Manchester By the Sea

On Tuesday, the Academy released their list of all the film scores eligible for a Best Original Score Oscar this year, but three of 2016’s biggest movies were absent. Arrival, Manchester by the Sea, and Martin Scorsese’s Silence were all shut out of the competition because the first two used pre-existing music, and the last wasn’t deemed “substantial” enough.

The major inside-industry awards come from the Producers’ Guild of America, the Writers’ Guild of America, the Directors’ Guild of America, and the Screen Actors’ Guild. This morning, the nominations for the 2017 SAG Awards were announced from Los Angeles, with a smattering of surprises and populist favorites (what’s up, Stranger Things) among the established awards season juggernauts. (The Natalie Portman v. Emma Stone showdown continues.)

Following Sunday night’s Critics’ Choice Awards, the Golden Globes nominations have arrived. On Monday morning, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced their nominees for the 2017 awards, recognizing the best in film and television.

As December rolls on, so too does the cavalcade of year-end lists. The latest authority to weigh in is AFI, by which I mean the American Film Institute and not the Californian alternative-rock group also known as A Fire Inside. While we may never know which films the quartet behind “Miss Murder” favored this year, the other AFI has released their list of 2016’s ten best releases, and it’s a little more varied than some of the heretofore published lists, bringing in some films with less awards buzz along with your usual suspects of Moonlight, Manchester by the Sea, and La La Land.

What a difference six months makes. Back in the summer, the world of film was all gloom and doom. Television was great; the movies were terrible. One respected critic even speculated that someday the world would look back at 2016 as “the year that movies died.”

Film critics and awards pundits have been talking about Oscar frontrunners for months now, but it’s that time of the year when all that prognostication finally matters. This week marked the beginning of awards season with the Gotham Awards, the National Board of Review’s list of winners and yesterday’s New York Film Critics’ Circle picks. It’s still too early to tell who and what will win the gold come Oscar night, but when it comes to predictions, we’ve got you covered.

It’s officially December, which means it’s the most wonderful tiiiiime of the year…and by that we mean awards season (OK, sure, decked-out trees and spiked ’nog are fun too, I guess). On the heels of this morning’s Critics’ Choice Awards nominations, the New York Film Critics Circle has announced its full list of winners, with La La Land, Moonlight and Manchester by the Sea leading the pack — unsurprisingly.

Ready or not, awards season has arrived, which means you’ll hear be hearing nothing but Oscars talk for the next two months. The awards season is already a big question mark for a few frontrunners. Earlier this week Moonlight swept the Gotham Awards, Manchester By the Sea dominated the National Board of Review’s winners list, and La La Land earned 12 noms for the Critics’ Choice Awards. It’s safe to say this will be a very competitive Oscar season, and lucky for you ScreenCrush has a brand new podcast to keep you up to date on all the awards season news.

Kenneth Lonergans’ Manchester By the Sea was a film that debuted with the words “awards season” attached to it. Back in January when the drama premiered at Sundance, many audiences members’ first thought (mine included) was that we’d already found our 2017 Oscar frontrunner. That may not entirely be true anymore, since the fall movie season has introduced some worthy contenders in the forms of La La Land and Moonlight. Yet still, Lonergan’s film is already sweeping up awards.

If you tried to describe Manchester by the Sea to someone else it would sound an awful lot like many other indie dramas. Trouble white guy returns to his hometown to care for a relative. But that does not do justice to Kenneth Lonergan’s third feature, only his third in 16 years...