Argo Wins Big With Denver Film Critics Society

As awards season enters its highest peak this week, with the final guild and Academy Award nominations announced, the final film critic societies are also announcing their picks for the best of 2012, and today, the Denver Film Critics Society has thrown their hat in the ring with their 2012 awards winners.

It is an appropriate set of awards to highlight here at We Got This Covered, as in addition to being this website’s Associate Editor and film critic, I am a voting member of the Denver Film Critics Society, and participated in selecting these winners.

Argo was our big winner, taking both Best Film and Best Director for Ben Affleck, and while I am one of the few critics in the country who isn’t head over heels in love with the movie, I have no qualms with its victory, and consider Affleck’s award well earned. Argo is nothing if not a spectacularly directed exercise in character-based tension, and his win is fitting.

I am even happier with our acting awards, where Daniel Day-Lewis and Jennifer Lawrence won for lead work in Lincoln and Silver Linings Playbook respectively. I voted for both of them, and the same goes for Anne Hathaway, who collected yet another accolade for her supporting work in Les Miserables. Philip Seymour Hoffman won our Supporting Actor award for The Master, and while I preferred our other nominees in the field – Tommy Lee Jones and Robert De Niro – it is undoubtedly a strong performance worthy of praise.

Take a look at the full list of winners below. If you would like to see a full list of the nominees, announced last week, you can take a look over at my personal blog.

Best Film: Argo

Best Achievement in Directing: Ben Affleck, Argo

Best Lead Performance by an Actor, Male: Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln

Best Lead Performance by an Actor, Female: Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook

Best Supporting Performance by an Actor, Male: Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master

Best Supporting Performance by an Actor, Female: Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables

Best Animated Feature: ParaNorman

Best Original Screenplay: Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola, Moonrise Kingdom

Best Adapted Screenplay: David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook

Best Documentary Feature: Jiro Dreams of Sushi

Best Original Song: Adele, “Skyfall” from Skyfall

Best Original Score: Hans Zimmer, The Dark Knight Rises

Best Non-English Language Feature: Amour

While I do not agree with all the winners my colleagues chose, I am very pleased with the variety of titles on display. While Argo and Silver Linings Playbook both won two awards apiece, no other film took more than one category, making for a diverse and representative field of winners that nicely sums up many highlights from the year in film.