And the ball is rolling...

The National Board of Review has started critics' award month for cinema, giving Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire the top prize. There appears to be too many awards for actors given out by NBR, but so be it... The NBR usually ranks as one of the less sophisticated of the year's awards. The rest are as follows:

Picture: Slumdog Millionaire - dir. Danny Boyle
Director: David Fincher (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Actor: Clint Eastwood (Gran Torino)
Actress: Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married)
Supporting Actor: Josh Brolin (Milk)
Supporting Actress: Penélope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona)
Foreign Film: Mongol - dir. Sergei Bodrov
Documentary: Man on Wire - dir. James Marsh
Animated Feature: WALL·E - dir. Andrew Stanton
Breakthrough Actor: Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire)
Breakthrough Actress: Viola David (Doubt)
Directorial Debut: Courtney Hunt (Frozen River)
Original Screenplay: Nick Schenk (Gran Torino)
Adapted Screenplay: (tie) Eric Roth (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button); Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire)
Spotlight Award: Melissa Leo (Frozen River); Richard Jenkins (The Visitor)

Top 10 Films (That Aren't Slumdog, "Independent" or "Foreign," but Can Be Animated)
Burn After Reading - dir. Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Changeling - dir. Clint Eastwood
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - dir. David Fincher
The Dark Knight - dir. Christopher Nolan
Defiance - dir. Edward Zwick
Frost/Nixon - dir. Ron Howard
Gran Torino - dir. Clint Eastwood
Milk - dir. Gus Van Sant
WALL·E - dir. Andrew Stanton
The Wrestler - dir. Darren Aronofsky

Top 10 "Independent Films"
Frozen River - dir. Courtney Hunt
In Bruges - dir. Martin McDonagh
In Search of a Midnight Kiss - dir. Alex Holdridge
Mister Foe [Hallam Foe] - dir. David Mackenzie
Rachel Getting Married - dir. Jonathan Demme
Snow Angels - dir. David Gordon Green
Son of Rambow - dir. Garth Jennings
Wendy and Lucy - dir. Kelly Reichardt
Vicky Cristina Barcelona - dir. Woody Allen
The Visitor - dir. Thomas McCarthy

Top 5 "Foreign" Films (That Aren't Mongol)
The Edge of Heaven [Auf der anderen Seite] - dir. Fatih Akin
Let the Right One In [Låt den rätte komma in] - dir. Tomas Alfredson
Roman de gare - dir. Claude Lelouch
A Secret [Un secret] - dir. Claude Miller
Waltz with Bashir - dir. Ari Folman

Top 5 "Documentaries" (That Aren't Man on Wire)
American Teen - dir. Nanette Burstein
The Betrayal - dir. Ellen Kuras, Thavisouk Prasavath
Dear Zachary - dir. Kurt Kuenne
Encounters at the End of the World - dir. Werner Herzog
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired - dir. Marina Zenovich