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DETROIT FILM CRITICS SOCIETY announces its Best of 2021 winners

| by Carl Wheeler

Detroit Film Critics Society is pleased to announce the Best of 2021 winners in thirteen categories. The Detroit Film Critics Society was founded in Spring 2007 and consists of a group of 12 film critics from Michigan, who write or broadcast in the metro-Detroit area; including other cities such as Clinton, Grand Rapids and Ypsilanti.

Each critic submitted their top five choices in the following categories: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Ensemble, Breakthrough in any category, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Screenplay, Best Documentary, Best Animated Feature and Best Use of Music; making for a total of 13 categories. From these submissions, each entry was given a point value and the top 5 in each category were placed on the final ballot. From there, winners have been chosen based on the same point system. Below are the nominees with winners in bold font. Time to see what made the cut in 2021!

THE NOMINATIONS FOR 2021, WINNERS IN RED BOLD
(in alphabetical order)

BEST PICTURE

  • Belfast
  • CODA
  • Cyrano
  • Don’t Look Up
  • King Richard

BEST DIRECTOR

  • Sean Baker – Red Rocket
  • Kenneth Branagh – Belfast
  • David Lowery – The Green Knight
  • Adam McKay – Don’t Look Up
  • Lin-Manuel Miranda – tick, tick…BOOM!

BEST ACTOR

  • Nicolas Cage – Pig
  • Peter Dinklage – Cyrano
  • Andrew Garfield – tick, tick…BOOM!
  • Oscar Isaac – The Card Counter
  • Will Smith – King Richard

BEST ACTRESS

  • Jessica Chastain – The Eyes of Tammy Faye
  • Alana Haim – Licorice Pizza
  • Jennifer Hudson – Respect
  • Nicole Kidman – Being the Ricardos
  • Kristen Stewart – Spencer

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

  • Jon Bernthal – King Richard
  • Troy Kotsur – CODA
  • Jared Leto – House of Gucci
  • Ray Liotta – The Many Saints of Newark
  • Kodi Smit-McPhee – The Power of the Dog

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

  • Ariana Debose – West Side Story
  • Kirsten Dunst – The Power of the Dog
  • Aunjanue Ellis – King Richard
  • Rita Moreno – West Side Story
  • Diana Rigg – Last Night in Soho

BEST ENSEMBLE

  • CODA
  • Don’t Look Up
  • The French Dispatch
  • The Harder They Fall
  • House of Gucci

BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE

  • Alana Haim – Actress – Licorice Pizza
  • Emilia Jones – Actress – CODA
  • Woody Norman – Actor – C’mon C’mon
  • Agathe Rousselle – Actress – Titane
  • Emma Seligman – Writer/Director – Shiva Baby

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

  • Jane Campion – The Power of the Dog
  • Sian Heder – CODA
  • Quiara Alegría Hudes – In the Heights
  • Steven Levenson – tick, tick…BOOM!
  • David Lowery – The Green Knight

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

  • Pedro Almodóvar – Parallel Mothers
  • Paul Thomas Anderson – Licorice Pizza
  • Wes Anderson – The French Dispatch
  • Adam McKay – Don’t Look Up
  • Jeymes Samuel, Boaz Yakin – The Harder They Fall

BEST DOCUMENTARY

  • Flee
  • Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain
  • The Sparks Brothers
  • Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street
  • Summer of Soul

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

  • Belle
  • Cryptozoo
  • Encanto
  • Flee
  • Luca
  • The Mitchells vs. the Machines

BEST USE OF MUSIC

  • Cyrano
  • In the Heights
  • Last Night in Soho
  • tick, tick…BOOM!
  • West Side Story