The prestigious New York Film Critics Circle, founded in 1935, is always a force in the early awards conversation.
But there is often some debate about how early they can reasonably vote for the year’s best films. Traditionally, they like to set the tone for the awards season (while protesting that it has no bearing on how they vote). Will they be able to see all the late-breaking entries by their voting date December 1? They’ve insisted on voting around the same time for the last five years.
While they will likely catch Ben Affleck’s “Live By Night” and Denzel Washington’s “Fences” in time, the film they are most likely to miss is Martin Scorsese’s “Silence.” He’s working with Paramount on a last-minute marketing campaign for the period film set in Japan, but there are concerns about when that movie starring Andrew Garfield, Liam Neeson and Adam Driver will be ready to screen. Scorsese is notorious for getting down to the wire with fall release dates — his last film, “The Wolf of Wall Street,” screened for NYFCC members one day before they voted.
Also voting early are the New York Board of Review (November 29), as usual, and the Broadcast Film Critics Association, which have moved up their televised Critics Choice Awards for film and television from January to December 11 and are offering a second award show for documentaries even earlier, on November 3. They will announce their final Critics Choice nominees on December 1, so they are also likely to risk not seeing everything.
The New York critics group named Marshall Fine in a new role, General Manager. And bowing to the changing times, they’ve updated their criteria for admission. The group now includes critics from daily and weekly newspapers and magazines as well as online publications. They added five new members to the group: Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair; Alan Scherstuhl, The Village Voice; and Matt Singer, Screencrush, and welcomed back two former members, Matt Zoller Seitz, now of rogerebert.com, and David Fear, now of Rolling Stone.
“It’s always a special joy when writers who’ve left the profession for one reason or another come roaring back,” stated NYFCC Chairperson David Edelstein. “It gives hope to us all.”
Our own IndieWire critic Eric Kohn is serving as Vice Chair. The NYFCC will hold their annual Gala Awards dinner on January 3, 2017 at Tao Downtown.
Check out our awards calendar. And our Oscar Predictions.
A full list of voting members is below:
Melissa Anderson
VILLAGE VOICE
John Anderson
FREELANCE
Michael Atkinson
VILLAGE VOICE
Richard Brody
THE NEW YORKER
Dwight Brown
NNPA SYNDICATION/BLACKPRESSUSA.COM
Bilge Ebiri
VILLAGE VOICE
David Edelstein
NEW YORK MAGAZINE
David Fear
ROLLING STONE
Marshall Fine
FREELANCE/GENERAL MANAGER
Graham Fuller
THECULTURETRIP.COM
Owen Gleiberman
VARIETY
Ed Gonzalez
SLANT.COM
Rafer Guzman
NEWSDAY
Jordan Hoffman
THE GUARDIAN
Stuart Klawans
THE NATION
Eric Kohn
INDIEWIRE
Richard Lawson
VANITY FAIR
Lou Lumenick
NEW YORK POST
Joe Morgenstern
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Farran Smith Nehme
NEW YORK POST
Andrew O’Hehir
SALON.COM
Nick Pinkerton
FREELANCE
Peter Rainer
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
Rex Reed
NEW YORK OBSERVER
Joshua Rothkopf
TIME OUT NEW YORK
Alan Scherstuhl
VILLAGE VOICE
Richard Schickel
TRUTHDIG.COM
Matt Zoller Seitz
ROGEREBERT.COM
Matt Singer
SCREENCRUSH.COM
Kyle Smith
NEW YORK POST
Dana Stevens
SLATE.COM
Sara Stewart
NEW YORK POST
Amy Taubin
ARTFORUM
Peter Travers
ROLLING STONE
Keith Uhlich
FREELANCE
Stephen Whitty
THE STAR-LEDGER/NJ.COM
Alison Willmore
BUZZFEED.COM
Stephanie Zacharek
VILLAGE VOICE
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