‘Birdman’ is DFW film critics’ best movie of 2014
Birdman is the best film of the year, according to members of the Dallas Fort Worth Film Critics Association.
The group, consisting of 30 print, online, and broadcast journalists based in North Texas, ranked the movie starring Michael Keaton as a struggling actor above Richard Linklater’s tale of Texas childhood and adolescence, Boyhood, which came in at number two. The rest of the top 10: The Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Whiplash, Gone Girl, Selma, Wild, and Nightcrawler.
The best picture category wasn’t the only one in which Birdman ruled the roost. It won five in total including the actor category as Keaton topped a field that includes Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything), Benedict Cumberbatch (The Imitation Game), Jake Gyllenhaal (Nightcrawler), and Timothy Spall (Mr. Turner).
Birdman director Alejandro Gonzales Iñárritu nabbed the directing honors over Linklater, Wes Anderson (Grand Budapest Hotel), David Fincher (Gone Girl), and Ava DuVernay (Selma).
Birdman also was honored for best cinematography (Emmanuel Lubezki). Runner-up was Hoyte van Hoytema for Interstellar. Finally, Birdman screenwriters Iñárritu, Nicolas Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris and Armando Bo beat out Boyhood’s Linklater in the screenplay category.
Reese Witherspoon was voted best actress for the survival tale Wild, winning out over Julianne Moore (Still Alice), Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl), Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything), Marion Cotillard (Two Days, One Night).
J.K. Simmons, who played the abusive music teacher in Whiplash, received the supporting-actor honors over Edward Norton (Birdman), Ethan Hawke (Boyhood), Mark Ruffalo (Foxcatcher), and Alfred Molina (Love Is Strange).
Patricia Arquette was named best supporting actress for Boyhood. Runners-up were Emma Stone (Birdman), Keira Knightley (The Imitation Game), Jessica Chastain (A Most Violent Year), and Laura Dern (Wild).
The Swedish dysfunctional family drama Force Majeure was the choice for foreign-language film with Ida, Winter Sleep, Leviathan, and Wild Tales as runners-up.
The Lego Movie topped the field of animated movies with Big Hero 6 coming in second. Citizen Four, built around interviews with Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald in the early days of the NSA leaks, was named best documentary over Life Itself, Jodorowsky’s Dune, The Overnighters, and The Great Invisible.
Boyhood won the Russell Smith Award, named for the late Dallas Morning News film critic, which, according to the DFWFCA, “is given to the best low-budget or cutting-edge indie film.”
This story was originally published December 15, 2014 at 10:12 AM with the headline "‘Birdman’ is DFW film critics’ best movie of 2014."