Conjuring.

Best Horror

It is a divisive genre, with many people refusing to see "scary movies," but horror films will always be a popular and vital part of international cinema. From grand Gothic productions to inexpensive bump-in-the-night entertainments filmed with hand-held cameras, the genre has a special draw and power, functioning as a profitable space in which audiences can confront their fear of the unknown.



Byzantium

Two decades after directing one of the most popular vampire films ever, Interview with the Vampire, Irish director Neil Jordan once again trains his camera on the undead. The film, an adaptation of the play A Vampire Story, focuses on a mother-and-daughter duo on the run from an ancient and cruel order of male vampires for centuries and the seaside town in which their final stand unfolds. Jordan subverts the traditional gender politics of vampire fiction and conceives such vivid images as a waterfall of blood.



The Conjuring

After directing such sleeper hits as Saw and Insidious, James Wan directs his most celebrated and popular film to date with The Conjuring. Set in the 1970s, the film turns on a family in crisis after moving into a haunted house and the pair of ghost hunters who try to save them. An old-fashioned campfire story through and through, the film wowed and jolted audiences through rich atmosphere and dramatic music.



Evil Dead

Over 30 years after the original Evil Dead film began a surprise franchise and launched more than one iconic career, the film receives a perhaps even more violent reboot with an expanded budget and a brief cameo by the iconic Bruce "Ash" Campbell. The basic storyline once again involves naive youths at an isolated cabin in the forest and the ancient evil they unleash, placing themselves in extreme peril and submerging the audience in a sea of extreme bloodshed with a peripheral dose of very macabre humor.



World War Z

A Nightmare of the Living Dead style apocalypse is presented on a far grander scale than ever before in this big-budget action film. Brad Pitt stars a scientist and former United Nations investigator whose search for the answer to the mysterious disease destroying the world spirits him from the East Coast of the United States to Jerusalem to a research facility in Wales, facing armies of bloodthirsty zombies at every turn.



You're Next

Functioning both as a spirited ode to and a knowing lampoon of the genre, festival-circuit favorite You're Next upends a recognizable scenario (a family gathering in the countryside disrupted by disguised, murderous home invaders) by empowering its heroine and twisting and turning the story and the motives of the characters in playful and unexpected ways.

And the award for best horror film goes to:

retract sir, she is not ugly fo sho

Conjuring.

Cmon Byzantium

I voted You're Next

This was a GREAT year for Horror movies....outside of nominees itself there were so many good horror movies.

The Conjuring

You're Next was the first runner-up.

meh

Nice and well deserved. Great to see the love for You're Next.

Byzantium is the real winner simply because of its nomination, though. Particularly considering its low-profile release relative to the others.

Quite expected, but it was nice seeing You're Next ahead of bigger hits such as WWZ or Evil Dead. I am certain that You're Next would have been even further ahead had more people seen it.

The Act of Killing - 1
Blue Is the Warmest Color - 1
The Conjuring - 1
Frozen - 1
Gravity - 1
The Great Gatsby - 1
Her - 1
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug - 1
The Wolf of Wall Street - 1

Best Supporting Actress it is now. Our first acting award of the night!

Was Byzantium the least voted?

Let's get a second win for a movie now.

JLAW!!!!!!!

Supporting Actress - Maggie

Nope. It got the same number of votes as WWZ and both got more than Evil Dead.

Best Supporting Actress

This category contains five diverse performances by five diverse actresses. There are relative fresh faces, and there are established stars. There are characters from the past, and there is another from the future. One only exists as a voice! But each performance is an important component of and indeed improves the film in which it is found.



It is unusual to see a vocal turn nominated alongside performers the audience can both hear and see, but such is the magnetic intrigue of the voice of Scarlett Johansson in Her. With tones ranging from amused to aroused to concerned to mysterious, she creates the character of Samantha, an artificial-intelligence operating system who becomes an object of human desire despite possessing no physical form. Despite never sharing the frame in a conventional sense, she and co-star Joaquin Phoenix generate a genuine romantic energy, rendering Her a complete and moving love story, however unusual on the surface.



Many people believe American Hustle is stolen in its entirety by Jennifer Lawrence as the gorgeous, temperamental, and volatile wife of the con artist portrayed by Christian Bale. Just as her character often upends the intricate plans of the people around her, Lawrence complicates and electrifies the film every time she is on screen. The scene in which she cleans her suburban house while madly singing along to "Live and Let Die" by Paul McCartney & Wings is a particular comic highlight.



With charm, dignity, and a sense of delicate strength shot through with despair, Lupita Nyong'o plays Patsey in 12 Years a Slave. Not only enslaved and forced to endure days in the blistering heat in the cotton field, she is also a victim of sexual abuse, a target of her conflicted master's desire and violent rage. Present in the memoir from which the film is adapted, she is a woman indicative of many, but a rare one who will not be obscured forever by the cruel shadows of the past in part due to this up-and-coming star's celebrated performance.



In a role similar in certain respects to the one played by Jennifer Lawrence in American Hustle, Margot Robbie establishes herself as a distinctive new talent as the trophy wife of Leonardo DiCaprio's character in The Wolf of Wall Street. Her character is reminiscent of many females in films by Martin Scorsese: a beauty who is at first perceived by the male protagonist as an angel to be coveted and protected, a perfect wife and mother to display beside him, but who later must endure (survive) the danger and insanity of his downfall. The fetching Australian import plays the role a potent blend of Jersey-forged grit and soft sensuality.



In one of the boldest and most well-received performances of her A-list career, Julia Roberts portrays the eldest of three dysfunctional daughters in August: Osage County. She is the one who escaped her rural upbringing to wed and start a family elsewhere, but now her husband has drifted into the arms of another woman and her father is dead, and she returns home to confront her unstable past and realize the ways in which where she comes from continues to shape and stunt her, including as a mother.

And the award for best supporting actress goes to:

The award Magnus was waiting...

I know Julia won't win here but her's was also a VERY good performance...too bad the film wasn't as great.

Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle

Lupita Nyong'o, 12 Years a Slave was the first runner-up.

I voted Johansson. Not too happy about the overall line-up. Poor June Squibb....