2011 New York Film Critics Circle Awards - winners

Shortly after leading the announced nominations for the Film Independent Spirit Awards, The Artist was the big winner at the first major critics' awards, the New York Film Critics Circle Awards. It was named Best Film and Michel Hazanavicus was named Best Director.

Although its acting awards were shared, The Tree of Life picked up more mentions with three. It won Best Cinematography and acting awards for Brad Pitt (shared with Moneyball) and Jessica Chastain (shared with The Help and Take Shelter).

Moneyball was also a winner in the Screenplay category for its Oscar-winning writers Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin.

Meryl Streep was named Best Actress for The Iron Lady, while Best Supporting Actor was Albert Brooks for his role as a villain in Drive.

A Special Award will be given posthumously to Raoul Ruiz who died this past summer at age 70 and having made over 100 films.

The awards were controversially moved this year to November so that they would be the first film critics' awards (formerly the National Board of Review had usually been first). The move backfired somewhat as they had to change their voting date from the 28th to the 29th in order to screen David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. This proved inconsequential, since it didn't ultimately receive any awards. However, the film Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Steven Daldry won't be ready for screening until later this week and was a major screening omission in their determination to be first.

The New York Film Critics Circle includes many renowned writers but also includes notoriously contrarian critic Armond White. The very respected New York Times critics (Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott) are not permitted to participate due to the newspaper's policy.

The NYFCC Awards were decided by vote and announced via Twitter. They will be handed out in a ceremony in Manhattan on January 9, 2012.

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Complete list of winners for the New York Film Critics Circle Awards

Best Film
The Artist

Best Director
Michel Hazanavicus, The Artist

Best Actor
Brad Pitt, Moneyball and The Tree of Life

Best Actress
Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady

Best Supporting Actor
Albert Brooks, Drive

Best Supporting Actress
Jessica Chastain, The Tree of Life, The Help and Take Shelter

Best Screenplay
Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin, Moneyball

Best Cinematography
Emmanuel Lubezki, The Tree of Life

Best Foreign Language Film
A Separation

Best Nonfiction Film
Cave of Forgotten Dreams

Best First Feature
Margin Call

Special Award (posthumous)
Raoul Ruiz

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New York Film Critics Circle Membership

Current Chair:
John Anderson
Variety, Newsday

Members:
Thelma Adams
Us Weekly

Melissa Anderson
The Village Voice

Michael Atkinson
The Village Voice

Dwight Brown
NNPA Syndication

Richard Corliss
Time

David Denby
The New Yorker

Karen Durbin
Elle Magazine

David Edelstein
New York Magazine

David Fear
Time Out New York

Marshall Fine
Star Magazine, Huffington Post

Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly

Jim Hoberman
The Village Voice

Stuart Klawans
The Nation

Lou Lumenick
The New York Post

Joe Morgenstern
The Wall Street Journal

Vincent Musetto
The New York Post

Joe Neumaier
The New York Daily News

Peter Rainer
Christian Science Monitor

Rex Reed
New York Observer

Joshua Rothkopf
Time Out New York

Andrew Sarris
Emeritus

Richard Schickel
Truthdig.com

Lisa Schwarzbaum
Entertainment Weekly

Kyle Smith
The New York Post

Dana Stevens
Slate.com

Peter Travers
Rolling Stone

Elizabeth Weitzman
The New York Daily News

Armond White
New York Press

Stephen Whitty
The Star-Ledger/Newhouse Newspapers

Stephanie Zacharek
Movieline.com