December 15, 2024

The Toronto Film Critics Association (TFCA)  announced today the winners of their twenty-eighth annual awards, recognizing excellence in film as voted on by their members.

RaMell Ross’s drama Nickel Boys was the big winner of the day. The film won three TFCA Awards, including Best Picture, for Ross’s cinematic adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Colson Whitehead, about two young men sent to a reform school in Jim Crow era Florida. Nickel Boys also won Best Director for Ross and Best Adapted Screenplay for Ross and Joslyn Barnes. The film opens in Canadian theatres in January 2025.

In the Outstanding Lead Performance category, the TFCA jointly awarded Marianne Jean-Baptiste for her performance as a middle-aged woman experiencing depression in Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths and Mikey Madison for her turn as an exotic dancer who marries the son of a Russian oligarch in Sean Baker’s Anora.

Madison’s Anora co-star Yura Borisov won the TFCA’s award for Outstanding Supporting Performance as a hired hand who provides an empathetic shoulder for Madison. He shared the honour with Kieran Culkin, for his performance in Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain, as an emotionally complex man confronting the generational trauma of the Holocaust.

The TFCA also recognized Clarence Maclin with the Breakthrough Performance award for his turn as an actor in a theatre group for incarcerated men in Sing Sing. The character was inspired by Maclin’s own experience in such a program. A true story also inspired the winner for Outstanding Performance in a Canadian Film: Félix-Antoine Duval, for his portrayal in Shepherds. The film is based on Mathyas Lefebure’s memoir about quitting the Montreal rat race and becoming a shepherd in Provence.

Two prizes went to Payal Kapadia’s Mumbai-set drama All We Imagine as Light. The film won Best International Feature for its portrait of two hospital workers navigating different romantic relationships and divides of class, religion, and language. The film also won Best Original Screenplay for Kapadia.

The Allan King Documentary Award went to Mati Diop’s Dahomey. The experimental documentary follows the repatriation of stolen statues as they journey home from France to the Republic of Benin. Meanwhile, actress and director Anna Kendrick was honoured by the TFCA in the Best First Feature category for her drama Woman of the Hour, which tells the true story of a woman who matched with a serial killer on The Dating Game. Best Animated Feature went to the Latvian adventure Flow, directed by Gints Zilbalodis. The film follows a black cat as it survives a great flood with the aid of some dogs and a trusty capybara.

The TFCA also awarded two special citations. One went to the documentary No Other Land and the Palestinian-Israeli collective of Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor and Hamdan Ballal for their years-in the-making observation of forcible evictions in a West Bank community. The TFCA also recognized Serena Whitney and the Revue Film Society for their advocacy for community-based independent cinemas.

TFCA members voted at a live meeting on Sunday, December 15, 2024. They will present these awards, along with the prestigious Rogers Best Canadian Film and Rogers Best Canadian Documentary, on Monday, February 24, 2025, at a gala held at Toronto’s Omni King Edward Hotel, hosted by acclaimed Canadian actress Amanda Brugel (Orphan Black, The Handmaid’s Tale).

The nominees for Rogers Best Canadian Film are Rumours, directed by Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson; Shepherds, directed by Sophie Deraspe; and Universal Language, directed by Matthew Rankin. The nominees for Rogers Best Canadian Documentary are Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story, directed by Michael Mabbott and Lucah Rosenberg-Lee; Yintah, directed by Michael Toledano, Jennifer Wickham, and Brenda Michell; and Your Tomorrow, directed by Ali Weinstein. Both awards carry a cash prize of $50,000, courtesy of Rogers Communications. The two runners up in each category will receive $5,000.

Three significant TFCA awards are yet to be announced. They include the 2024 Luminary Award, which recognizes a Canadian industry figure who has made a substantial and outstanding contribution to the advancement and/or history of Canadian cinema.

The Jay Scott Prize for an emerging artist, named for the late, prestigious Globe & Mail critic who famously championed young film talent, recognizes an emerging Canadian talent who is positively affecting the direction of Canadian cinema. Also to be announced: the Telefilm Canada Emerging Critic Award, which carries a prize of $1,000.

The TFCA is extremely grateful to founding sponsor Rogers Communications for the Rogers Best Canadian Film and the Rogers Best Canadian Documentary. TFCA thanks returning sponsors Netflix as Dinner sponsor, Prime Video as Cocktail Reception sponsor and Air Canada as Official Airline. TFCA salutes Telefilm Canada as the Telefilm Canada Emerging Critic sponsor. The TFCA also thanks sponsors Omni King Edward Hotel and salutes stalwart supporters, G.H. Mumm Champagne, L’Eat Catering, Zoomer Magazine, The Printing House, and Chairman Mills.

The full list of 2024 Toronto Film Critics Association Awards winners and runners-up is as follows:

Best Picture
Nickel Boys (Warner Bros. Canada)
Runners-up: Anora (Elevation Pictures), The Brutalist (Elevation Pictures)

Best Director
RaMell Ross, Nickel Boys (Warner Bros. Canada)
Runners-up: Sean Baker, Anora (Elevation Pictures); Payal Kapadia, All We Imagine as Light (Films We Like)

Outstanding Lead Performance
Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Hard Truths (Mongrel Media); Mikey Madison, Anora (Elevation Pictures)
Runners-up: Adrien Brody, The Brutalist (Elevation Pictures); Colman Domingo, Sing Sing (Elevation Pictures); Ralph Fiennes, Conclave (Elevation Pictures); Karla Sofía Gascón, Emilia Pérez (Netflix); Demi Moore, The Substance (MUBI)

Outstanding Supporting Performance
Yura Borisov, Anora (Elevation Pictures); Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain (Searchlight Pictures)
Runners-up: Clarence Maclin, Sing Sing (Elevation Pictures); Zoe Saldaña, Emilia Pérez (Netflix); Jeremy Strong, The Apprentice (Mongrel Media); Denzel Washington, Gladiator II (Paramount Pictures Canada)

Breakthrough Performance
Clarence Maclin, Sing Sing (Elevation Pictures)
Runners-up: Karla Sofía Gascón, Emilia Pérez (Netflix); Mikey Madison, Anora (Elevation Pictures)

Outstanding Performance in a Canadian Film
Félix-Antoine Duval, Shepherds (Maison 4:3)
Runners-up: Deragh Campbell, Matt and Mara (MDFF); Roy Dupuis, Rumours (Elevation Pictures)

Best Original Screenplay
All We Imagine as Light (Films We Like)
Runners-up: Anora (Elevation Pictures); Challengers (Warner Bros. Canada)

Best Adapted Screenplay
Nickel Boys (Warner Bros Canada)
Runners-up: Conclave (Elevation Pictures); Dune: Part 2 (Warner Bros. Canada)

Best Animated Feature
Flow (Films We Like)
Runners-up: Memoir of a Snail (Mongrel Media); The Wild Robot (Universal Pictures Canada)

Allan King Documentary Award
Dahomey (MUBI)
Runners-up: Occupied City (Films We Like); Soundtrack to a Coup d’État (Films We Like)

Best International Feature
All We Imagine as Light (Films We Like)
Runners-up: Evil Does Not Exist (Films We Like); Green Border (Kino Lorber)

Best First Feature
Woman of the Hour (VVS Films)
Runners-up: 40 Acres (Mongrel Media); Janet Planet (A24); The People’s Joker (Altered Innocence)

Rogers Best Canadian Film Nominees
Rumours (Elevation Pictures)
Shepherds (Maison 4:3)
Universal Language (Maison 4:3)

Rogers Best Canadian Documentary
Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story (NFB/Banger Films)
Yintah (EyeSteelFilm/Netflix)
Your Tomorrow (Blue Ice Docs)

Special Citations:
No Other Land – Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, and Hamdan Ballal
Serena Whitney and the Revue Film Society

Under the TFCA’s rules, eligible contenders for the awards include films released in theatres or streaming in Toronto in 2024 as well as films that qualify for the 2024 Academy Awards and Canadian Screen Awards and have a Toronto release scheduled by the end of March 2025.