The Social Network with Jesse Eisenberg:.
National Board of Review Awards 2010: Facebook drama tops, numerous surprises among both winners and losers
Dec. 3 update: What’s more interesting about the 2010 National Board of Review (NBR) awards? The list of those who won or of those who were snubbed?
Among the NBR winners and Top Something or Other, announced on Dec. 2, major surprises included:
- Clint Eastwood’s unenthusiastically received metaphysical drama Hereafter – a domestic box office flop – among the year’s Top Ten “runner-up” movies. (Or Top Eleven movies, if we include Best Film winner The Social Network.)
- Oliver Schmitz’s South African drama Life, Above All among the Top Five foreign-language “runner-ups.”
- Best Original Screenplay winner Buried, the story of an American contractor (Ryan Reynolds) buried alive in Iraq. Chris Sparling wrote the script; Rodrigo Cortés was the director.
- Lesley Manville as Best Actress for Mike Leigh’s Another Year.
Clint Eastwood adoration
In the case of Hereafter, its inclusion may be explained by the fact that Clint Eastwood has an ardent National Board of Review following. In fact, since Mystic River in 2003, every single one of his films have been included on the NBR’s Top Ten list.
Additionally, Eastwood himself won Best Director honors last year for the not all that warmly embraced Invictus and was chosen Best Actor for Gran Torino the year before. In 2004, he won the NBR’s Special Achievement Award for producing, directing, acting in, and composing the score for Million Dollar Baby.
Potential Oscar contenders bypassed
Among those the National Board of Review completely left out, you’ll find a number of awards season contenders – admittedly, some of which may not have been screened in time:
- Lisa Cholodenko’s The Kids Are All Right
- Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours
- Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan
- Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Biutiful
- Niels Arden Oplev’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
- Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine
- Peter Weir’s The Way Back
- John Cameron Mitchell’s Rabbit Hole
- Nigel Cole’s Made in Dagenham
- Aaron Schneider’s Get Low
Additionally, Christopher Nolan’s summer blockbuster Inception, Tom Hooper’s spleeper-hit-in-the-making The King’s Speech, and Joel and Ethan Coen’s Western True Grit failed to win a single NBR award, though all three were included among the year’s Top Ten runner-up films.
And finally, Nicole Holofcener’s indie Please Give and Roman Polanski’s European Film Award winner The Ghost Writer were included only among the year’s Top Ten (English-language) independent films.
Facebook drama The Social Network is an early awards season winner
In all, David Fincher’s The Social Network was the big National Board of Review winner, collecting four awards: Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor for Jesse Eisenberg for his characterization of controversial Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, and Best Adapted Screenplay for Aaron Sorkin.
The somewhat surprising Best Debut Directors were Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington for the Afghanistan War documentary Restrepo. Debra Granik, whose Winter’s Bone was the year’s sleeper low-budget indie hit, would likely have been the winner if it weren’t for the fact that her debut feature was the 2004 drama Down to the Bone.
Another curious choice was the selection of Sofia Coppola’s controversial Venice Film Festival winner Somewhere for the year’s Special Filmmaking Achievement Award.
Coppola was honored for writing, directing, and producing the existentialist drama about a troubled movie star (Stephen Dorff) and his tentative relationship with his young daughter (Elle Fanning).
Just as curious was the fact that Somewhere was nowhere to be found among the National Board of Review’s Top Ten runner-up films or their Top Ten independent films.
Lesley Manville in Another Year: The National Board of Review’s surprising Best Actress winner is now a likely contender for the 2011 Academy Awards. Every single NBR Best Actress of the last decade, from Julia Roberts to Carey Mulligan, has gone on to receive a matching Oscar nod. Three of them (Roberts, Halle Berry, Helen Mirren) ended up taking home an Oscar statuette.
National Board of Review acting awards go mostly to lesser known names
This year, the National Board of Review mostly opted for less well-known names in the acting categories.
Whereas Best Actor/Best Actress award recipients in the last decade have usually been people like Sean Penn, Annette Bening, Javier Bardem, Julia Roberts, George Clooney (twice), and Helen Mirren, NBR 2010 winners turned out to be Jesse Eisenberg and Lesley Manville, neither of whom is what you’d even remotely call a household name in the United States.
Eisenberg’s Mark Zuckerberg was singled out instead of higher-profile star turns such as Colin Firth as King George VI in The King’s Speech, Jeff Bridges as eye-patch-wearing cowboy Rooster Cogburn in True Grit, and James Franco as hiker/adventurer Aron Ralston in 127 Hours.
As a desperately lonely, middle-aged single woman in Mike Leigh’s British comedy-drama Another Year, Lesley Manville beat the likes of Annette Bening and Julianne Moore for The Kids Are All Right, Nicole Kidman for Rabbit Hole, and Natalie Portman for Black Swan.
Oscar chances?
Both Jesse Eisenberg and, especially, Lesley Manville have been mentioned as potential Oscar contenders. In addition to looking good in their For Your Consideration ads, the odds are that their National Board of Review victories will be matched by Academy Award nominations.
In the last ten years, eight NBR Best Actors (out of eleven winners; George Clooney tied with Morgan Freeman last year) and all ten Best Actresses have gone on to be shortlisted for the Oscars. Of these, four actors and four actresses came out victorious.
Breakthrough Performer Jennifer Lawrence
Things are a little iffier for Jennifer Lawrence following her National Board of Review Breakthrough Performer win for her portrayal of an Ozark Mountains teenager in search of her missing father in Winter’s Bone.
Ellen Page (Juno) and Ryan Gosling (Half Nelson), to name two, landed Oscar nominations after their NBR Breakthrough victories, but Emile Hirsch (Into the Wild) and Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire), on the other hand, failed to be shortlisted.
Best Supporting Actress Jacki Weaver
Veteran Jacki Weaver’s win for David Michôd’s Australian crime/dysfunctional family drama Animal Kingdom was the latest offbeat choice in the NBR’s Best Supporting Actress category. Former winners include Lupe Ontiveros (Chuck & Buck), Patricia Clarkson (Pieces of April & The Station Agent), Catherine O’Hara (For Your Consideration), and Gong Li (Memoirs of a Geisha).
Five of the NBR’s Best Supporting Actress winners earned Oscar nods in the last decade. Only one of these, Penélope Cruz for Vicky Cristina Barcelona in 2008, went on to take home the Oscar statuette.
Weaver may or may not get an Oscar nomination – it all depends on how much more love she gets from U.S. critics groups and perhaps the Golden Globes, which should then make Academy members take a good, hard look at Animal Kingdom.
But one thing is all but certain: on Dec. 11, she’ll go home carrying the Australian Film Institute’s Best Actress Award. (In case you’re wondering, a lead role can become a supporting one – or vice versa – depending on which side of the Atlantic and/or Pacific you are.)
More NBR winners: Christian Bale, The Town
And finally, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight star Christian Bale was the sole expected National Board of Review winner in the acting categories. To play the part of a drug-addicted former boxer in David O. Russell’s sleeper hit The Fighter, Bale lost weight and thinned his hair – and will quite likely get an Oscar nomination in a field that remains wide open.
Directed by Ben Affleck, who also stars, the crime drama The Town was the Best Ensemble winner. Besides Affleck, the cast includes Jeremy Renner, Rebecca Hall, Jon Hamm, Blake Lively, Slaine, Pete Postlethwaite, and Chris Cooper.
National Board of Review Awards 2010
Best Film: The Social Network
Top Ten Films (in alphabetical order):
Another Year
The Fighter
Hereafter
Inception
The King’s Speech
Shutter Island
The Town
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter’s BoneBest Foreign Language Film: Of Gods and Men – Dir.: Xavier Beauvois
Top Foreign Language Films (in alphabetical order):
I Am Love
Incendies
Life, Above All
Soul Kitchen
White MaterialBest Actress: Lesley Manville – Another Year
Best Actor: Jesse Eisenberg – The Social Network
Best Supporting Actress: Jacki Weaver – Animal Kingdom
Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale – The Fighter
Best Director: David Fincher – The Social Network
Best Ensemble Cast: The Town
Best Original Screenplay: Buried – Chris Sparling
Best Adapted Screenplay: The Social Network – Aaron Sorkin
Breakthrough Performance: Jennifer Lawrence – Winter’s Bone
Debut Director: Sebastian Junger & Tim Hetherington – Restrepo
Best Animated Feature: Toy Story 3
Production Design Award: Shutter Island – Dante Ferretti
Top Ten Independent Films (in alphabetical order):
Animal Kingdom
Buried
Fish Tank
The Ghost Writer
Greenberg
Let Me In
Monsters
Please Give
Somewhere
Youth in RevoltBest Documentary: Waiting for ‘Superman’ – Dir.: Davis Guggenheim
Top Documentary Films (in alphabetical order):
A Film Unfinished
Inside Job
Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
Restrepo
The Tillman StorySpotlight Award: Sylvain Chomet & Jacques Tati – The Illusionist
Special Filmmaking Achievement Award: Sofia Coppola – For writing, directing, and producing Somewhere
NBR Freedom of Expression Award: Fair Game, Conviction, Howl
William K. Everson Film History Award: Leonard Maltin
“National Board of Review (NBR) Awards 2010” notes
National Board of Review (NBR) website.
Jesse Eisenberg The Social Network image: Columbia Pictures | Sony Pictures Releasing.
Lesley Manville Another Year image: Sony Pictures Classics.
*last modified in October 2025.