'12 Years' Headed Towards A Banner Awards Year

We're in an awkward place as a pop culture-devouring society right now where all these amazing Oscar-worthy movies are out and we're nearing awards season but we're not quite there. Like, for instance, the fact that we have our first Tina Fey/Amy Poehler Golden Globes promo is out, but we've still got some time before actual Golden Globes nominees are announced. Which is why we're paying attention to things like 12 Years a Slave winning Best Picture with the New York Film Critics Online — and Gravity winning the same honor from the Los Angeles Film Critics.

It's as close as we've got when it comes to taking baby steps towards actually predicting who's going to be taking home that big man-shaped award come February. And from the looks of it it's going to be a race between 12 Years and Gravity.

With the New York critics 12 Years a Slave was the unhappiest movie with the happiest amount of trophies this weekend with the New York Film Critics Online's awards, taking home Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress (for Lupita Nyong'o), and Best Actor (for Chiwetel Ejiofor). Gravity followed with two, one for Best Director (Alfonso Cuaron) and one for Best Cinematography (Emmanuel Lubezki).

On the other side of the country the Los Angeles film critics also honored Cuaron for directing and Lubezki for cinematography, as well as Lupita Nyong'o for Best Supporting Actress again. Cate Blanchett won Best Actress on the left coast, too, but this time tied with Blue Is the Warmest Color's Adèle Exarchopoulos. They gave Bruce Dern's turn in Nebraska the Best Actor honor.

The LA critics were also responsible for the Best Supporting Actor tie between James Franco in Spring Breakers and Jaret Leto in Dallas Buyer's Club, which feels weird but also right.

All of this is stunning work in a stunning year for film. And even though we may still have a ways to go until the Oscars — voting for nominees comes Dec. 27, the actual announcement of those nominees and the ceremony a while after — it seems as if the films being honored here fall pretty well in line with where people expect this awards season to go.

Some other tidbits from the New York Critics: American Hustle won Ensemble Cast; Spike Jonze won for the Her screenplay; Cate Blanchett won for Blue Jasmine; Jared Leto as Supporting Actor for Dallas Buyers Club; Blue Is the Warmest Color for Best Foreign Language; Inside Llewyn Davis and Nebraska both got mentions in the Best Films of 2013 list. Nebraska was also heavily mentioned in the LA proceedings.

You can expect all of these films and people, or at least around 90 percent, to make appearances on the Oscar nominations list this year. If they don't make it there it'll be the SAG Awards or the Golden Globes. But right now we seem to have a pretty good image of where we're going.

Image: Fox Searchlight; gifsoup