WOMEN FILM CRITICS CIRCLE AWARDS 2025

 HAMNET SWEEPS WFCC AWARDS INCLUDING BEST SCREEN COUPLE ~ UPI https://www.upi.com/.../women-film-critics.../6941766057290/

The Voice Of Hind Rajab Shares Best Foreign Film, Diane Keaton Honored With Lifetime Achievement Award, And America Ferrera, The Daughter Of Honduran Immigrants, Receives The Acting And Activism Award For Her Immigrant Rights Advocacy...

Ethan Hawke Acceptance Letter For WFCC Best Actor In 'Blue Moon'

"Thank you to all of the members of the Women Film Critics Circle. In a year of extraordinary cinema, it's an honor to receive this accolade. I share it with Richard Linklater for his precise direction, Robert Kaplow for his diamond of a script, and the gracious ensemble who helped me inhabit Larry Hart every day -- not least of all Andrew Scott, Margaret Qualley and Bobby Cannavale."

Hawke portrays Lorenz Hart, the Rodgers and Hart legendary and desolate composer of Blue Moon, Bewitched, Bothered And Bewildered, and My Funny Valentine, among others...

 Dolly Parton once stepped into a boardroom in rhinestones and heels and walked out owning her songs. The men across the table thought she was a simple country girl who would sign whatever they handed her. Instead, she bought back her publishing rights. At the time, almost no one did that. Years later, when Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” sold tens of millions of copies, the royalties went straight to Dolly. She hadn’t only written the song — she owned it.

That has always been Dolly’s secret. She leaned into the wigs, the glitter, the corny jokes. People laughed, called her a backwoods Barbie, and assumed she wasn’t serious. She let them. Beneath the sparkle, she was one of the sharpest operators the music business has ever seen. She built Dollywood in the Tennessee mountains, turning her roots into an empire. She poured money into literacy programs, giving away more than 200 million books. She did it all while the world underestimated her — just the way she wanted.

The look was never an accident. “It costs a lot of money to look this cheap,” she joked. The hair, the nails, the laugh — they were her armor. They got her in the room, distracted the skeptics, and gave her time to walk away with the deal.

Even Elvis wanted a piece of her song. His manager demanded half the rights to “I Will Always Love You.” Dolly turned him down, crying in her car afterward, but she never gave in. That refusal may be the most valuable “no” in music history.

Dolly Parton’s story isn’t just about a country singer in sequins. It is about a woman who let the world misjudge her and used it to win. She played the joke everyone wanted — then turned it into power, money, and millions of books in children’s hands.

 

Sofia Tolstaya: The Woman Who Carried Tolstoy’s Genius

History remembers Leo Tolstoy.

But behind War and Peace and Anna Karenina stood a woman too often left in the shadows.

Sofia Tolstaya was not just Tolstoy’s wife.

She was his editor, copyist, typist, literary manager, publisher, the mother of thirteen children, and the emotional anchor for a man as turbulent as he was brilliant.

When he handed her War and Peace, it wasn’t a manuscript—it was chaos. Scribbled pages, scattered ideas, raw genius. She copied it out by hand seven times, deciphering his scrawl and shaping it into the masterpiece we know today.

She defended his work, managed the estate, negotiated with publishers, and kept life running while he chased spiritual purity.

He preached poverty—she balanced the accounts.

He sought detachment—she raised the children.

He left the material world—she kept the family alive.

Her diaries reveal her as sharp, perceptive, witty, and painfully honest—navigating love, exhaustion, resentment, and devotion.

When Tolstoy died at a cold railway station, Sofia arrived too late. Barred from his room, she waited outside as the man she had given her life to took his last breath. For decades, history kept her outside the story too.

Sofia was not a footnote.

She was a pillar.

The quiet co-architect of a literary revolution.

The invisible ink behind masterpieces.

To celebrate Tolstoy without Sofia is to tell only half the story.

She was a genius of endurance—a woman who carried the weight of greatness and made sure the words endured.

WOMEN FILM CRITICS CIRCLE PAULINE KAEL JURY AWARDS 2023

 

 BEST FEMALE ACTION HERO

Briana Middleton, Sharper

Jennifer Lopez, The Mother

BEST DIRECTRESS: COURAGE IN FILMMAKING

Alice Troughton, The Lesson

Frances O'Connor, Emily

COURAGE IN ACTING

[Taking on unconventional roles that radically redefine the images of women on screen]

Emma Stone - Poor Things

Tia Nomore - Earth Mama

WOMEN'S WORK - BEST ENSEMBLE CAST

How to Blow Up A Pipeline - Ariela Barer, Sasha Lane, Kristine Froseth & Jayme Lawson

The Taste Of Things

THE INVISIBLE WOMAN AWARD

[Supporting performance by a woman whose exceptional impact on the film dramatically, socially or historically, has been ignored]

Roberta Colindrez, Cassandro

Ronke Adekoluejo, Chevalier (constant voice in Chevalier de Saint-Georges' head)

BEST KEPT SECRET - Overlooked Challenging Film Gems

Our (Almost Completely True) Love Story

The Kill Room

WOMEN SAVING THEMSELVES AWARD

Ghosted

Memory

MOMMIE DEAREST WORST SCREEN MOM OF THE YEAR

Julianne Moore, May December

 

HALL OF SHAME

'Unique, provocative and stylishly opinionated'...Fasten your seat belts!

[Individual WFCC Member Picks]

Priscilla is a listless, boring movie with no Elvis Presley music about a Nepo wife whose only claim to fame is being married to Elvis.

May December is just another sick habit of Hollywood exploiting and promoting a horrible, vile, immoral crime ripped from the headlines just to make money with no creative thinking at all involved.

Poor Things - falls into the male gaze with its depiction of an infantilized woman.

Boo To The Oscars: For snubbing the female director and star of the feminist comedy Barbie, while nominating the male supporting actor, Ken.

Shame on Spyglass Films for firing Mexican actress Melissa Barerra from Scream 7, her third Scream sequel, for courageously advocating a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. The star of 'In The Heights' has however defiantly continued her support for Palestine by speaking out - turning up at Sundance this month to join a Pro-Palestinian march at the Festival while promoting her next film there, seemingly ironically titled in her struggle against censorship, 'Your Monster.'

The Drew Barrymore Show - for ignoring their three women writers (Cristina Kinon, Elizabeth Koe, and Chelsea White), and announcing that they wanted to resume filming during the WGA strike.

Magic Mike's Last Dance - I cringed at the thought that a woman can't find her sexuality unless she gets a lap dance. Admittedly, Mr. Tatum does rouse the hormones, but the idea that a woman of putative power, talent, and brains needs a man to make it all happen for her, well, feh.

No Hard Feelings: Crosses the line, several ways, several times. It is the lowest kind of humor and at times even veers racist and homophobic. The producers probably think they were flipping the script by putting a woman in the sexist, douchey lead role, but really they just perpetuated that demeaning trope. They think they're being meta and woke when actually they're just deeply offensive. When the audience laughs, they don't get the irony, they just think it's okay to laugh along with misogyny again.

A Good Person: The modern Oxycontin crisis is represented here by Florence Pugh, as overwhelmingly white, when the war on drugs has consistently vilified drug addicts in cases where the drug of choice was largely used by the black community...The whitewashing and sanitizing of drug addiction here is rampant and insulting. The film does a disservice to individuals and families of any color actually experiencing the effects of drug addiction. Our beautiful, middle-class, white heroine is always painted in a light that makes her seem like an innocent victim, as opposed to all the years we’ve consumed media telling us the opposite about drug addicts of any other color. Even the teenager in the black family is demonized more for the way she deals with her trauma than the lead character.

 

 

KILLER MOVIE REVIEWS ANNOUNCES WOMEN FILM CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNERS 2023

 

Facebook.com/killermoviereviews

 

https://www.imdb.com/event/ev0003081/2023/1/

 

Women Film Critics Circle Awards 2022

https://www.imdb.com/event/ev0003081/2022/1/

 

The WOMEN FILM CRITICS CIRCLE PAULINE KAEL JURY AWARDS 2022

 

BEST FEMALE ACTION HERO 

Keke Palmer, Alice

 

 

BEST DIRECTRESS: COURAGE IN FILMMAKING

Olivia Wilde, Don't Worry Darling

 

 

COURAGE IN ACTING  

[Taking on unconventional roles that radically redefine the images of women on screen]

Danielle Deadwyler, Till 

Anamaria Vartolomei, Happening

WOMEN'S WORK - BEST ENSEMBLE CAST 

The Woman King

 

 

THE INVISIBLE WOMAN AWARD
[Supporting performance by a woman whose exceptional impact on the film dramatically, socially or historically, has been ignored]

Charmaine Bingwa, Emancipation

 

 

BEST KEPT SECRET - Overlooked Challenging Film Gems

Amitabh Reza Chowdhury, Rickshaw Girl

Nana Mensah, Queen Of Glory

WOMEN SAVING THEMSELVES AWARD

The Janes

MOMMIE DEAREST WORST SCREEN MOM OF THE YEAR 

Blonde, Julianne Nicholson as Gladys

HALL OF SHAME 

'Unique, provocative and stylishly opinionated'...Fasten your seat belts!

[Individual WFCC Member Picks] 

*The Gotham Awards. For removing the category Best Actress, in the further erasing of women.

*Anatomy Citation. “It doesn't matter how much I do, I'm still not going to get paid as much as that guy, because of my vagina." - Jennifer Lawrence speaks out against the continuing literal shortchanging of actresses - regarding Lawrence paid five million dollars less than Leonardo DiCaprio for Don't Look Up, and less than the male cast Bradley Cooper, Christian Bale and Jeremy Renner for American Hustle.

*Cringe Citation. Harvey Weinstein's shameful audiotape recordings. And being reminded of them/him in 'She Said.'

*Too Much Information Citation: Emma Thompson, for Good Luck To You, Leo Grande.

*Blonde. For depicting only the worst fantasies about Marilyn Monroe, and none of her beauty, grace and intelligence.

*More Blonde. A film that re-exploited Marilyn Monroe and made me feel bad for her. She never had a chance in a man's world, and this film exploited her again through the unnecessary explicit scenes. 

*And More Blonde. An overrated actress romping through the film exposing herself. And why the constant showing of embryos, is it to champion pro-lifers.

*Even More Blonde. Completely inaccurate. The portrayal of the actress is shallow and cliched, and the part of the speaking embryo comes across as a disquieting anti-abortionist statement. My review... 

*She Said. A drama about the NY Times investigation into the sex charges against Harvey Weinstein, 'She Said' comes off more as a self-congratulatory promo for the NY Times, than emphasis on its victims. And intimating a kind of damage control there for its own numerous scandals - the weapons of mass destruction hoax, and most recently calling for the release of Julian Assange -  without an apology for the paper's media participation in orchestrating his incarceration.

*The Cannes Film Festival. For disrespecting credentialed Deadline critic and distinguished WFCC member Valerie Complex, treating her with racist implications as an intruder there. On Being Black At Cannes: How Microaggressions Marred My Festival Experience

* Shame On DOC NYC. For announcing then scrubbing the name off their public list, secretly inviting as guest of honor a cinematographer from the Ukraine Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, Dmytro Kozatsky. Who sports Nazi tattoos, and is fond of creating photographs of swastika carved pizzas. While dragging out from the premises a young woman protesting the event.

The Women Film Critics Circle And WFCC Special Jury Award Winner Acceptance Speeches!

 

BEST KEPT SECRET - Overlooked Challenging Film Gems

Director Amitabh Reza Chowdhury for Rickshaw Girl

"When I am making films , I never think about how people will perceive it or the awards that may come. The pleasure of making films is in playing with light and shadow, and creating emotion out of it . But whenever an award comes my way, it gives me inspiration for creating more cinema . Rickshawgirl is not just a film for me, it’s my journey to understand and celebrate the multitude of courageous and resilient Bangladeshi girls who fight for a dignified survival everyday. Thank you Jury board for this appreciation. Thank you, my beautiful Naima ,Novera Rahman, my producers and team for riding with me in the Rickshawgirl journey."

Amitabh Reza Chowdhury

Film director

 

 

 

BEST ENSEMBLE CAST

Directress Gina Prince-Blythwood for The Woman King

"On behalf of our extraordinary ensemble, thank you for honoring us with THE WOMEN FILM CRITICS CIRCLE PAULINE KAEL JURY AWARD 2022 for BEST ENSEMBLE CAST. This is a group of artists who all share the desire to be great, and that fostered an incredible set dynamic. Their passion to honor these real-life warriors, and their love and respect for each other fueled their inspiring work. They showed up for each other and it was profound to witness."

GPB

 

 

 

BEST DOCUMENTARY
Directresses Tina Lessin, Emma Pildes For The Janes

"We give thanks to the Women Film Critics Circle for recognizing “The Janes” with this honor. As women and as filmmakers, the story of Jane reinforced for us the power of decency, sisterhood and resistance. We hope that the film inspires audiences to join the fight to restore equitable access to safe abortion care for tens of millions who have had this fundamental right taken away." –Tia Lessin & Emma Pildes

 

 

 

 

Rae Dawn Chong Receives WFCC Award 2021

 THE INVISIBLE WOMAN AWARD [Supporting performance by a woman whose exceptional impact on the film dramatically, socially or historically, has been ignored]

Danielle Deadwyler as Cathay Williams, The Harder They Fall

Rae Dawn Chong, The Sleeping Negro

 

 

"Thank you WFCC,

This character epitomizes an invisible woman. Thank you for seeing her. I am truly honored. I once was reviewed by Ms. Kael and she was supportive and liked what I had done in a movie, so there is deep symmetry here. I love our movie The Sleep Negro and feel its message and heart are "right on time". THANK YOU from my heart for seeing her. Thank you for giving the invisible woman her due. WE need to be noticed. She needs to be seen."

 

Love,

Rae Dawn Chong

 

And this is the second awarded film this year, in addition to The Unforgivable, about the unlawful eviction of women and their families - in this case the elderly character 'Black Woman' dumped on the street by the sheriff, with only her walker and portable oxygen.

WOMEN FILM CRITICS CIRCLE SPECIAL PAULINE KAEL JURY AWARDS 2021

 UNIQUE, PROVOCATIVE AND STYLISHLY OPINIONATED….

 

 

'Criticism is the only thing that stands between the audience and advertising.' - Pauline Kael

BEST FEMALE ACTION HERO

Sandra Bullock, The Unforgivable

Sandra Oh, The Chair

 

 

 COURAGE IN FILMMAKING

Julia Ducournau, Titane

Sian Heder, CODA

COURAGE IN ACTING [Taking on unconventional roles that radically redefine the images of women on screen]

Halle Berry, Bruised

Sandra Bullock, The Unforgivable

WOMEN'S WORK: BEST ENSEMBLE CAST

Kathryn Hunter as The Three Witches, The Tragedy Of Macbeth 

King Richard

THE INVISIBLE WOMAN AWARD [Supporting performance by a woman whose exceptional impact on the film dramatically, socially or historically, has been ignored]

Danielle Deadwyler as Cathay Williams, The Harder They Fall

Rae Dawn Chong, The Sleeping Negro

WOMEN SAVING THEMSELVES AWARD

A Quiet Place Part II

Holler

BEST KEPT SECRET - Overlooked Challenging Gems

Mama Weed, Director Jean-Paul Salomé

Small Time, Directress Niav Conty

 

 

 

              Mama Weed - Isabelle Huppert

 

 

OUTSTANDING SERIES [Television or Streaming]

Lovecraft Country

The Handmaid's Tale

MOMMIE DEAREST - WORST SCREEN MOM OF THE YEAR 

Olivia Colman, The Lost Daughter

HALL OF SHAME [Individual Member Picks]

Free Guy - for giving us a kickass, lead female gamer, only to take her away by making her a manic pixie dream girl who just wants a boyfriend. 

Zola - for turning a true cautionary tale about sex trafficking into a dangerous sex farce for the male gaze.

Benedetta - a film about an early church feminist played as softcore porn

Being the Ricardos  - for taking a beloved female icon and turning her intelligence, talent and work ethic against her as a harping shrew, and the deeply flawed men around her as downtrodden male saviors.

Edgar Wright - for the disappointing third act twist in which the male predators are turned into victims in Last Night in Soho

Hollywood's attempt to cut Scarlett Johansson's payments for her work - and though the actress won the lawsuit, the Hollywood cost cutting trend now is to downsize actors in movies by maximizing documentaries as the cheap alternative - including sensationalistic reality tv style and tabloid docs.

Rita Moreno, writing about and talking about mistreatment as a Puerto Rican .but defending Lin-Manuel's lack of Afro-Latino representation with In the Heights - and becoming a media darling. Yet, because of an irresponsible statement made against the LGBTQ+ community by J.K. Rowling, she has been canceled in spite of all the work she has done for the black community and women's rights. Was this what Dave Chappelle was referring to?

Tribute To Lina Wertmuller, Filmmaker Ahead Of Her Time

 

Italian film director and screenwriter Lina Wertmüller passed away on December 9th. The award winning, pioneering woman filmmaker is best known for Seven Beauties, The Seduction of Mimi, Love and Anarchy, and Swept Away...

By Cynthia Parsons McDaniel

I cannot believe how long Lina Wertmuller’s real name,

Arcangela Felice Assunta Wertmüller von Elgg Spañol von Braueich is!

 “I know they call me a crazy lady, but I’m only interested in making movies and having people see them,” Said Lina.

 To say she was ahead of her time is the biggest understatement EVER said about a female director.

 How did I end up interviewing her in Rome? Mainly because I was chasing my British boyfriend who had left me in New York to go work in Milan for Gianfranco Ferre. How did I get Lina’s phone number to even request the interview? Who knows? All I know is I was there on her patio with my camera and tape recorder. Then I was on her movie set working!

 Yes she was the first female nominated for an Oscar and yes she covered ruthlessly and magnificently the battle of the sexes. Power sex Women Men! She did a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame too That really amused her. She also got an Academy Honorary Award.

 Here is my interview with her below. I was mesmerized by her. By the way I never made it to Milan or the Brit. I had seen Seven Beauties In my Cinema class in London at University. I thought I have to meet her.
 

LINA’S HIT JOB

BY CYNTHIA PARSONS MCDANIEL

Lina Wertmuller: “Any object that has light shining on it, that has been washed and perfumed, loses all of its eroticism.”

Lina Wertmuller is sitting on the terrace of her house high above Rome, designed by husband-architect-production designer Enrico Job. Her latest film, Camorra, is opening tonight in Naples, the very place it was shot. The phones are ringing like crazy (“Ah, Marcello, come stai?” “Ciao, Giancarlo!”) and armfuls of flowers keep passing into the house. The 56-year old director of such films as Seven Beauties, Swept Away and Loveand Anarchy is reveling in the energy — it only seems to speed up her pungent observations on life and love.

Camorra (opening this March in NYC) is a story of the streets, crime and women. The “Camorra” is the Neapolitan equivalent of the Sicilian Mafia, and Wertmuller’s project was decidedly a risky one. The dons aren’t big on unplanned publicity but Naples — a city of crowds, traffic, deals, cement and decadence — was the ideal setting for this murder mystery. Camorra is replete with typical Wertmullerian passion and violence. It’s closer to her earlier work than her more subdued study of marital jealousy (Sotto Sotto) which just ended its New York run. Camorra stars the sultry Andalusian actress Angela Molina, and America’s own Harvey Keitel, among others.

Wertmuller:  “When I fall in love with a story, it’s like falling in love with a person.”

On Camorra’s themes:

“The film is dedicated to the beauty of youth and to its great fragility. For so many centuries, youth has been destroyed by high ideals—country, politics, religion. Young people are always searching for certainty, for better worlds, better paradises, but have always ended up paying a price for it. I wanted to say that it’s hard to be young. And it’s about Naples, which is a very special city to me. Mysterious.”

On Love and Sex:

“Love is from the head and then passes through to the body. Love is the dark object of desire, a hidden object. It’s not obvious. Any object that has light shining on it, that has been washed and perfumed, loses all its eroticism. Nature puts these hidden angles in us, secret paints that someone arrives at with someone else to establish a new system of sight, smell and vision. Love enters my filmmaking because when I fall in love with a story, it’s like falling in love with a person. I want to know others’ stories; my work is never autobiographical. I want to be the eyes for someone else. I’ve accepted who I am, so I can complete a project I feel strongly about. !feel passion for a story.”

On Being A Woman Director:

“In my films I’m a writer and director, and I’ve tried to interpret feminist, anti-feminist, capitalist and anti-capitalist issues as having both leftist and rightist tendencies at some point. I’m a political writer who believes everything often exists at once. I like to pit the capitalist against the proletarian under the veil of symbolism and depict characters who must continually choose between a life of honor and sheer survival. I’m really the first woman director to consistently gain enough backing to produce my own films.”

On the Past and the Future:

“I’m afraid to say that as a result of women wanting freedom, they’ve lost some romanticism: holding hands, kissing. There is no sentiment. There’s no mystery. We need to go back to the traditional rites of lovemaking, like priests and priestesses. Basically, I hate the violence of a masculine society— that was something I dealt with in Sotto Sotto and also in Camorra. But it isn’t easy to change a situation (between men and women) that is thousands of years old.”

WOMEN FILM CRITICS CIRCLE AWARDS 2021

 

BEST MOVIE ABOUT WOMEN

WINNER: Passing

RUNNER-UP: The Lost Daughter

Being the Ricardos

CODA

BEST MOVIE BY A WOMAN

WINNER: Jane Campion - The Power of the Dog

RUNNER-UP: Sian Heder - CODA

Nora Fingscheidt - The Unforgivable

Rebecca Hall - Passing

BEST WOMAN STORYTELLER (Screenwriting Award)

WINNER: Jane Champion - The Power of the Dog

RUNNER-UP: Rebecca Hall - Passing

Charlene Favier, Antoine Lacomblez and Marie Talon - Slalom

Sian Heder - CODA

BEST ACTRESS

WINNER: Kristen Stewart - Spencer

RUNNER-UP: Nicole Kidman - Being the Ricardos

Sandra Bullock - The Unforgivable

Virginie Efira - Benedetta

BEST ACTOR

WINNER: Will Smith - King Richard

RUNNER-UP: Benedict Cumberbatch - The Power of the Dog

Andrew Garfield - tick, tick… BOOM!

Nicolas Cage - Pig

BEST FOREIGN FILM BY OR ABOUT WOMEN

WINNER: Titane 

RUNNER-UP: Drive My Car

Benedetta

I’m Your Man

BEST DOCUMENTARY BY OR ABOUT WOMEN

WINNER: Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It

RUNNER-UP: Introducing, Selma Blair

Gunda

Lady Buds

BEST EQUALITY OF THE SEXES

WINNER: King Richard

RUNNER-UP (TIE): Being the Ricardos

RUNNER-UP (TIE): The Harder They Fall

Gunpowder Milkshake

BEST ANIMATED FEMALE

WINNER: Mirabel - Encanto

RUNNER-UP: Raya - Raya and the Last Dragon

Abuela Alma - Encanto

Gabi - Vivo

BEST SCREEN COUPLE

WINNER: Ruth Negga and Tessa Thompson - Passing

RUNNER-UP (TIE): Marlee Matlin and Troy Kotsur - CODA

RUNNER-UP (TIE): Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem - Being the Ricardos

Anthony Ramos and Melissa Barrera - In The Heights 

*ADRIENNE SHELLY AWARD – For a film that most passionately opposes violence against women

*ADRIENNE SHELLY AWARD: Adrienne Shelly was a promising actress and filmmaker who was brutally strangled in her apartment in 2006 at the age of forty by a construction worker in the building, after she complained about noise. Her killer tried to cover up his crime by hanging her from a shower rack in her bathroom, to make it look like suicide. He later confessed that he was having a "bad day." Shelly, who left behind a baby daughter, had just completed her film Waitress, which she also starred in, and which was honored at Sundance after her death.

WINNER: Last Night in Soho

RUNNER-UP: Adrienne

*JOSEPHINE BAKER AWARD – For best expressing the woman of color experience in America

*JOSEPHINE BAKER AWARD: The daughter of a laundress and a musician, Baker overcame being born black, female and poor, and marriage at age fifteen, to become an internationally acclaimed legendary performer, starring in the films Princess Tam Tam, Moulin Rouge and Zou Zou. She also survived the race riots in East St. Louis, Illinois as a child, and later expatriated to France to escape US racism. After participating heroically in the underground French Resistance during WWII, Baker returned to the US where she was a crusader for racial equality. Her activism led to attacks against her by reporter Walter Winchell who denounced her as a communist, leading her to wage a battle against him. Baker was instrumental in ending segregation in many theaters and clubs, where she refused to perform unless integration was implemented.

WINNER: Passing

RUNNER-UP: Respect

Bruised

Test Pattern

*KAREN MORLEY AWARD – For best exemplifying a woman's place in history or society, and a courageous search for identity

*KAREN MORLEY AWARD: Karen Morley was a promising Hollywood star in the 1930s, in such films as Mata Hari and Our Daily Bread. She was driven out of Hollywood for her leftist political convictions by the Blacklist and for refusing to testify against other actors, while Robert Taylor and Sterling Hayden were informants against her. And also for daring to have a child and become a mother, unacceptable for female stars in those days. Morley maintained her militant political activism for the rest of her life, running for Lieutenant Governor on the American Labor Party ticket in 1954. She passed away in 2003, unrepentant to the end, at the age of 93.

WINNER: Passing

RUNNER-UP: Being the Ricardos

Benedetta

Spencer

ACTING AND ACTIVISM AWARD

Dolly Parton

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

Betty White