"Boyhood," "Nightcrawler" Win Big as Georgia Film Critics Split the Board

Richard Linklater takes top honors for both Picture and Director; "Nightcrawler," "The Grand Budapest Hotel" and "Selma" all take home two each.

For their 4th annual awards presentation, the Georgia Film Critics Association have decided to distribute the love pretty evenly. Of the ten Best Picture nominees, nine of them took home at least one award.

"Boyhood" took home the big prizes, Best Picture and Best Director for Richard Linklater. "Nightcrawler" won Best Actor for Jake Gyllenhaal and Best Original Screenplay for Dan Gilroy. "The Grand Budapest Hotel" won awards for Best Production Design and Best Ensemble. "Selma" won the Oglethorpe Award for Excellence in Georgia Cinema and Best Original Song for "Glory," performed by John Legend and Common.

Marion Cotillard won Best Actress for "Two Days, One Night," while Tilda Swinton and J.K. Simmons took home Supporting prizes for Best Picture nominated films "Snowpiercer" and "Whiplash," respectively. "Gone Girl" took home Best Adapted Screenplay honors, while "Birdman" won for Best Cinematography (This is Emmanuel Lubeski's third GFCA win, after "The Tree of Life" and "Gravity"). Hans Zimmer's score for "Interstellar" provides the film's sole win out of three nominations.

Best Foreign Film went to "Ida," Best Documentary to "Life Itself" and Best Animated Film to "The LEGO Movie." David Oyelowo won the Breakthrough Award, with all five of his films from 2014 sharing the mention.

Check out the full list of winners after the jump.

Georgia Film Critics Reveal Nominees for 2014 Awards

"Birdman" narrowly leads nominations; "Ida," "Nightcrawler," "Snowpiercer," "Under the Skin," make a splash across the board.

Most critics groups have had their say already, but the Georgia Film Critics Association doesn't mind giving themselves time to think about their top picks of the year. This is their fourth year handing out best-of designations.

"Birdman" leads the pack with seven nominations, but "Boyhood," "Gone Girl," "The Grand Budapest Hotel" and Georgia-lensed "Selma" are all close by with six mentions each (not counting the individuals mentioned for Breakthrough Award).

Perhaps most noteworthy is the dominance of "Nightcrawler" (with five nods), "Snowpiercer" (with four nods) and "Ida" (with three nods)—all including Best Picture. Foreign films "Force Majeure" and "Two Days, One Night" pop up in the Best Actress category. Documentaries garner several mentions outside their own category, with "Sepideh" receiving a Foreign Film nod, "Life Itself" mentioned in Best Score, and both "Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me" and "Virunga" earning Best Original Song nominations.

"Calvary" earned a rogue screenplay nomination, as did "Wild" and "The Imitation Game." There was plenty of love for "Inherent Vice," "Interstellar" and "Under the Skin"—each receiving three nominations.

Several of these films were found on the Georgia film festival circuit this year. "Whiplash," "Two Days, One Night," "Foxcatcher," "The Imitation Game," "Life Itself," "Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me," "Finding Vivian Maier," "Keep On Keepin' On," "Big Hero 6" and "The Book of Life" all featured at the Savannah Film Festival. "Ida" played at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival early in the year.

Winners will be announced on Friday, January 9th. Check out the full list of nominees after the jump.

AJFF Review: "Ida" (***½)

Agata Trzebuchowska stars as Ida in "Ida"

The 2014 Atlanta Jewish Film Festival has drawn to a close, but the films it featured press on. Enter “Ida,” director Pawel Pawlikowski’s career's first foray into his native Poland. Filmed in a black-and-white square aspect ratio, Pawlikowski’s screenplay is nearly upstaged by Lukasz Zal's and Ryszard Lenczewski's striking visual direction, which is beautifully upstaged by newcomer Agata Trzebuchowska. At first she plays Anna—a young soon-to-be nun encouraged by the Mother to become acquainted with her only living relative, Aunt Wanda (Agata Kulesza).

Wanda wastes no time imparting life-changing truth: Anna is not Anna at all. Her name is Ida. And Ida is not Catholic, but Jewish. Her parents were murdered during WWII. Ida has questions, but Wanda doesn’t have all the answers. The two take a trip across Poland on a search for the rest. What they find pulls not only Ida’s but Wanda’s identity into question, and the results threaten to be more than either can handle.

What to see at the 2014 Atlanta Jewish Film Festival

Oscar-nominees, Israeli blockbusters, European documentaries and everything in between— Here are 27 films worth checking out at the Southeast's largest film festival.

At fourteen years old, the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival is in a great place. Now the largest film festival in the Southeastern United States, I fully expect it to be declared the largest Jewish film festival in world when ticket sales are finalized next month.

The sprawling three-week event has always been a source of excellent programming, with plenty of movies to appeal to people across the board. Estimates for the number of non-Jewish festival-goers hover at around 25% of total attendees, but there is definitely room for growth there. Good films abound at AJFF, and good films are good whether you are Jewish or not! I've been attending for half-a-decade and this year's lineup looks to be the strongest I've seen yet.

From opening night selection "Run Boy Run" to closing night documentary, "Next Year Jerusalem"—there is something for everyone to enjoy. Foreign Language Oscar submissions from Argentina, Czech Republic, Israel, Macedonia, Palestine (one of the nominees, "Omar") and The Philippines all feature in the lineup, as well as the Oscar-nominated documentary short film, "The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life." Ophir nominees and Israeli box office hits like "Bethlehem," "Big Bad Wolves," "Hunting Elephants," "Kidon," "Rock the Casbah" and "The Wonders" are highlights, as are films from across Europe and South America. This year's documentaries cover a variety of subjects, from famed filmmakers and political figures to the Holocaust and modern Israeli issues. Four films feature in special anniversary screenings, including a 25th anniversary presentation of the Georgia set-and-shot winner of the 1989 Academy Award for Best Picture, "Driving Miss Daisy."

The festival kicks off on Wednesday, January 29th and runs through February 20th. Check out our list of over two dozen films to see at this year's festival, after the jump.