Los Angeles Film Critics Awards 2010: Daringly International

Kim Hye-ja in Mother. A television star in South Korea, Kim, whose acting career dates back to the early 1960s, was the surprise choice of the Los Angeles critics, beating Oscar front-runner Natalie Portman, and other Hollywood names like Nicole Kidman, Annette Bening, and Michelle Williams. In Bong Joon-ho’s Mother, Kim plays the unglamorous titular character: A woman passionately protective of her mentally handicapped son (Won Bin) and fiercely determined to prove his innocence after he’s accused of murder.

Los Angeles Film Critics Awards 2010: International choices include Kim Hye-ja, Colin Firth, Jackie Weaver, and Carlos

When it comes to the Academy Awards, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association (a.k.a. L.A. Film Critics) is one of the two most influential film critics groups in the United States. The other being, of course, the New York Film Critics Circle. (The National Society of Film Critics would come in third, chiefly because its choices tend to be less Oscar friendly.)

Below is the list of the 2010 L.A. Film Critics’ winners and runners-up, announced on Dec. 12. Notice several interesting, internationally minded choices – no Americans among the acting winners – including Best Actress Kim Hye-ja for the South Korean drama Mother; Best Supporting Actress Jacki Weaver for the Australian crime drama Animal Kingdom; Best Supporting Actor Niels Arestrup for the prison drama A Prophet; and co-Best Director Olivier Assayas for the French-German (originally made-for-TV) political thriller Carlos.

And let’s not forget runners-up Edgar Ramírez for Carlos, Olivia Williams for Roman Polanski’s box office disappointment The Ghost Writer, and Sylvain Chomet’s animated feature The Illusionist.

Best Film: The Social Network

Runner-up: Carlos

Best Foreign Language Film: Carlos

Runner-up: Mother

Best Director (tie): Olivier Assayas – Carlos; David Fincher – The Social Network

Best Actress: Kim Hye-ja – Mother

Runner-up: Jennifer Lawrence – Winter’s Bone

Best Actor: Colin Firth – The King’s Speech

Runner-up: Edgar Ramírez – Carlos

Best Supporting Actress: Jacki Weaver – Animal Kingdom

Runner-up: Olivia Williams – The Ghost Writer

Best Supporting Actor: Niels Arestrup – A Prophet

Runner-up: Geoffrey Rush – The King’s Speech

Best Screenplay: The Social Network – Aaron Sorkin

Runner-up: The King’s Speech – David Seidler

Best Documentary: Last Train Home

Runner-up: Exit Through the Gift Shop

Best Animated Film: Toy Story 3

Runner-up: The Illusionist

Best Cinematography: Black Swan – Matthew Libatique

Runner-up: True Grit – Roger Deakins

Best Score (tie): The Ghost Writer – Alexandre Desplat; The Social Network – Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross

Best Production Design: Inception – Guy Hendrix Dyas

Runner-up: The King’s Speech – Eve Stewart

Douglas E. Edwards Independent/Experimental Film/Video: Film Socialisme

New Generation Award: Lena Durham – Tiny Furniture

Legacy of Cinema: Serge Bromberg for his preservation efforts, including his work on Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno and the F.W. Murnau Foundation and Fernando Peña for the restoration of Metropolis.

L.A. Film Critics Best Foreign Language Film possibility: Jacques Audiard’s brutal prison drama A Prophet, starring Tahar Rahim as a young man sentenced to six years in prison for attacking police officers. Once in the big house, he falls under the influence of the Corsican mafia, led by eventual L.A. Film Critics Best Supporting Actor winner Niels Arestrup.

L.A. Film Critics’ Best Actress possibility Lesley Manville in Another Year. A film, stage, and television performer, Manville has been featured in about 15 movies since the early 1980s, almost invariably in supporting roles. Her intermittent collaborations with Mike Leigh began with High Hopes back in 1988, eventually leading to a London Film Critics’ Best British Actress win for the 2002 drama All or Nothing. On TV since the mid-1970s, her longest-running role to date has been in the soap opera Emmerdale a.k.a. Emmerdale Farm (1974–1976).

‘Man-hungry’ Best Actress?

Every so often, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association bestows at least one of their acting awards on performers featured in “unexpected” movies – those non-mainstream, at times non-English-language productions that are off the Hollywood-centric, Anglophone-centric radar of most U.S.-based awards season pundits.

Last year, for instance, Yolande Moreau won the L.A. Film Critics’ Best Actress award for Martin Provost’s French biopic Séraphine, about the life of painter Séraphine de Senlis. In all likelihood, no one saw that coming, even though Moreau had won a Best Actress César earlier in the year. (Séraphine opened in France in 2008.)

This year, we’re betting on Lesley Manville for her lonely – some might say man-hungry – middle-aged secretary in Another Year. That’s partly because she’s a potential Oscar contender who has already been singled out by the National Board of Review, partly because the L.A. Film Critics really like Mike Leigh’s actresses: Brenda Blethyn (Secrets & Lies), Imelda Staunton (Vera Drake), and Sally Hawkins (Happy-Go-Lucky) have all been honored in the last 15 years.

A win by Mother’s Kim Hye-ja, however deserving, would be a major upset.

“Los Angeles Film Critics Awards 2010: Daringly International” notes

Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA) website.

Kim Hye-ja Mother image: CJ Entertainment.

Lesley Manville Another Year image: Sony Pictures Classics.

Tahar Rahim A Prophet image: Sony Pictures Classics.

*last modified in November 2025.