Prix Louis Delluc for Violent Prison Drama + Box Office Flops Top Satellite Awards

A Prophet with Tahar Rahim, winner of the Prix Louis Delluc. Jacques Audiard’s violent prison drama chronicles the difficulties facing a young Frenchman of Algerian ancestry who, after being sent to jail for six years, must navigate between two warring factions while behind bars: the Corsicans and the Muslims. Shades of Eleanor Parker’s suffering, toughening up, and progressive corruption while in a women’s prison – ahem, correctional facility – in John Cromwell’s Caged (1950). Screenplay by Audiard and Thomas Bidegain, from an “original screenplay” by Abdel Raouf Dafri and Nicolas Peufaillit.

Prison drama ‘A Prophet’ wins Prix Louis Delluc

Jacques Audiard’s tough prison drama A Prophet / Un Prophète, winner of the Grand Prix at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, received French cinema’s Prix Louis Delluc – given to the year’s Best Film and Best First Film – at a ceremony held on Dec. 11 in Paris.

Starring Tahar Rahim as a 19-year-old inmate caught between warring mafia factions in a lawless French prison, A Prophet has also been the 2009 National Board of Review‘s Best Foreign Language Film choice and has been nominated for a Spirit Award in that category.

Additionally, Audiard’s film garnered six European Film Award nominations, winning two – Best Actor for Rahim and a technical prize for its sound design – and it’s France’s submission for the 2010 Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award.

According to Variety, A Prophet has already grossed 7.2 million euros ($10.6 million) at the French box office. The film is also expected to dominate the César Awards early next year.

Besides Tahar Rahim, A Prophet also features Niels Arestrup, Adel Bencherif, Reda Kateb, Jean-Philippe Ricci, and Leïla Bekhti.

Other Louis Delluc Prize contenders

A Prophet‘s competitors for the 2009 Louis Delluc Prize were the following:

• Alain Resnais’ Wild Grass.
• Xavier Giannoli’s In the Beginning.
• Christophe Honoré’s Non ma fille, tu n’iras pas danser (“No My Daughter, You’re Not Gonna Go Dancing”).
• Claude Miller & Nathan Miller’s Je suis heureux que ma mère soit vivante (“I’m Happy That My Mother Is Alive”).
• Philippe Lioret’s Welcome.
• Alain Cavalier’s Irène.
• Bruno Dumont’s Hadewijch.

Prison drama no. 2: ‘Silent Voice’

Another prison-focused tale, Léa Fehner’s Silent Voice / Qu’un seul tienne et les autres suivront, won the Louis Delluc Prize for Best First Feature Film.

In this well-received drama, three disparate people (A Prophet actor Reda Kateb, Farida Rahouadj, Pauline Etienne) have their paths intersect at a prison in the south of France.

Other Louis Delluc Prize Best First Feature contenders were:

• Nassim Amaouche’s Adieu Gary.
• Riad Sattouf’s The French Kissers / Les beaux gosses.
• Nicolas Saada’s Espion(s) (“Spies”).
• Mathias Gokalp’s Rien de personnel (“Nothing Personal”).

The Louis Delluc Prize was created in 1937 in honor of the early 20th century French film critic and filmmaker who died at age 33 in 1924. Headed by Cannes Film Festival President Gilles Jacob, the Louis Delluc jury is composed of 20 members, including film critics and industry professionals.

Prestigious Louis Delluc Prize winners of years past

Last year’s Louis Delluc Prize winner was Raymond Depardon’s documentary La vie moderne, which landed a César nomination in the Best Documentary Feature category.

Louis Delluc Prize winners of decades past (no awards were handed out between 1940–1944) include:

• Marcel Carné’s Port of Shadows (1939).
• Jean Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast (1946).
• Jacques Tati’s Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday (1953).
• Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Diabolique (1954).
• Jacques Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964).

Oscar 2010: Best Visual Effects semifinalists

In other awards season news, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that 15 films have been selected as semifinalists in the 2010 Academy Awards’ Best Visual Effects category.

The films are listed below in alphabetical order:

• Angels & Demons.
• Avatar.
• A Christmas Carol.
• Coraline.
• District 9.
• G-Force.
• G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
• Sherlock Holmes.
• Star Trek.
• Terminator Salvation.
• Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.
• 2012.
• Watchmen.
• Where the Wild Things Are.

Only three Best Visual Effects nominees?

It’s a little surprising that of all the special-effects-driven movies out there – or even regular movies that make use of special effects in their production (e.g., Invictus, The Lovely Bones) – they selected a mere 15 semifinalists, of which only three will get an Oscar nomination (see below).

Considering the state of filmmaking nowadays, visual effects should be a “regular” category with five nominees each year.

The 2010 Academy Award nominations will be announced on Feb. 2. The Oscar ceremony will take place on Sunday, March 7, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center.

Sugar: 2009 movie with Algenis Perez Soto as baseball player Miguel “Sugar” Santos. Written and directed by the Half Nelson team of Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, the low-budget, little-seen Sugar was a surprising inclusion on the AFI Awards’ Top Ten Films of the Year list. The movie follows a Dominican baseball player nicknamed “Sugar” (Algenis Perez Soto), who dreams of one day playing for the major leagues.

Comedy blockbuster & little-seen baseball drama among AFI Awards’ Top Ten

There were a couple of big surprises among the American Film Institute’s feature film choices for its 2009 AFI Awards: Todd Phillips’ low-brow box office smash The Hangover, and Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s little-seen Sugar.

The story of a Dominican baseball player (Algenis Perez Soto) who dreams of one day joining the major leagues, Sugar was a particularly interesting pick as thus far it hasn’t been getting all that much attention from U.S. critics’ groups.

The sports drama received a 2008 Best Screenplay Spirit Award nomination (that was a year ago) and a Best Ensemble Gotham Award nod a few weeks ago. That’s basically it.

Indies dominate AFI Awards list

Most of the other films included on the AFI’s Top Ten list were – surprisingly – low-budget, independently made productions (though probably not nearly as low-budget as Sugar):

• Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker.
• Oren Moverman’s The Messenger.
• Lee Daniels’ Precious.
• Tom Ford’s A Single Man.
• Joel and Ethan Coen’s A Serious Man.

Only Pete Docter’s animated blockbuster Up and Jason Reitman’s George Clooney star vehicle Up in the Air could be considered high-profile films.

Topics range from corporate downsizing (Up in the Air) and death (A Single Man, The Messenger) to sexual abuse (Precious) and the Iraq War (The Hurt Locker).

Among the titles left out of the AFI list are:

• Rob Marshall’s Nine.
• Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones.
• Grant Heslov’s The Men Who Stare at Goats.
• Clint Eastwood’s Invictus.
• Steven Soderbergh’s The Informant!.
• And, most surprising of all, James Cameron’s Avatar.

The selected films were chosen by a 13-person jury consisting of “scholars, film artists, critics and AFI trustees.”

Avatar spaceship in Best Film surprise. James Cameron’s futuristic action-adventure set in the distant planet of Pandora, inhabited by a long-legged, huge-eyed humanoid species known as Na’vi, Avatar was the surprise Best Film winner of the New York Film Critics Online. Cameron’s first narrative feature since Titanic is also one of the semifinalists in the Academy Awards’ Best Visual Effects category. In the cast: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, and Sigourney Weaver.

‘Avatar’ tops New York Film Critics Online

AFI Awards or no, it was inevitable that Avatar would land the top spot of some U.S.-based critics group or other. And it’s already happened: The New York Film Critics Online have picked James Cameron’s 3D spectacle – which has mostly received quite respectable reviews – as the Best Picture of 2009.

Set in a future that’s not all that far off, but on a planet that is very, very far off, Avatar pits greedy, ruthless, narrow-minded human beings – not unlike those inhabiting Planet Earth at this point in time – against a blue humanoid race with big yellowish eyes and long, flat noses.

Cameron has already talked about the possibility of a couple of sequels, which means that the blue people manage to survive the earthlings’ destruction. Let’s hope we on this planet are just as lucky.

Women on top: Kathryn Bigelow & Meryl Streep

Less lucky than his movie was filmmaker Cameron, as the New York Film Critics Online opted for Kathryn Bigelow – Cameron’s ex-wife – as the year’s Best Director for the Iraq War drama The Hurt Locker. (See further below the full list of New York Film Critics Online winners.)

Bigelow and The Hurt Locker have also won top honors from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the Boston Film Critics Society.

Meryl Streep, for her part, was the Best Actress winner for her portrayal of chef Julia Child in Nora Ephron’s box office hit Julie & Julia, co-starring Amy Adams.

In the other acting categories, the winners were the following:

• Jeff Bridges for his down-and-out country singer in Scott Cooper’s Crazy Heart.
• Mo’Nique for her abusive mother in Precious.
• Christoph Waltz for his suavely psychopathic Nazi in Inglourious Basterds.

Christoph Waltz – whose film career dates back to the early 1980s – was also voted the year’s Breakthrough Performer, while the Best Ensemble prize went to the cast of Armando Iannucci’s British political satire In the Loop, which includes James Gandolfini, Tom Hollander, and Peter Capaldi.

New York Film Critics Online winners

Best Picture: Avatar.

Best Foreign Language Film: The White Ribbon.

Best Documentary: The Cove.

Best Actress: Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia.

Best Actor: Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart.

Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds.

Best Supporting Actress: Mo’Nique, Precious.

Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker.

Best Ensemble Performance: In the Loop.

Best Screenplay: Inglourious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino.

Best Cinematography: Inglourious Basterds, Robert Richardson.

Best Film Music or Score: Crazy Heart, Stephen Bruton & T Bone Burnett; music supervisor Jeffrey Pollack.

Best Animated Feature: Up.

Best Breakthrough Performer: Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds.

Best Debut as Director: Marc Webb, (500) Days of Summer.

Julianne Moore in A Single Man: Next year’s Santa Barbara Film Festival Montecito Award recipient is a four-time Academy Award nominee: in the Best Supporting Actress category for Boogie Nights (1997) and The Hours (2002); in the Best Actress category for The End of the Affair (1999) and Far from Heaven (2002). Moore is a potential Best Supporting Actress nominee for her performance as an alcoholic attracted to grieving gay professor Colin Firth in Tom Ford’s A Single Man, based on Christopher Isherwood’s novel, and also featuring Matthew Goode, Nicholas Hoult, and Jon Kortajarena.

Julianne Moore to receive Santa Barbara Film Festival honor

The Santa Barbara International Film Festival, which runs Feb. 4–14, has announced one more 2010 honoree: Julianne Moore, a potential Oscar contender for her performance as a married alcoholic yearning for a gay man (fellow Santa Barbara honoree Colin Firth) in Tom Ford’s A Single Man.

Moore will receive the festival’s Montecito Award, which recognizes “a performer who has given a series of classic and standout performances in his/her career,” on Thursday, Feb. 11, at the historic Arlington Theatre.

Recent Montecito Award winners include Kate Winslet, Javier Bardem, Naomi Watts, and Annette Bening.

Julianne Moore movies

Among Julianne Moore’s movie credits are:

• Jeremiah S. Chechik’s Benny & Joon.
• Robert Altman’s Short Cuts and Cookie’s Fortune.
• Louis Malle’s Vanya on 42nd Street.
• Todd Haynes’ Safe, Far from Heaven, and I’m Not There.
• Chris Columbus’ Nine Months.
• Oliver Parker’s An Ideal Husband.
• Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights and Magnolia.
• Joel and Ethan Coen’s The Big Lebowski.
• Gus Van Sant’s Psycho.
• Neil Jordan’s The End of the Affair.
• Stephen Daldry’s The Hours.
• Rebecca Miller’s The Private Lives of Pippa Lee.
• Atom Egoyan’s upcoming Chloe.

For more information on the Julianne Moore tribute, visit the Santa Barbara Film Festival website.

Jason Reitman on the set of Up in the Air. The son of veteran filmmaker Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters, Legal Eagles), Jason Reitman will be handed the Palm Springs Film Festival’s Director of the Year Award for the socially conscious drama Up in the Air, a likely Best Picture Oscar contender starring George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, and Anna Kendrick. Two years ago, Reitman was the recipient of the festival’s Chairman’s Vanguard Award for the sleeper hit Juno, which eventually earned him a Best Director Oscar nomination.

Jason Reitman & Jeremy Renner: Palm Springs Film Festival award recipients

Filmmaker Jason Reitman, actor Jeremy Renner, and composer T Bone Burnett will each receive a special award at the 2010 edition of the Palm Springs Film Festival, which runs Jan. 5–18.

Reitman, the 2008 Chairman’s Vanguard Award recipient (for Juno), will be handed the Director of the Year Award for Up in the Air; Renner the Breakthrough Performance Award for The Hurt Locker; and Burnett the Frederick Loewe Award for Film Composing for Crazy Heart, whose star, likely Best Actor contender Jeff Bridges, will also be honored at the festival.

Presented by Cartier, the Awards Gala will kick off the Palm Springs Film Festival on January 5 at the Palm Springs Convention Center. The ceremony will be hosted by Mary Hart of Entertainment Tonight.

Jason Reitman & ‘Up in the Air’

Up in the Air, which Jason Reitman also co-adapted with Sheldon Turner from Walter Kirn’s novel, has already been named Best Picture of 2009 by both the National Board of Review and the Washington D.C. Film Critics.

In the film, a strong candidate for the 2010 Oscars, George Clooney plays a corporate downsizing expert whose frequent-flying life is about to come to a halt right when he meets the potential love of his life.

Also in the Up in the Air cast are Anna Kendrick, Vera Farmiga, Jason Bateman, Amy Morton, Melanie Lynskey, J.K. Simmons, Sam Elliott, Danny McBride, Zach Galifianakis, and Chris Lowell.

Past Director of the Year honorees include Sean Penn, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Anthony Minghella, Alexander Payne, and Ang Lee.

‘Breakthrough’ awards season contender Jeremy Renner

Jeremy Renner has already won the National Board of Review Breakthrough Performance by an Actor award. Besides, he and his fellow The Hurt Locker actors were named Best Ensemble at the 2009 Gotham Awards about a week ago. Kathryn Bigelow’s well-received Iraq War drama follows a U.S. team of bomb disposal experts in Baghdad.

Past recipients of the Palm Spring Film Festival’s Breakthrough Performance Award include Marion Cotillard, Jennifer Hudson, Felicity Huffman, and Freida Pinto.

Frederick Loewe Award recipient T Bone Burnett

In addition to composing the Crazy Heart score with collaborator Stephen Burton, T Bone Burnett produced the film in which Jeff Bridges plays a down-and-out country singer opposite Maggie Gyllenhaal, Colin Farrell, and Robert Duvall. Burnett also composed and co-wrote many of the film’s original songs.

Past recipients of the Frederick Loewe Award for Film Composing include Alexandre Desplat, James Newton Howard, Danny Elfman, Philip Glass, Howard Shore, and Randy Newman.

A Prophet with Tahar Rahim. Directed by Jacques Audiard from a screenplay by Audiard and Thomas Bidegain – itself from “an original screenplay” by Abdel Raouf Dafri and Nicolas Peufaillit – A Prophet is one of several non-U.S. productions that found space on the London Film Critics’ nominations roster. Best Actor nominee Tahar Rahim plays Malik El Djebena, a French-Algerian street thug who, after being sent to prison for six years, must find a way to keep himself in one piece while navigating between his fellow inmates’ Corsican and Muslim rival factions.

London Film Critics find room for non-Hollywood movies

The London Film Critics’ Circle’s 2009 nominations have been announced. The best thing about this year’s crop of nominees is their “internationality”: As usual, Hollywood productions dominate the various lists, but the London Film Critics have found plenty of room for non-American fare as well.

Jacques Audiard’s French prison drama A Prophet / Un Prophète, which has brought in a solid $10.3 million at the French box office, managed to land five nominations, including Best Film (or “Film of the Year”), Best Director, and Best Actor (Tahar Rahim). For its part, Michael Haneke’s German-Austrian psychological-political drama The White Ribbon / Das Weiße Band received four nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director.

Both were also shortlisted in the Best Foreign Language Film and Best Screenplay categories.

British talent in the running

Additionally, British talent found its way in the non-British categories as well. Carey Mulligan is one of the Actress of the Year nominees for her schoolgirl involved with older man Peter Sarsgaard in Lone Scherfig’s An Education (which leads the pack with seven nods), while that film’s screenwriter, Nick Hornby, is also up for Best Screenplay award.

The In the Loop screenwriters – Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Tony Roche, and writer-director Armando Iannucci – were also shortlisted. And so was Australian actress Abbie Cornish for her performance in Jane Campion’s romantic period drama Bright Star.

‘Avatar’ & ‘Up in the Air’ + ‘The Hurt Locker’ lead Hollywood contingent

The Hollywood contingent is led by James Cameron’s futuristic fantasy adventure Avatar, Jason Reitman’s socially conscious comedy-drama Up in the Air, and Kathryn Bigelow’s Iraq War drama The Hurt Locker. All three were nominated in the Best Picture and Best Director categories – though, curiously, none of the three is up for Best Screenplay.

Another curiosity: performances considered “supporting” in the U.S. are here placed in the Actor/Actress of the Year categories, e.g., Vera Farmiga for Up in the Air, Christoph Waltz for Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, and Mo’Nique (instead of Gabourey Sidibe) for Lee Daniels’ Precious.

Carey Mulligan in An Education, with Peter Sarsgaard. In Lone Scherfig’s British drama An Education, London Film Critics’ Circle double nominee and awards season favorite Carey Mulligan plays an adolescent who, in the early 1960s, begins an eye-opening relationship with a man (Peter Sarsgaard) about twice her age. Nick Hornby – whose novels include About a Boy and Fever Pitch – penned the An Education screenplay, from Lynn Barber’s memoirs. Also in the cast: two-time Oscar winner Emma Thompson, Dominic Cooper, Alfred Molina, Olivia Williams, Sally Hawkins, Matthew Beard, and Rosamund Pike.

British categories

The London Film Critics split achievement categories between “Best of the Year” and “British Best of the Year,” something that, however unintentionally, always makes it look as if the British productions are inferior to the international fare.

For instance, Carey Mulligan managed to be nominated in both Actress of the Year categories, but Helen Mirren was only included in the “British” shortlist for her work in Michael Hoffman’s The Last Station. In other words, Mulligan was good enough to run in the international race; Mirren was not.

That says something about how the London Film Critics feel about British filmmaking in 2009. Not one of the five British films of the year – Bright Star, An Education, Fish Tank, In the Loop, Moon – is up for the Film of the Year award.

London Film Critics’ best of the best

The London Film Critics have also announced that U.S. filmmaker Quentin Tarantino will be given this year’s Dilys Powell Award for Excellence in Cinema, and that Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 Vietnam War drama Apocalypse Now was their best “Film of the Year” winner since the Circle was formed 30 years ago. See below.

The London Film Critics’ winners will be announced at London’s The Landmark on Feb. 18.

London Film Critics’ Top Ten ‘Film of the Year’ (post-1980)

1. Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1980).

2. Schindler’s List (Steven Spielberg, 1994).

3. The Lives of Others / Das Leben der Anderen (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2007).

4. Unforgiven (Clint Eastwood, 1992).

5. Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005).

6. Cinema Paradiso (Giuseppe Tornatore, 1990).

7. L.A. Confidential (Curtis Hanson, 1997).

8. Fargo (Joel Coen, 1996).

9. Distant Voices, Still Lives (Terence Davies, 1989).

10. The King of Comedy (Martin Scorsese, 1983).

London Film Critics’ ‘British’ Irish

Dec. 23 update: Some have wondered why Irish performers are in the running in the “British” categories of the London Film Critics’ Circle.

Michael Fassbender, the star of last year’s widely acclaimed Hunger and the German-born son of an Irish mother and a German father, was shortlisted in the Best Supporting Actor category for Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank, while Saoirse Ronan, born in New York City to Irish parents (she currently resides in Ireland) is one of the nominees in the Young British Performer of the Year category for her portrayal of the dead angelic girl in Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones.

Hoping to clarify matters a bit, the London Film Critics have posted the following on their website:

“British and Irish film makers are eligible for most, if not all, of our awards. The word British in the title of some of our awards is simply to distinguish them from the general best actor/director/film awards. Irish citizens are eligible for these awards but many Irish actors and directors work on what are technically British films and their work deserves recognition. There is no intention to suggest that Irish talent is British should an Irish citizen be nominated in the ‘British’ categories and all Irish nominees know this. It simply recognises the complex nature of film making, a collaborative affair often crossing national boundaries and anyone who wishes to raise the matter should do so with Jason Solomons, current chair of the Awards Committee.”

Satellite Awards’ winner The Hurt Locker with Jeremy Renner. This awards season’s top Best Picture choice is a Summit Entertainment release that turned out to be a major box office disappointment in spite of its low budget. Directed by Kathryn Bigelow from Mark Boal’s screenplay, the Iraq War-related thriller about a U.S. Explosive Ordnance Disposal team was bypassed at this year’s Venice Film Festival – where another war thriller, Samuel Maoz’s Lebanon, was the Golden Lion winner – and, apart from a couple of nominations in the acting categories, it went under the radar at the 2008 Spirit Awards as well.

Satellite Awards: Best movies ‘The Hurt Locker’ & ‘Nine’

The International Press Academy has chosen two domestic box office disappointments, The Hurt Locker and Nine, as, respectively, Best Film – Drama and Best Film – Comedy or Musical of 2009. The announcement was made on Dec. 20. (See further below the full list of Satellite Award winners and nominations.)

Directed by Kathryn Bigelow, who won the IPA’s Best Director Satellite Award, The Hurt Locker follows an Explosive Ordnance Disposal team in Baghdad. The war thriller has been winning tons of accolades and it’s one of the favorites for the 2010 Academy Awards. Its lead, Jeremy Renner, was named the IPA’s Best Actor.

Besides Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker features the following:

Guy Pearce. Brian Geraghty. David Morse. Anthony Mackie. Christian Camargo. Evangeline Lilly. Sam Redford (the son not of Robert Redford, but of British actor Ian Redford).

Two-time Oscar nominee Ralph Fiennes (as Best Supporting Actor for Schindler’s List, 1993; as Best Actor for The English Patient, 1996).

Rob Marshall’s film adaptation of the Broadway musical based on Federico Fellini’s semi-autobiographical 1963 hit 8½, the coolly received Nine stars:

• Two-time Best Actor Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis (My Left Foot, 1989; There Will Be Blood, 2007) in the old Marcello Mastroianni role.
• Best Actress Oscar winner Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose, 2007).
• Best Actress Oscar winner Nicole Kidman (The Hours, 2002).
• Best Supporting Actress Oscar winner Penélope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona, 2008).
• Best Supporting Actress Oscar winner Judi Dench (Shakespeare in Love, 1998).
• Best Actress Oscar winner Sophia Loren (Two Women / La Ciociara, 1961).
• Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominee Kate Hudson (Almost Famous, 2000).
• Best Female Pop Vocal Performance Grammy nominee Fergie (“Big Girls Don’t Cry,” 2008).
• Berlin Film Festival Best Director Silver Bear winner Ricky Tognazzi (Ultrà, 1991; tied with Jonathan Demme for The Silence of the Lambs).
• Best Actor David di Donatello winner Elio Germano (My Brother Is an Only Child / Mio fratello è figlio unico, 2007).

8½ earned Federico Fellini a Best Director Academy Award nomination, in addition to being chosen the Best Foreign Language Film of 1963.

Both Nine and 8½ revolve around a temperamental Italian filmmaker facing various problems in his career and private life, as he must deal with both a dearth of new ideas and an overabundance of women, including his actresses, his mother, his wife, and his lover.

Surprise winner Shohreh Aghdashloo & Pedro Almodóvar tie

Shohreh Aghdashloo, who has been all but ignored this awards season, was the surprise winner in the Best Actress – Drama category for Cyrus Nowrasteh’s Iranian-set sociopolitical drama The Stoning of Soraya M., while Meryl Streep was the expected winner in the Best Actress – Comedy or Musical for her portrayal of chef Julia Child in Nora Ephron’s Julie & Julia.

Michael Stuhlbarg for Joel and Ethan Coen’s A Serious Man – not Daniel Day-Lewis for Nine – was the Best Actor – Comedy or Musical.

Some of the other top Satellite Award winners were expected – e.g., Christoph Waltz, Mo’Nique – but there were a handful of surprises as well:

• Sebastián Silva’s The Maid and Pedro Almodóvar’s Broken Embraces shared the Best Foreign Language Film award.
• Adam Del Deo and James D. Stern’s Every Little Step – not Louis Psihoyos’ The Cove – was named Best Documentary.

Satellite Awards’ winners & nominations

Best Motion Picture (Drama)
Bright Star.
An Education.
* The Hurt Locker.
The Messenger.
Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire.
The Stoning of Soraya M.

Best Motion Picture (Comedy or Musical)
The Informant!.
It’s Complicated.
Julie & Julia.
* Nine.
A Serious Man.
Up in the Air.

Best Foreign Language Film (tie)
* Broken Embraces.
I Killed My Mother.
* The Maid.
Red Cliff.
The White Ribbon.
Winter in Wartime.

Best Documentary Feature
The Beaches of Agnès.
The Cove.
* Every Little Step.
It Might Get Loud.
The September Issue.
Valentino: The Last Emperor.

Best Motion Picture (Animated or Mixed Media)
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.
* Fantastic Mr. Fox.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
The Princess and the Frog.
Up.
Where the Wild Things Are.

Best Director
Jane Campion, Bright Star.
Neill Blomkamp, District 9.
Lone Scherfig, An Education.
* Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker.
Rob Marshall, Nine.
Lee Daniels, Precious.

Best Actress (Drama)
* Shohreh Aghdashloo, The Stoning of Soraya M.
Emily Blunt, The Young Victoria.
Abbie Cornish, Bright Star.
Penélope Cruz, Broken Embraces.
Carey Mulligan, An Education.
Catalina Saavedra, The Maid.

Best Actor (Drama)
Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart.
Hugh Dancy, Adam.
Johnny Depp, Public Enemies.
Colin Firth, A Single Man.
* Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker.
Michael Sheen, The Damned United.

Best Actress (Comedy or Musical)
Sandra Bullock, The Proposal.
Marion Cotillard, Nine.
Zooey Deschanel, (500) Days of Summer.
Katherine Heigl, The Ugly Truth.
* Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia.

Best Actor (Comedy or Musical)
George Clooney, Up in the Air.
Bradley Cooper, The Hangover.
Matt Damon, The Informant!.
Daniel Day-Lewis, Nine.
* Michael Stuhlbarg, A Serious Man.

Best Supporting Actress
Emily Blunt, Sunshine Cleaning.
Penélope Cruz, Nine.
Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air.
Mozhan Marno, The Stoning of Soraya M.
* Mo’Nique, Precious.

Best Supporting Actor
Woody Harrelson, The Messenger.
James McAvoy, The Last Station.
Alfred Molina, An Education.
Timothy Spall, The Damned United.
* Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds.

Best Original Screenplay
Jane Campion, Bright Star.
* Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber, (500) Days of Summer.
Mark Boal, The Hurt Locker.
Joel & Ethan Coen, A Serious Man.
Bob Peterson & Pete Docter, Up.

Best Adapted Screenplay
Neill Blomkamp & Terri Tatchell, District 9.
Nick Hornby, An Education.
Nora Ephron, Julie & Julia.
* Geoffrey Fletcher, Precious.
Jason Reitman & Sheldon Turner, Up in the Air.

Best Cinematography
Robert Richardson, Inglourious Basterds.
Guillermo Navarro & Erich Roland, It Might Get Loud.
* Dion Beebe, Nine.
Dante Spinotti, Public Enemies.
Lü Yue & Zhang Yi, Red Cliff.
Roger Deakins, A Serious Man.

Best Film Editing
Julian Clarke, District 9.
* Chris Innis & Bob Murawski, The Hurt Locker.
Greg Finton, It Might Get Loud.
Claire Simpson & Wyatt Smith, Nine.
Angie Lam, Yang Hongyu & Robert A. Ferretti, Red Cliff.
David Brenner & Peter S. Elliot, 2012.

Best Original Score
Gabriel Yared, Amelia.
Marvin Hamlisch, The Informant!.
Elliot Goldenthal, Public Enemies.
Michael Giacchino, Up.
* Rolfe Kent, Up in the Air.
Carter Burwell & Karen O, Where the Wild Things Are.

Best Original Song
* “The Weary Kind” from Crazy Heart (T Bone Burnett & Ryan Bingham).
“We Are the Children of the World” from The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (Terry Gilliam).
“Cinema Italiano” from Nine (Maury Yeston).
“I See in Color” from Precious (Mary J. Blige).
“Almost There” from The Princess and the Frog (Randy Newman).
“Down in New Orleans” from The Princess and the Frog (Randy Newman).

Best Art Direction
Terry Gilliam, Dave Warren & Anastasia Masaro, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.
Nathan Crowley, Patrick Lumb & William Ladd Skinner, Public Enemies.
Eddy Wong, Red Cliff.
Chris Kennedy, The Road.
* Ian Philips & Dan Bishop, A Single Man.
Barry Chusid & Elizabeth Wilcox, 2012.

Best Costume Design
Consolata Boyle, Cheri.
* Monique Prudhomme, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.
Colleen Atwood, Nine.
Tim Yip, Red Cliff.
Sandy Powell, The Young Victoria.

Best Visual Effects
District 9.
Fantastic Mr. Fox.
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.
Red Cliff.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.
* 2012.

Best Sound (Mixing and Editing)
It Might Get Loud.
Nine.
Red Cliff.
Terminator Salvation.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.
* 2012.

Best Ensemble
Nine.

Outstanding New Talent
Gabourey Sidibe.

Auteur Award
Roger Corman.

Tesla Award (Achievement in Technology)
Roger Deakins.

Mary Pickford Award (Outstanding Artistic Contribution)
Michael York.

Ten Best Films of 2009
Bright Star.
An Education.
(500) Days of Summer.
The Hurt Locker.
Inglourious Basterds.
Nine.
Precious.
A Serious Man.
The Stoning of Soraya M.
Up in the Air.

The Satellite Awards’ International Press Academy website.

Tahar Rahim A Prophet image: UGC Distribution.

Peter Sarsgaard and Carey Mulligan An Education image: Kerry Brown / Sony Pictures Classics.

Jeremy Renner The Hurt Locker image: Jonathan Olley / Summit Entertainment.

“London Film Critics: Carey Mulligan Twice & Non-Hollywood Productions + Box Office Flops Top Satellite Awards” last updated in April 2018.

Palm Springs Film Festival website.

Image of Tahar Rahim in Louis Delluc Prize winner A Prophet: UGC Distribution.

Algenis Perez Soto Sugar image: HBO Films / Sony Pictures Classics.

Image of a spaceship in Avatar: 20th Century Fox.

Jason Reitman Up in the Air image: Dale Robinette / Paramount Pictures.

Julianne Moore in A Single Man image: The Weinstein Company.

“Louis Delluc Prize for Violent Prison Drama & Blockbuster Surprise + Honorees Julianne Moore & Jason Reitman” last updated in August 2018.