown, and the inequities of class and education that shaped him and his family.

This year's awards were dedicated to the memory of two longtime members who died: Morris Dickstein and Michael Wilmington.{{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/26/books/morris-dickstein-dead.html |title=Morris Dickstein, Critic and Cultural Historian, Dies at 81 |first=Sam |last=Roberts |work=The New York Times |date=March 26, 2021 |access-date=March 26, 2021 |url-access=subscription}}{{cite web |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/movies/michael-phillips/ct-ent-wilmington-tribune-film-critic-dead-20220107-ywrbajsx3jcb7lndbvsuapbzuu-story.html |title=Longtime Tribune film critic Michael Wilmington dies at 75 |first=Michael |last=Phillips |work=Chicago Tribune |date=January 7, 2022 |access-date=January 7, 2022 |url-access=subscription}} Dickstein brought warmth, enthusiasm and prodigious analytic skills as a literary critic and cultural historian to writing about movies in journals like Dissent and Partisan Review, and in books like "Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression". Wilmington wrote beautifully and passionately about cinema as a critic for many publications, including the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times, and co-authored the critical study "John Ford". The awards were also dedicated to Liz Weis, who stepped down after serving 47 years as executive director of the National Society of Film Critics.

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• [https://nationalsocietyoffilmcritics.com Official website]

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Category:2021 in American cinema

2021 film awards