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Moonlight is OFCS Best Picture

Online Film Critics Society 2017 awards announced.

by Amber Wilkinson and Jennie Kermode

Mahershala Ali in Moonlight

Barry Jenkins' Moonlight is the big winner in the Online Film Critics annual awards, winning four out of seven of the categories in which it was nominated, including Best Picture.

The drama, which tells the story of Chiron, a black gay man coming-of-age and defining his identity in Miami, also won the Best Director prize for Jenkins and saw Mahershala Ali and Naomie Harris win the Best Supporting Actor awards for their respective portrayals of the drug dealer who takes the young man under his wing and Chrion's drug-addicted mum.

The Online Film Critics Society’s Governing Committee said, “We’d like to congratulate all involved with Moonlight for the power and humanity of this extraordinary film. Topical and relevant, it is a timely reminder of that which unites us being greater than that which divides us.”

Damien Chazelle’s La La Land, which tied with Moonlight for seven nominations, won in the Best Editing and Best Cinematography categories.

Casey Affleck won Best Actor for his portrayal of a man consumed by grief in Manchester By the Sea. Natalie Portman was named Best Actress for her portrayal of Jacqueline Kennedy in the days following the assassination of JFK in Pablo Larraín’s Jackie.

Laika’s anime-flavored stop-motion fantasy Kubo And The Two Strings won Best Animated Feature. The Handmaiden, from South Korean director Park Chan-wook, won Best Film Not in the English Language, while OJ: Made in America, Ezra Edelman’s epic dissection of celebrity and racial discord, was awarded Best Documentary.

Best Original Screenplay went to Taylor Sheridan for his recession crime thriller Hell Or High Water. Eric Heisserer won Best Adapted Screenplay for Arrival, adapting Ted Chiang’s short story, Story of Your Life.

Three Special Awards were voted for by the OFCS membership, all of them Memorials reflecting the number of cherished entertainers lost in 2016. These Memorial Awards were named for Carrie Fisher, Alan Rickman and Gene Wilder.

Alongside the films in competition, 10 films not released in the US were selected by the membership for special note. These include Hirokazu Kore-eda’s After the Storm, The Dardennes Brothers’ The Unknown Girl, Bertrand Bonello’s Nocturama, Hong Sang-soo’s Yourself And Yours and Colm McCarthy’s The Girl with All the Gifts.

Those awards in full:-

Best Picture