CriterionCast

Moonrise Kingdom Wins Best Feature At The 2012 Gotham Awards

Let award season begin.

With Thanksgiving behind us and the holiday season in full swing, the first major awards event took place this Monday as the 2012 Gotham Awards were handed out, and if they are to be believed, director Wes Anderson may have a big season ahead of him.

His film, Moonrise Kingdom, took home Best Feature, while the critical darling Artifact won the coveted Audience Award. The breathtaking How To Survive A Plague took home Best Documentary, while the underrated and incomprehensibly moving Your Sister’s Sister won Best Ensemble Performance. Ben Zeitlin also won big as his film Beasts Of The Southern Wild took home the inaugural Bingham Ray Award and he won for Breakthrough Director.

Now, while these awards do play as somewhat of an awards season predictor, there is still a very long season ahead of us. Tuesday marks the Independent Spirit Awards and their nominations, and films like Les Miserables and Zero Dark Thirty have just started screening, to absolutely rave reviews. Lincoln is as strong as ever, and Argo is still making waves at the box office. Now toss in Beasts and Moonrise (not to mention a little film from Paul Thomas Anderson) and you have a year that’s proving to be one of the tightest races in quite some time. Oh, and don’t forget the brilliant slate of documentaries we’ve seen. 2012 isn’t so bad, after all.

Here’s the full list of winners:

Best Feature:  
Moonrise Kingdom
Wes Anderson, director; Wes Anderson, Scott Rudin, Steven Rales, Jeremy Dawson, producers (Focus Features)

Audience Award:
Artifact
Bartholomew Cubbins, director;  Jared Leto, Emma Ludbrook, producers.

Bingham Ray Award:
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Benh Zeitlin, director.

Best Documentary:
How to Survive a Plague
David France, director; Howard Gertler, David France, producers (Sundance Selects)

Best Ensemble Performance
Your Sister’s Sister
Emily Blunt, Rosemarie Dewitt, Mark Duplass (IFC Films)

Breakthrough Director
Benh Zeitlin for  Beasts of the Southern Wild  (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

Breakthrough Actor
Emayatzy Corinealdi in  Middle of Nowhere  (AFFRM and Participant Media)

Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You
An Oversimplification of Her Beauty
Terence Nance, director; Terence Nance, Andrew Corkin, James Bartlett, producers

‘˜Live the Dream’ Grant Nominees
Stacie Passon, director,  Concussion

Source Film Society Of Lincoln Center

Joshua Brunsting

Josh is a critic, a member of the Online Film Critics Society, a wrestling nerd, a hip-hop head, a father, a cinephile and a man looking to make his stamp on the world, one word at a time.