Paul Giamatti Takes Best Actor Honors from the National Board of Review

The National Board of Review Awards Paul Giamatti Best Actor

The National Board of Review has chosen its films to honor for 2023 and Paul Giamatti has bested the likes of Cillian Murphy and Bradley Cooper to be selected as Best Actor.

The Best Actor race is tight this year. The National Board of Review has chosen Paul Giamatti as Best Actor for his work in Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers. Giamatti won in a very competitive year over Murphy (Oppenheimer), Cooper (Maestro) and Leonardo DiCaprio (Killers of the Flower Moon). Giamatti’s co-star in The Holdovers, Da’Vine Joy Randolph predictably took Best Supporting Actress honors from the National Board of Review. But, Giamatti shouldn’t start clearing off his mantelpiece for an Oscar win quite yet. The Golden Globes, Critics Choice Awards and Screen Actors Guild haven’t weighed in yet, though, it’s very likely Giamatti will be a major contender this coming awards season. He could probably start cleaning his mantelpiece off for at least a Golden Globe at bare minimum.

The National Board of Review named Killers of the Flower Moon Best Picture coming right on the heels of that movie’s win for best film from the New York Film Critics. Martin Scorsese took the National Board of Review’s recognition for Best Director for Killers of the Flower Moon. The leading lady in Scorsese’s Oscar bait movie, Lily Gladstone, took Best Actress honors from the NBR.

Poor Things did well at the NBR and was named one of the year’s ten best films and won Best Adapted Screenplay. Poor Things‘ co-star, Mark Ruffalo, bested Willem Dafoe of the same movie for Best Supporting Actor. Both stars in the film will most likely be competing for the same award come Oscar time. The big surprise here was that Robert Downey Jr. of Oppenheimer lost to Ruffalo.

Air was snubbed by the National Board of Review as one of the year’s ten best films. Many expected the American-as-apple-pie movie to make its way into the top 10. The 9 other best films selected by the NBR were in no particular order: The Holdovers (which took Best Original Screenplay), Barbie, Poor Things, Maestro, Oppenheimer, Ferrari, The Boy and the Heron, Past Lives (its director, Celine Song, took Best Directorial Debut), and The Iron Claw (which won Best Ensemble).

Anatomy of a Fall was named Best International Film by the NBR. Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie won Best Documentary and Teyana Taylor won Best Breakthrough Performance for A Thousand and One. Spider Man: Across the Spider-Verse won Best Animated Film.

Giamatti’s win is going to be the beginning of a very unpredictable awards season. With Bradley Cooper, Cillian Murphy and Leonardo DiCaprio in the running, it’s anybody’s guess how it will all turn out but I like Giamatti’s odds at this particular point in time.

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