‘Zero Dark Thirty’ Claims Best Picture at the 2012 New York Film Critics Awards

The New York Film Critics Circle announced their Best of 2012 winners today and it was a slow-moving, up-and-down affair. All the momentum seemed to be going the way of Steven Spielberg‘s Lincoln as it nabbed wins for Best Screenplay (Tony Kushner), Actor (Daniel Day-Lewis) and Supporting Actor (Sally Field), but in the end it was Kathryn Bigelow‘s Zero Dark Thirty that swooped in and took Best Picture.

Greig Fraser was awarded Best Cinematography early in the day for Zero Dark Thirty and after a swath of awards for Lincoln it wasn’t until Bigelow took home Best Director — her second win from the org, which also awarded her in 2009 for The Hurt Locker — that the tide began to turn. Only minutes later the film was awarded Best Picture.

As far as awards perspective goes and what this may mean for the Oscar race, last year the group named The Artist the best picture of the year and it eventually went on to win the Oscar. Yet, while they’ve named the Best Picture winner three out of the last five years, out of the last 20 they have only matched up five times.

If you head over to my Awards Calendar you’ll see we’ll be hearing from the National Board of Review on Wednesday followed by the Screen Actors Guild nominations next Wednesday, December 12 and the Golden Globe nominations on Thursday, December 13.

In addition to that, I’ll be receiving my nomination ballot for the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards today and those nominations will be announced next Tuesday, December 11. So, yeah, this is just the start… I will be keeping track of all these early Best Picture wins in my Oscar Overture where Zero Dark Thirty‘s New York win is the first one added to the chart.

The complete list of New York Film Critics winners is listed below. The ceremony honoring the 78th annual New York Film Critics Circle Award winners will take place in New York on January 7.

BEST PICTURE

• Zero Dark Thirty

BEST DIRECTOR

• Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty)

BEST ACTOR

• Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln)

BEST ACTRESS

• Rachel Weisz (The Deep Blue Sea)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

• Matthew McConaughey (Bernie and Magic Mike)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

• Sally Field (Lincoln)

BEST SCREENPLAY

• Tony Kushner (Lincoln)

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

• Greig Fraser (Zero Dark Thirty)

BEST ANIMATED FILM

• Frankenweenie

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

• Amour

BEST NON-FICTION FEATURE

• The Central Park Five

BEST FIRST FEATURE

• How to Survive a Plague